How much does it cost to raise a meat chicken?

[AngelaClassAct]

I did a post about this when I processed mine a few weeks ago. We ended u with 141.8 pounds of meat, and after the cost of the chicks, and the feed it was $1.42 per pound for the chicken we raised. In our local grocery store on a sale day I can find Perdue whole chickens for .99 cents a pound, on a good day it is $1.29 cents a pound and can go as high as $1.59 per pound.

Sure what we did was a lot of time and effort, but in the end, it was completely worth it to me, and very competitive to grocery store prices and I'm getting a better quality product in the end.

We also processed ours ourselves, and I did not factor in any of the building materials.

 

[Mac in Wisco]

The national average retail price of whole chicken last month was $1.30 / lb, in the midwest region it was $1.38 / lb.

As others have said, you really can't compare home grown to store bought.

 

[LiLRedCV]

The difference for me is that I KNOW what goes into my chickens every day! They free-range it on chemical-free pasture (have never used chemicals on our property since we bought it 9yrs ago - we have a private water well and don't wish to contaminate our water supply) and they're supplemented with organic feed, Black Oil Sunflower Seed, Flax seed, calcium, and scrap fruits and veggies.

To go to the stores and buy what I produce at home would cost almost $25/bird. At a DIY rough estimated cost of $2 per pound, I'd rather raise my own. While expensive, it's still cheaper than buying it.

Plus, most of the birds already processed in the stores were fed nothing but GMO feed and pumped full of antibiotics or other chemicals if they got sick. So far, the only thing medicinal my chickens have ingested was organic Apple Cider Vinegar and it cured whatever was ailing them....

 

[kfacres]

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DO YOU BUY YOUR BOSS??? If you do, I'm sure it's not grown organically....

 

[halo]

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Agree 1000%. I go to my local grass fed farmer and buy ground beef for $5 and he sells out so fast that I have to reserve ahead of time. Not to mention he puts really good cuts into it, at $5 it seems cheap. The ground beef at the grocery store doesnt even compare. It runs about $3 a pound right now, and I just shake my head when people say the grass fed is too expensive.

I wasnt going to raise any meaties this fall until I went to the grocery store and 4 chicken breasts were $14. I came home and ordered 25.

 

[halo]

Does organic feed have non-GMO corn?

 

[Mac in Wisco]

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Yes. GMOs are prohibited in organic production.

 

[ShadyHoller]

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Yes. GMOs are prohibited in organic production.

USDA policy memo on GMOs being prohibited by NOP.

http://www.ams.usda.gov/AMSv1.0/getfile?dDocName=STELPRDC5090396

(Having said that, I don't feed organic feed, because we buy grain from a local wheat farmer. We don't have access to local organic grains.)

 

[halo]

I would love to find feed with non-GMO corn around here. Dont know if thats possible.

 

[Mac in Wisco]

There is GMO testing available and our organic cooperative has started to require the use of tested seed. Beyond that, there is always the chance of contamination from nearby conventional crops, but this doesn't disqualify the end product from being marketed as organic as the the program is process based.

This goes back to the conversation on organics that we had here a few days ago. Some folks say that nothing raised on the farm can be free of environmental contaminants, and thus truly organic, so the whole thing is a farce. Organic products are not marketed to be absolutely pure and free of any trace of synthetic contaminants, or in this case GMO contamination, only that the methods used do not deliberately introduce such into the production system.