For those who breed turkeys..

[ziggywiggy]

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That's pretty much the way it is with any small farming enterprise. It's a labor of love and you have to have that second source of income to make it work. I tried hogs one time. I could not raise and butcher them for less than $5.00 a lb. I don't even try to figure what chickens and turkeys cost me.

 

[MrChicken207]

there are many butchers and meat processors who will buy animals who are alive, and the farmer will make a few dollars off of the animal that way. the butcher then pays the processing costs and passes those costs on to the consumers. The problems with it are they almost never buy poultry, and it is usually animals who are raised using feedlot/pigpen methods. It used to be more common that the beef you got at the neighborhood butcher, used to be the cow that provided milk to the neighborhood dairy. That's how small towns did things before the ultra-regulation of goverment bureaucracies.

 

[Tunastopper]

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I have seen the meat processors at the poultry/livestock sales. They do not pay much. Never enough to make a profit. The problem with making profit is taking all your expenses into consideration. Building coops, nest boxes, brooding boxes, incubators, bedding, replacing new feeders and water and other repairs, brooding cost (high electric bills), medications, the price of your breeding stock, feed to raise the breeding stock to breeding age, the feed you buy when there is no eggs since it is seasonal.

I don't know what everyone pays for food but I pay $16 for a 50 lb bag of turkey feed. I seen full grown turkeys sell at the last poultry auction for 20 bucks or less.

Even after the initial start up cost it is still hard to have your expenses paid for. I just had a loss of 20 adult birds last week do to bad feed. Thats a huge loss for me and a big set back. I guess I am lucky that it did not effect my young birds. I do have replacement but I have to feed them to breeding age again.

 

[MrChicken207]

I was replying more in reference to the hog comment. I have a cousin who ended up selling an old brood sow for a decent profit to a butcher who drove 80 miles for her. good hogs are harder to find here in maine because alot of the producers got out of it during the swine flu scare last spring, my guess is it was mostly because of their "neighbors' being ignorant about it all. Prices were and still are up throughout the state. that's why I made the comment about the poultry. The same cousin raised meat birds. they keep most of them for themselves. although they do sell some once in a while to private parties.

 

[Tunastopper]

I know when I raised hogs, processing here cost alot. First you pay the truck that comes and shoots and guts the pig. Then you pay the butcher to cut it up and smoke the meat. That alone cost me $600 for two pigs. If I bought the meat on sale it would have been so much cheaper than feeding a pig to butcher weight and then paying all the aditional expenses.

 

[Lotsapaints]

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That's always the case whenever we grow an animal to butcher...I could have bought it cheaper at the store. I will say the flavor of any animal I've butchered is far superior to any kind of store meat and the best part is I know what it ate and that I gave it a good life and a death with dignity. I really can't wait for Thanksgiving it's been a long time since I've had a real turkey...

 

[Tunastopper]

Lotsapaints.

That's always the case whenever we grow an animal to butcher...I could have bought it cheaper at the store. I will say the flavor of any animal I've butchered is far superior to any kind of store meat and the best part is I know what it ate and that I gave it a good life and a death with dignity. I really can't wait for Thanksgiving it's been a long time since I've had a real turkey

I have had mixed results with raising my own. My last two pigs had great taste but I hated the smoked meat and sausage. The smoked meat is sent out. I would not use that butcher again. The sausage was way to salty and the smoked meat had a strange almost rotten taste. I not sure if the other butcher that I know of uses the same people for the smoked meat. Next time I wont have them make any sausage or ham. I am not sure what to do about the bacon. I raise it myself to get away for all the chemicals and I think th butcher used something that was gross.

I do agree at least I know where my meat comes from. I perfer doing the processing myself if the animal is not as big as a hog. My heritage turkeys have been the best I have ever eaten, but my BB turkey where not as good as the store.​

 

[Lotsapaints]

It is important to use a processor who does the meat the way you like. We don't use salt so our butcher uses the cure with less sodium our old one used too much so we changed. We have it smoked like it better but again he knows we don't like stuff salty and has a process we like. Very picky on seasoning too probably because of the salt thing and I know he is always trying to get us to add more fat in the ground meat but we always say no. Maybe living in weird CA has a few benefits because he sells meat in SF where way more picky people live.....the big thing right now is grass fed beef no thank you for me I want mine grained just want it to hang 30 days and that is hard to get them to do....that is real beef

 

[Tunastopper]

the big thing right now is grass fed beef no thank you for me I want mine grained just want it to hang 30 days and that is hard to get them to do....that is real beef

I was just reading about steaks that are dry aged 6 to 8 months. I don't know how they do it or how much it cost. http://carnevino.com/news.cfm?newsid=146​

 

[ziggywiggy]

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It's the feed that's expensive and believe me hogs eat all the time. When I first started I was supposed to get old produce from our local Safeway where my wife works. When I went to pick it up, there were several other people there to get it. So I was SOL. If I had that feed source, I would've had a much lower price per pound ratio. If you have a feed source other than the local feed store, you can pull it off and make a little money even with chickens and turkeys but, if your relying on just feed store feed, forget it. I know there are people in certain parts of the country that will pay $50.00 for a heritage free range turkey but not where I live and probably not in most of the country.