Hey all. Just wanted to post here and say chicken math is real when it comes to meat birds too. I went from a few birds in a season, to 50 a year - enough for the family for a year, to 250 per year - because why not do 250 when you are already doing 50 and sell the extras. Now this year we are raising 600 freedom ranger broilers, 40 turkeys, and 20 ducks along side our laying flock of 160 hens.
We have 10 butcherings scheduled with my butchering crew and we are putting on 10 summer events surrounding picking up fresh whole chickens and selling smoked chickens as well the day after every butchering day.
It feels like we really waded into the deep end of the pool without really noticing.
We raise all our birds in pasture pens (chicken tractors) moved daily. Our pasture has never looked better for "marginal agricultural land" according to the USDA. We are getting 3 significant cuttings of hay per year, where some people in our area struggle to get their second cutting before fall.
Today was our first butchering day. We only had 48 birds to get through so I only had one helper, who is an amazing eviscerator. We set up, butchered and cleaned up the butchering building in 3 hours, which was break neck pace for us.
It's thanks to everyone here on this forum and even some of those who dont sign on to the forum anymore that I'm here doing this. And it's working! So I had to shout it from the roof tops. YOU can do it too! I attached some pic from our day today (and one from late last night when we collected the birds from the pasture).
We have 10 butcherings scheduled with my butchering crew and we are putting on 10 summer events surrounding picking up fresh whole chickens and selling smoked chickens as well the day after every butchering day.
It feels like we really waded into the deep end of the pool without really noticing.
We raise all our birds in pasture pens (chicken tractors) moved daily. Our pasture has never looked better for "marginal agricultural land" according to the USDA. We are getting 3 significant cuttings of hay per year, where some people in our area struggle to get their second cutting before fall.
Today was our first butchering day. We only had 48 birds to get through so I only had one helper, who is an amazing eviscerator. We set up, butchered and cleaned up the butchering building in 3 hours, which was break neck pace for us.
It's thanks to everyone here on this forum and even some of those who dont sign on to the forum anymore that I'm here doing this. And it's working! So I had to shout it from the roof tops. YOU can do it too! I attached some pic from our day today (and one from late last night when we collected the birds from the pasture).