Is it cheaper to buy chicken at the market or raise it?

[MissPrissy]

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This is what I was trying to express earlier.

At .69 cents a pound what exactly are you buying? It is no where near the quality of what you are raising yourself.

If cost is the over all concern and the only factor you use to stock your freezer then by all means on buy the commercial chickens.

Now go over to the orangic meat section and check the price per pound for one of those chickens. What is the difference?

Most homegrown chickens are even better quailty than an 'organic' commercially farmed bird.

You can't compare the cost of unequal birds.

 

[1acrefarm]

I don't raise chickens for meat per say. I do eat the ones I decide I don't need sometimes. I have found even an older bird tastes so much better than store bought. I do not like store bought chicken.

 

[greyfields]

It's cheaper to buy than to raise. When you factor your time in raising them, even at minimum wage, it's vastly cheaper to buy them than raise them.

The reason we raise broilers is to have high quality food for ourselves and families. It's a labor of love and the reward is being a greedy-gut and getting lots of good food to eat.

 

[dangerouschicken]

AMEN!

 

[SandraMort]

I'm not factoring in time. Once you remove THAT, does your answer change?

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[greyfields]

No. Still cheaper to buy. The problem being the chicken you buy is garbage; but since many people have been raised on it they don't realize it's garbage.

 

[jjparke]

I am 5 weeks into a batch of cornish x right now and it is definitely more expensive than store bought. However, after eating one of my buff orpington roo's last week I am absolutely ruined on store bought meat! In my experience cornish x don't range. They eat the food I put in their troughs and that's it. I have put treats throughout their pen and they just look at it. Go with homegrown or even better team up with some friends and work together. Good luck.

 

[SandraMort]

Are you still comparing to 69 cent a pound chicken? I don't buy that stuff. The chicken I buy is a lot more than that...

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[MissPrissy]

Even the high priced chicken can be garbage. Once you raise and eat your own meat chicken your eyes open up to a whole new world. Honestly, it is something words cannot completely explain to you. There is a difference no amount of money can compensate for.

 

[SandraMort]

No, I totally get that. Regardless of whether it's the same, more or less, I still want to try to do it, but I just am not seeing how the math works out so that expensive store chicken is not more expensive than home grown if you're not factoring in your time.

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