Tasting my first meatie tomorrow!

[EricaD]

So I found a local farmer who has a little farm stand where she sells raw cow's milk, farm eggs and fresh fryer chickens (she's also the one who will process the birds for me when the time comes - $5/bird for butchering, cleaning, bagging and tagging). So, as I embark on my own chicken adventure this summer, I thought I ought to pony up the dough and taste the potential before going for it myself

Now, I want to preface this by saying that I'm not really considering raising cornish x or other meat birds - my goal is to find a good DP breed since the chickens are primarily for eggs and I thought we'd just let them raise chicks and eat the extras. But what this woman sells is meaties, so I'll give it a shot! Maybe I can be converted to Team Meatie!

On May 1st she had just processed 100 birds.

I drove up and saw the next batch of birds, another 100, in their tractors out near the driveway. They were well cared for, lively and active (probably, maybe, 2-3 weeks old or so?), running around and interested in me and what I was doing. Their tractors were hoop style and spacious enough for them to run around with lots of room. They were clean and not stinky or bad to look at at all. Not sure if they were cornish x or some other type. I'll have to ask her. They looked like cornish x to me from the pics I've seen.

Her "stand" is basically a large fridge off the barn, with milk, eggs and meat inside, bagged and all well labeled, with a price list and a box on the wall to deposit the money. Honor system.

So I snagged 2 dozen eggs ($4.50/dozen), 1/2 gallon of raw milk, and a 5.5 pound chicken! I was STUNNED at the price of the chicken. $27! She charges $5/pound. Wow. And she sells out every time, and fast! I'm definitely looking forward to raising my own for less, lol.

So we made eggs for dinner (we did a breakfast dinner), and they were DELISH! My daughter (age 7) was floored and cleaned her plate. The yolks were ORANGE! And the eggs, when I fried them, held together and seemed somehow...thicker? No "eggy" smell or sulfur smell, like store bought eggs have. Really wonderful - the difference was obvious!

As I unwrapped the chicken in order to salt and herb rub it in preparation for roasting it tomorrow, I immediately noticed the lack of odor. Store bought meat always has a distinct aroma to it when you unwrap it. This chicken was totally odorless and just looked incredibly fresh. Not fatty at all either. This is going to sound weird but it was really quite beautiful, lol!

So tomorrow it goes in the oven to roast for dinner. I can't wait to devour the crispy salty skin, turn the leftover meat into chicken & dumplings, and the carcass into stock! I'm squeezing every red cent out of that $27 chicken, lol.

I'll update with my impressions tomorrow night, after we eat it!

 

[bj taylor]

really interesting. i would love a source of raw milk & eggs nearby. i should be getting my own eggs starting in about a month if all goes well. i'm pretty shocked at $27 but it sounds really good meat.
i'm considering meaties this fall if i can talk hubby into the idea. he's pretty reluctant at this point. we'll see.
let us know if it was as good as you were anticipating.

 

[Beekissed]

$27 for a chicken?????

I live in the wrong area....I need to live where the city folk can be convinced to pay that much for chicken! I'm sittin' on a gold mine in my back yard....

$1350 worth of chicken running around back there.

 

[Buster52]

$27 isn't all that outlandish.

http://www.oklahomafood.coop/shop/category_list_products.php?category_id=10&subcategory_id=1

I'm selling mine for $3 a pound, but this will likely be the only year I do it.

ETA:
Sustainable farmers deserve to make a living wage, just like everybody else.

 

[Beekissed]

Call it what you will...$27 dollars is too much to ask for a chicken unless it has gold lined fat layers. A living or a gouging? Oh, I've heard the rhetoric..."If they will pay it, why not charge what you can get?" but let's be honest about what motivates the sale. It's money, profit and not merely "a living". Politicians are also "making a living", as are used car salesmen who cheat people, lawyers who overcharge, oil and gas companies that price gouge, etc.

Just because you can fleece the populace does not make it right. A chicken just simply isn't worth that much money. No wonder niche markets and so-called sustainable farmers whine so loudly about people wanting to buy cheap, commercially raised foods. They set their pricing so high that no one can afford it except the gullible people who are convinced that "you get what you pay for", which is seriously crap when it comes to this type of merchandise. A chicken is a chicken is a chicken and it can only feed so many people, commercially raised or not.

