How to sell meat birds

[Ruthster55]

Live sales are common outside the US, Canada, and Europe. People buy meat chickens in a market, go home, and get their knives out....

My guess is that you’re in the US, though. Live sales are mostly at auctions and on craigslist.

If there are communities in your area who demand Halal or Kosher meat, you could have a market for live poultry sales. These communities want to use their own procedures to prepare chicken. There might also be a market in Hispanic communities, but more-assimilated people might not be interested.

However, for raising and selling meat birds in a more general manner to random people, I would recommend learning how to process them and figuring out what the inspection procedures are in your state. Some states are pretty strict about on-farm or off-farm meat sales, while others are more lax. It often depends on how many you want to sell.

Cock fighters? Non issue. They don’t want any dual-purpose or meat breed.

 

[Compost King]

All the investment spending in meat birds is in feeding them, all the profit is in processing them. If you are not processing your birds you are not going to profit. There are exceptions to that, sometimes people are willing to pay a decent price for a live bird but its hard to find buyers at the exact point you want to sell. You will be holding on to big appetite birds you need to feed as you wait for a buyer to show up.

 

[speedy2020]

The Asian folk will buy live dual purpose chicken, but not Cornish X. I just don't see a lot of return, unless you have large property so the chicken can find it own food.

 

[Cass208]

Live sales are common outside the US, Canada, and Europe. People buy meat chickens in a market, go home, and get their knives out....

My guess is that you’re in the US, though. Live sales are mostly at auctions and on craigslist.

If there are communities in your area who demand Halal or Kosher meat, you could have a market for live poultry sales. These communities want to use their own procedures to prepare chicken. There might also be a market in Hispanic communities, but more-assimilated people might not be interested.

However, for raising and selling meat birds in a more general manner to random people, I would recommend learning how to process them and figuring out what the inspection procedures are in your state. Some states are pretty strict about on-farm or off-farm meat sales, while others are more lax. It often depends on how many you want to sell.

Cock fighters? Non issue. They don’t want any dual-purpose or meat breed.

My greatest concern is the humane treatment of the birds. They have a wonderful life here, I wont have it ended in some macabre way. I think that for that, the best thing will be to hire people to come here and process them, then they never have the stress of leaving their home.
Thank you for bringing up the rooster fighting, I will never sell a live bird now. I refuse to contribute to any kind of inhumane treatment, particularly for the entertainment of the insane.
Thanks

 

[Cass208]

The Asian folk will buy live dual purpose chicken, but not Cornish X. I just don't see a lot of return, unless you have large property so the chicken can find it own food.

Thank you, have decided to hire the work to be done here, no live birds will be leaving. Then there will be no chance of inhumane treatment

 

[CluckerFamily]

For humane treatment, I’m not sure what you will think of someone coming to do all the processing on the same day. When my neighbors have a processing day because it takes at least a whole day, after the first chicken is butchered, all the others know and hide, so they have to capture them ahead of time to keep them in crates so that they can process them.
You may want to look into doing this yourself so that you could do a bird a day but I don’t know if that would be worse.

 

[Cass208]

Oh that sounds just horrible!!! I dont think I am going to be able to do this, maybe I will have to figure out something else, I was not thrilled about the prospect to begin with, the only thing was that we thought we could contribute healthy food to the community, but I wont cause suffering. Myself, I became a vegan after beginning to do all this, I cant even eat the eggs, as I see them differently now. I guess that sounds silly, but thank you to all of you, as looking at the reality of it makes me realize that I cant give something a pet name, just to see it die and end up on someones dinner table.

 

[CluckerFamily]

Oh that sounds just horrible!!! I dont think I am going to be able to do this, maybe I will have to figure out something else, I was not thrilled about the prospect to begin with, the only thing was that we thought we could contribute healthy food to the community, but I wont cause suffering. Myself, I became a vegan after beginning to do all this, I cant even eat the eggs, as I see them differently now. I guess that sounds silly, but thank you to all of you, as looking at the reality of it makes me realize that I cant give something a pet name, just to see it die and end up on someones dinner table.

Knowing this, if you still have someone come to process them, I would recommend you leave the property. The process may be overwhelming, I’m sure you have heard of chickens running around with their heads cut off, a good butcher won’t do this but hang onto the feet until the bird stops muscle spasming. This is like any animal or human.
All my animals have names, I won’t ever butcher them unless it is to put them out of misery, but then they get buried in the yard.

 

[Cass208]

Maybe will look at an alternative, I dont eat the eggs, they end up in incubators, so maybe selling eggs and hatchlings for people to raise will be a better bet.

 

[DoxonFarms]

I know it sounds rough when your entire goal up until butcher day is to keep them alive and healthy. My family are all meat eaters. I know how inhumanly chicken is treated in big production operations and it is horrible. My opinion is why can't they have the best chicken life possible before they are harvested. By raising and selling chicken humanly, I can make a small difference. I thank God for them everyday as they provide food for my family.

As far as processing we did our first batch with friends and paid them in chicken. This batch we found a farm that will process them for us for $2.50/bird. Which takes some profits but its a trade off for time.

As far as layers if there is no rooster then the eggs aren't fertilized and contain no life.

Whatever you decide, do what's right by your conscious.