Can anyone give me a rough price they charge for dressed turkey? We did CX chickens for the first time this year. They sold "ok" at $3/lb. but we live in a poorer area and didn't have the interest that I thought we would. I don't want to price myself out of the market on my turkeys.
Thanks
Unfortunately, you've probably already priced yourself out of the market if you expect to make money. The economics of selling turkeys raised in small flocks are pretty brutal, as you are competing in most people's minds against the Tyson's an Perdue's of the world. Better taste is secondary to cost, especially in the minds of people stretching to make ends meet. Not to mention that turkeys are loss leaders for most grocery stores.
I raise turkeys mostly for myself and my family, but always try to have few extra to process at Thanksgiving for others. I've done the analysis and research and basically, it takes approximately 100lbs of food to raise a turkey to processing weight (this is with free ranging to supplement). So that's two 50lb bags of whatever you are buying for food. I use All Flock which is around $15 a bag, so I'm out $30 for food. Then you have the cost of the poults. Not sure on the cost there (I raise my own, so I have a different cost structure based on keeping adult turkeys), but's lets say $5 ea. Then you have the sunk costs, like feeders, waterers, brooders, heating, electricity, etc..... to keep it simple, lets say they come out to another $5 a bird. Now you are at $40 to raise a bird. This does not count your time and effort, which are worth something.
Then you have to process them, and that takes more equipment. For me, that works out to about $5. Now you are at $45. If you sell a turkey for any less than this, you are losing money before you even start to pay yourself for time and effort. For a 10lb turkey, you need to charge $5/lb just to break even. Larger turkeys eat more and are more effort to process, but the break even point might even drop to $.4.50/lb.
Compare this to the average price paid by consumers last year at grocery stores for their Thanksgiving turkeys: $1.44/lb
I'm lucky that I can rely on a few customers who value where and how a bird was raised as well as better taste, and I don't really even break even on them, but it is a way to get rid of my extra birds without losing my shirt. I could never do this as a business. I do know of a local sustainable producer that charges over $6/lb for turkeys, but don't know how well that sells, and that is catering to the well to do Indianapolis metro area market.
Keep in mind this is for heritage turkeys that take 7-9 months to raise. Meat (Broad Breasted) turkeys only take about 5 months, but eat far more food. If you are raising those, your costs would be a bit lower, but still nowhere near what someone can buy at the store.
I don't want to sound all doom and gloom, but make sure you know what your'e up against. I really enjoy raising turkeys, and seeing a tom or five strutting around my farm is a wonderful sight. But I've had to realize they aren't going to make me money. I have made my peace with that, and I really enjoy my wonderful Thanksgiving turkey each year knowing I've raised it myself and it had a great life on my farm. And everyone agrees the taste really is orders of magnitude better. I'd love to hear from someone who does make money on them and how they do it, as I'm always open to learning something new.
