How much do you charge?

[WhiteMountainsRanch]

Quote:

My 4 BBB's are eating about 75# A WEEK.

 

[flocksalot]

Quote:

My 4 BBB's are eating about 75# A WEEK.

Wow! You have some hungry birds! I just brought up a second 50lb. bag last night for the week. My 17 will go through about 100lbs a week right now. We had a rainy/snowy day recently that kept them indoors and that day they ate a ton of food, but normally they forage much of what they eat. Do you have them in a run or are they out and about?

Yesterday mine followed me around as I cleaned up all the construction waste that had been blown around. They gleaned the seeds from weeds and picked through the gardens again. I was out there filling a covered trailer from about 9am til my son got home from school at 4pm. The turkeys were near me most of the time. The hens wander back to their nest boxes, but when they call we go get them. Once they took a run way out in the field. Which is hysterical to watch!!! They are like weebles. They wobble, but they don't fall down. They made the ducks and geese mad when they drank all their water, but they didn't get any feed until I feed them in the evening. A few of them ate right away like normal. If I had to feed them straight feed I couldn't afford it. I have one hen that will dress out around 20lb, but the rest of the girls will be over the 25 and closer thirty. The toms well they are hugh. I can't even lift the smallest one. 4 or 5 weeks ago we weighed Blue Eyed Billy at 67lbs. So at that time he would have dressed out to just over 50lbs. Next Mon, Tues, and Wed will tell me for sure. As I stated before I'm lucky enough to have great forage, some free corn from the neighbor, who gets a turkey from me every year, lots of peewee eggs, and tons of garden waste. We raised a pig, a hugh pig, and he cost us 6 bags of feed total. Each bag was $11 or less. We got the pig for free from a farmer. He had been injured and couldn't even get up on his feet when I got him. Three pen. shots and hand feeding him for a couple of days and he was fine. We got 262lbs. of processed meat after he was butchered. He is the most tender pig we have ever had. I swear it must be all the ragweed and raw eggs he ate. We threw every thing we could in his pen. If he didn't eat it he laid on it. We do the same for the turkeys and chickens. We toss it on the ground and they come a running. If they want it they will eat it. If not they will poop on it and help it decompose. Animals tend to know what they need and what isn't good. That is unless it's plastic, styrofoam, or rat poison. Then is must look like chocolate to them.

 

[Arielle]

I raised 8 to butcher this year: BBW. THey ate and ate and ate. Even if in a pasture they barely waddled around, to get to the feeder!

COst of birds $8 to purchase and 10$ to butcher at licensed facility. The cost of feed? Not sure. At the end they were eating so much that if I held back the feed over night they gorged in the morning. THey didn't gorge if feed was continuously available.

Will try to sell at $4/pound and hope to make my money back; but not get paid for my time and gas.

 

[mikeinri]

I just checked Whole Foods because I thought the prices were high but they are charging 3.99 a pound for organic.

I sure would rather buy from a farm.

 

[downeastthunderfarm]

The going rate from the local farms here in Eastern Maine is $2.50/lb for farm fresh non-organic turkeys. We just harvested two 3 1/2 month old bronze breasted turkeys that were 15 lbs. dressed each. We figure that it cost us $1.33/lb to raise them.

 

[PotterWatch]

We processed four of our five today. I'm going to do the last one (the one we are keeping), tomorrow when we do a batch of our meat chickens. There was a huge range of size as the smallest ones were heritage hens and the largest a BBB tom. My guess is that the smallest hen weighed around 8-10lbs and the big tom was probably around 25. We are going to charge $2.50/lb and I am happy with that for this year. Next year, they will probably be more as we will raise them on all organic feed and let them free-range in our pasture.

ETA: We are having my parents come stay with us for Thanksgiving this year and it will be the first time they have a homegrown, heritage bird. I sure hope I do a good job of cooking it so that they understand more why we do what we do. They still think we are a bit crazy for running a chicken farm.

 

[beanmcnulty]

I won't be getting into selling any turkeys until next year, but I have looked at the local (and national) market and decided on $5/# for my pastured BRs. I have seen $7 and up in other states, but $5 seems to be the lower end of what I have been seeing. I am a firm believer in making a few dollars for all my hard work, and so am determined to get fair prices for what I produce. If I decided to go to farm markets, the refrigeration and insurance would increase them even more so for now, I plan on staying off farm. Heritage breeds take longer to grow, eat more food, so you really cannot compare them to BBs. My advice to anyone that is anywhere close to serious to making a few dollars back, is to do lots of market research and pay yourself first!!

 

[jbourget]

I have just been doing straight up PER BIRD charges. I figure i am being VERY REASONABLE at 45$ per bird. Given they are only Eastern strains and not a meat type, the toms are still fair size...guessing 15 or under. hens are very small. not eat worthy i would think. But i have sold my extra birds fast. Only a few more to go...its a steal. they scarf down grain and corn like no tomorrow. I post on my craigslist add they would be foolish to pay for a commercial bird that is not half as good as the birds i raised.