If your goal is to provide super-cheap meat to your family, no, raising your own won't likely be the best method. Unless you're BeeKissed and has forested acreage for her CX to roam in and super-cheap scratch grains because she buys directly from a local mill. She then ferments the feed creating a very healthy end-product for her chickens. (I too ferment feed, but cannot get her prices as I have to purchase from a middle-man).
However, if you're looking at raising ethical meat as reasonably as you can - then yes, you can. No, it won't be inexpensive by any means - like posted above, there's bedding costs, shipping costs, chick costs, water costs (unless on a well and even then you've got electricity), feed costs, worry about neighbors if suburban or even fairly rural, worry about predators (two and four legged) no matter where you live.....and of course, your time. At the end of every 'batch' of birds, I swear up and down that I'll not be doing this again - the last two weeks of life mean upwards of 2 or 3 hours in daily care - between refilling waterers (8min per 5gal waterer - there's three in the pen when they're 5wks and older); refilling feeders (at least 15min - can't get the chicks to move out of the way to get to feeders!); 20+ min of shovelling poo so they have a clean place to lay every night...it's a very labor intensive means of producing meat.
Not to mention the 20min/bird for processing. We do our own - and that's about 6-7hrs to clean 25birds. I don't have a processor nearby. Butcher, yes, but why bring dead birds to someone else to clean? It's like taking a fish off the hook and handing it off to someone else to filet! Why pay?
Depending on what you do for a 'living', you can calculate out your hourly wage at your 'work'. Then to compare, multiply it out by the following rough estimates:
wks 1-3 - 30min/day*21 days
wks 4-6 - 1hr/day*21 days
wks 7-9 - 3hrs/day*21 days
+6hrs processing
divide by 25 birds
That's your cost in time per bird. Do they come close? That might help you determine your desire to do this adventure.
Personally, there's nothing better to me than knowing what is served my family is the BEST meat available to them. I know how they lived, what they ate (mostly), how they were treated, how they died. Can't say the same for even 'organic' chicken. Because I didn't farm it. Case closed. And yes, I'll be raising another 'batch' come springtime. But not 25...maybe 12 on a rotating basis! Neighbors can't complain about 12...stink is a lot less too. And then we'll raise 3 'batches' instead of just 2 big ones. It works for us. You'll figure out the same with experience and experimentation.
However, if you're looking at raising ethical meat as reasonably as you can - then yes, you can. No, it won't be inexpensive by any means - like posted above, there's bedding costs, shipping costs, chick costs, water costs (unless on a well and even then you've got electricity), feed costs, worry about neighbors if suburban or even fairly rural, worry about predators (two and four legged) no matter where you live.....and of course, your time. At the end of every 'batch' of birds, I swear up and down that I'll not be doing this again - the last two weeks of life mean upwards of 2 or 3 hours in daily care - between refilling waterers (8min per 5gal waterer - there's three in the pen when they're 5wks and older); refilling feeders (at least 15min - can't get the chicks to move out of the way to get to feeders!); 20+ min of shovelling poo so they have a clean place to lay every night...it's a very labor intensive means of producing meat.
Not to mention the 20min/bird for processing. We do our own - and that's about 6-7hrs to clean 25birds. I don't have a processor nearby. Butcher, yes, but why bring dead birds to someone else to clean? It's like taking a fish off the hook and handing it off to someone else to filet! Why pay?
Depending on what you do for a 'living', you can calculate out your hourly wage at your 'work'. Then to compare, multiply it out by the following rough estimates:
wks 1-3 - 30min/day*21 days
wks 4-6 - 1hr/day*21 days
wks 7-9 - 3hrs/day*21 days
+6hrs processing
divide by 25 birds
That's your cost in time per bird. Do they come close? That might help you determine your desire to do this adventure.
Personally, there's nothing better to me than knowing what is served my family is the BEST meat available to them. I know how they lived, what they ate (mostly), how they were treated, how they died. Can't say the same for even 'organic' chicken. Because I didn't farm it. Case closed. And yes, I'll be raising another 'batch' come springtime. But not 25...maybe 12 on a rotating basis! Neighbors can't complain about 12...stink is a lot less too. And then we'll raise 3 'batches' instead of just 2 big ones. It works for us. You'll figure out the same with experience and experimentation.
