How do you charge for meat birds?

[Natashal8909]

We have several friends and family members interested in buying meat chickens off of us. Are chickens are free range non GMO with a natural chicken feed diet. I have no idea what a good price range would be to charge for them. Obviously would like to recoup feeding costs, and have a little profit margin to put towards up keep and ect. Any info would be appreciated!

 

[Manhen]

So with my rough estimate of $20 every 2 weeks, and pretending we still have 11 birds, it would cost $10 x 10 wk. / 11 birds = roughly $9/bird. That seems far more reasonable than $47/bird, haha. I suppose you would want to raise many more at once to make a higher profit, but that would cost a lot more in feed... I hate math!

Ferment your feed and it will save you cash. I ferment cracked corn, milled corn, whole wheat, and whole barley. Much cheaper. Oh yeah, I stir in some soy meal right before feeding. Scratch mix is whole corn, cracked corn, wheat, and yellow peas. Trying to sprout oats now for winter, they scrounged most of the small grass from their run, I don't know if it's too cool in the shop or the feed oats are not for sprouting.
I tinink range feeding with supplements is essential, and reduces the poop problem.

The rock cornish recommend you remove feed at night so they don't get overweight and break their legs. Right out of Monty Python.

 

[Mylied]

Making fodder is supposed to lower feed costs and increase nutrition too.

I'm of the mind that we can eat whatever we raise so we don't need to take a loss to sell. If people don't want to pay it goes in my freezer. I don't sell a lot because I haven't really wanted to. Now we're trying to breed meat ducks and I'll raise some cornish cross in the spring, so I plan to keep track of everything. That way I can get a fair price for everyone involved.

 

[pintail_drake2004]

With my set up, we automated everything we could. 100# auto feeder, 5gal auto waterers, anything to save us time. Time is money after all. We spent maybe 15min/day with the birds because of this. My last batch of 50 Cornish cross, we butchered between 8-10 weeks (roosters first) we charged $15/bird and made money. I fermented feed after the first 2 weeks, gave anything extra from the garden and farm. I don't remember the exact number, but we had just under $10 in cost, and about $5 in profit per bird. Most were sold before they were even butchered.

 

[ChocolateMouse]

Natashal, feed cost + chick cost X2.5 for labor, overhead and profits. So about $25 per bird for me. That's about $4/lb.
Don't underestimate your labor and overhead. You'll be spending months raising these birds to high standards. And your equipment needs HAVE to be factored in. That's got to be worth something or it's not worth doing.

When people complain about the costs of my chickens, I show them the feed costs per lb of chicken (Usually it's $16/50lbs of feed, each bird will eat about 1/2 bag in their lifetime so $8), add the chick cost (About $2.50ea), then estimate how many hours of labor goes into it at minimum wage (about 1/2 hour a day for 10 weeks, so 35 hours across probably 20-25 birds where I like that's about $12-$15). Then point out that's minimum wage with no overhead costs factored in and ask again if they think it's a fair price.

If they think I should be making less than minimum wage for the work I do, I politely send them on their way.

I could probably charge less for my birds if I was doing them on a larger scale as my labor would only increase a bit if I was doing 40 not 20 birds. Feed might be cheaper on that scale too. But I'm not and everyone who buys my things knows that. I don't sell to groceries and my operation is small enough you can visit my home and see the exact bird you're going to eat. As long as this is the scale I'm limited to, those are my prices.

 

[Mylied]

Agree with Henry and friends. Figure out cost of feed per bird, plus how much you paid for the bird if you bought chicks, plus your profit. It'll probably be pricey but quality is pricey. If they want cheap there's walmart chicken that wasn't raised as nice. ;-)

 

[FortCluck]

In my opinion I would never charge that much for a meat bird because you can buy one at the grocery store for cheaper than that, which is also organic and already done. If it was a bird that somebody was going to keep for a long time, I could see spending $40 or more on it, but they are just going to butcher it.

I sell my meat birds for $5-10 a piece depending on their age. All of mine are free range and live the life.

I can buy organic meat birds for about $15 a piece at a local farm. I actually buy their fertile eggs for $10 per dozen and hatch my own meat birds.

Selling chicks or chickens is never good to make a profit. You always put more in than people are willing to pay.

 

[Henry&Friends]

10 weeks for the Rock Cornish max. The only way they are profitable is if you butcher them before your feed costs get too high. If you are selling your roo heritage breeds you will need to raise them longer. $10 for a naturally feed organic chicken seems to be the rate. That's why chicken tractors are popular.

So with my rough estimate of $20 every 2 weeks, and pretending we still have 11 birds, it would cost $10 x 10 wk. / 11 birds = roughly $9/bird. That seems far more reasonable than $47/bird, haha. I suppose you would want to raise many more at once to make a higher profit, but that would cost a lot more in feed... I hate math!

 

[FortCluck]

So with my rough estimate of $20 every 2 weeks, and pretending we still have 11 birds, it would cost $10 x 10 wk. / 11 birds = roughly $9/bird. That seems far more reasonable than $47/bird, haha. I suppose you would want to raise many more at once to make a higher profit, but that would cost a lot more in feed... I hate math!

That sounds a lot more realistic.

I do know that the cost of feed gets very expensive when you have several chicks.

We just had 20 meat checks and we were going through 5 50# bags of feed every month. We sold the 20 chicks for $100 so $5 a piece. Funny thing is they're not using them as meat chickens.

I crossed my chickens that I have in order to create a dual purpose breed. So it works out for us because not everyone wants a meat chicken. Some want an egg chicken or a pet chicken.

 

[Manhen]

I also sell at a price that everyone can afford because I would rather see someone who really needs food to buy one than someone who can afford many of them.

Got a Mercedes for sale?