Yes, I believe my chickens are healthier and worth more because of that than the store bought chickens but they did not cost me that much to raise, why then would I charge so very much to sell it. Bottom line? Profit and nothing more.

Many people "making a living" on low wages couldn't ever afford that $27 chicken that would make one meal for a family of 4. For $27 I can buy or grow enough food to make several meals.

 

[Buster52]

Economics 101.

It's called supply and demand, Beekissed. Prices will drop when enough local, sustainable producers produce enough to meet the demand. I became involved because I wanted to make a difference, not to get rich. I will never make as much per hour as a chicken farmer as I currently do as a librarian.

If you think folks like me are charging too much, you should make a difference by getting involved instead of just raising birds for your own consumption. Give back to your community. Give them your cheap, sustainably grown, happy, high quality birds. You won't make much, when all is said and told, but you will accomplish what you say you desire.

And a chicken is worth $27 if people are willing to pay $27 for it.

 

[PotterWatch]

We charge $4.60/lb for our chicken and I guarantee you I'm not living high on the hog. We work incredibly hard to produce that chicken and if you were to put our profit into hourly wages, I'm making $1.50/hour more than what I pay the people who help us process. Not exactly a huge profit margin. That isn't even figuring in the gas it takes me to get to our farmers markets and delivery spots, or the percentage I pay the markets, or the time I spend at the markets themselves. Take all that out and I make just over minimum wage. Now, we are just past the 1 year anniversary mark for our business so we are still paying for and building equipment needed to run the business. We hope that by the end of year two, we will actually be able to pay all our bills every month. That's not exactly price-gouging or conning gullible people into buying an over-priced product.


Oh, and one of our chickens will make several meals. I just talked with a customer today who said that she wasn't sure about the price at first as she had bought a very large bird (7lbs), but that once they were finished with it, it had made four meals (one night they roasted it, then used the leftover meat for bbq chicken sandwiches and chicken salad, then made chicken soup from the carcass). When she figured the cost for those four meals, it was well worth the initial cost of the bird. If a 5lb whole chicken only covers one meal then you are either feeding a decent sized family, or you are wasting some of it.

 

[Beekissed]

Well, if I sat down and ate nothing but a 5 lb bird on the table that would not a meal make....5 lbs of anything between 4 people isn't much. One has to accessorize a 5 lb bird or it doesn't make much of a meal. Now $27 of other foods will make several meals. If I added some other things to that chicken, it might make a meal. But $27 for a single bird for 4 people to feast upon? Doesn't go far. Now, I can take one of my $1 or $2 birds and apply the remaining $25 worth to accessories to go with that chicken and we can have several meals from that and they are assisted by my $2 bird.

Saying one chicken makes several meals is like saying one can of tuna makes one whole meal. One normally has to add things to that meat to "make a meal". If you shot your wad just buying the single, lonely chicken, then..yeah...that $27 doesn't stretch between four people.

Get involved in fleecing the populace by selling my homegrown birds? No...I don't think I could look people in the eye and charge them $27 for a single chicken. I have to wake up and look at myself in the mirror in the mornings and still hope to have some self-respect. For that money I'll teach them how to to grow their own and show them how to butcher them out, I'll feed them while they are here, and I'll give them a chicken along with all the information but to sell them a lonely little bird for that much, I will not do.

Besides...if you all are just barely scraping by selling your birds at that high price, then why in the world do it? To "get involved"? I don't buy it. That dog just won't hunt, as they say in my neck of the woods. You can "get involved" by growing those birds and offering them for a lower price to people who are struggling to make ends meet. You can "get involved" by donating those birds to your local food bank if you wish to provide a better product to the masses. But charging an arm and a leg and calling it "for the greater good" of the agricultural industry is just price gouging while you can, IMO.

The next time you grumble about gas prices, remember it's just supply and demand...pay your arm and leg and hobble back to your car.

I think we'll have to agree to disagree on this one, Buster. I'll never be convinced that charging high prices for overfed chickens pushed around in a box on the grass is a noble pursuit.

