I’m looking for someone that has experience hosting a poultry processing workshop. I’ve been butchering my own birds for a few years now and have had a few customers ask to learn how. I've had customers help out now and then, but I'm wondering if it can be something I can add as a farm income stream.
Do I need a waiver?
How much did you charge?
Can people bring their own birds or should I offer to provide them?
Any lessons learned from someone who’s done it before?
Thanks
Bear
What do you mean when you say waiver? Are you talking about insurance? Talk to your homeowner's insurance agent and see what they have to say about this. From what I've gathered during my research, homeowner's insurance actually covers quite a bit depending on your policy. If your policy is lacking, some product liability insurance would be the way to go, and it's relatively inexpensive.
Price, again, not sure what you are talking about for price. Are you talking about processing customer's birds or raising birds and processing them for sale? I regularly see prices ranging from $3.50 to $6.50 per bird for processing. If you are raising and processing the bird for sale, I see prices from $4 to $5 a pound.
If people are bringing their own birds to you for processing, you are getting into much different rules than just raising and processing your own. What state are you in? I would start by googling what state you are in and their poultry processing rules. For example, I live in California. California CDFA is more strict than the USDA, so instead of the 20,000 bird limit in California, we have a 1,000 bird limit. In California, I can raise and sell 1,000 birds without anything more than a business license and record keeping showing that I have raised and sold no more than 1,000. If I am raising, processing and selling between 1,000 and 20,000, I am still except from USDA inspection, however the CDFA wants to know about me at this point. They want me to register with the CDFA and have a site inspection and approval. I really suggest googling your state's rules on poultry processing. There are a lot of good state university co op resources on this topic, read them very very carefully. The limits I just talked about in California allow me to ONLY sell them directly to consumers on site or at a farmer's market. They cannot be sold to restaurants, or resellers to be sold in stores etc. They are exemptions for direct to consumer sales only. Once you get into processing birds for resale or processing other people's birds, you then need to be licensed and inspected to some extent.