 

[EricaD]

With regards to the price - in my area people pay it for farm fresh goods that they don't want to bother raising themselves. She charges $7/gallon for raw milk too, and $4.50/dozen for eggs

The chicken was delish! We ate it tonight and it was wonderful! We will definitely be raising some form of meat chicken in addition to our DP birds. She purchases hers from McMurray and she gets the jumbo cornish x.

When I factor in 20 pounds of feed per bird, plus $5/bird for processing (because I'm more than happy to pay for that service, don't want to do it myself), I'm looking at a cost of around $13-$15/bird, plus my time and labor. So, in the scheme of things, for people who don't have the land or desire to raise their own livestock, and if they have the money to afford it, $27/bird isn't that insane.

I roasted the chicken with fresh french bread and sauteed green beans on the side. My family of 3 only ate half the chicken. The rest will make chicken & dumplings tomorrow, and the carcass will make chicken soup. So that $27 bird made us something like 9 meals, or 3 meals for each family member (adding in, of course, supplemental veggies, etc.) So that comes to under $5/meal even with the pricey meat and extra for side dishes. Not bad at all!

Now, we don't care to pay $27/chicken long term and plan to raise our own, but this isn't an option for everyone so I'm grateful that we have local farmers who are selling their excess and raising healthy food for those who want it, and are making a fair wage in the process.

We also believe that it's better to spend $27 on a good chicken and eat meat less often, waste little, and I've always believed that, in life, one usually does get what she pays for. I don't think she's gouging - if it costs her $7-$10/chicken just to buy the birds and feed them, then the extra $15-$17/bird compensates her for her time caring for them and processing them. She's probably netting something like $10/hour for her work - less than I'd pay for most any other service I contract out (gardener, babysitter, etc.) I don't think that's unreasonable.

In any case, we loved the quality of the meat, and the taste was definitely superior to store bought chicken!

Next on the list is to taste a DP bird!

 

[PotterWatch]

Of course I wasn't saying someone would eat just chicken for a meal. It was obvious I was pointing out that the cost of that $27 chicken is spread out between several meals.

I would love to know how you can purchase, raise, process, and package a chicken for $1 or $2. If I could do that with 60-100 birds every week, my prices would be far less. The fact is; that is impossible. Even if I pastured my chickens 100%, not even giving them feed in the brooder, I would still have to pay to buy the chicks, water my pasture, water my birds, process the birds, package them, and deliver them to market. There is no way to do that reliably, week after week on $1 or $2 each. I don't know how much profit you think a farmer makes on a $27 bird, but I get the feeling you think it is mostly profit. I can only speak for my own farm, of course, but the majority of that money would NOT be profit if I sold that bird.

It's easy to think that raising birds for your own consumption is comparable to raising them as a business, but it's not. When I raised birds purely for my family, I didn't need insurance, or a county certificate to sell, or a business license, or coolers to transport my chicken, or advertising materials. I didn't have to spend gas going to various farmers markets and CSA drop-offs to promote my chicken, or spend hours sitting at a farmers market trying to sell my chicken. Those are all things that have to be paid for when you are running a business. It's not just about raising chicken.

As far as teaching people to do it themselves, I do that often. We have had many people come to the farm to learn how to process a chicken. I just did a workshop last weekend at one of our farmers markets where I showed people how to go from live chicken to a parted-out bird that is ready for the table. Maybe where you live, it is feasible to think that everyone could go home and raise their own chickens, but around here most people aren't allowed to have chickens on their property, let along butcher it in the backyard.

We have donated dozens of chickens to local soup kitchens. We are letting a non-profit use some of our land for a community garden so that people who don't have space for a garden at their own home can still grow some of their own food. Do I want to make a profit with my farm? Of course I do! I wouldn't work a 9-5 job and expect to get paid only what it cost me to get there. This farm is my job. Raising and selling chicken is how I support my family. I don't expect to get rich, but I do expect to be paid a decent wage for my hard work. I am not farming for purely altruistic reasons, no one does. I am happy, however, that I can provide an alternative to commercially raised meat for those who want it. I am glad to have them come to my farm and learn about how their food is raised.

We are in our first real year of business and like all businesses, we have had to purchase equipment, materials, and other such things. We have had to buy irrigation pipe, fencing, seed, etc. It is those purchases that are causing us to struggle here at the beginning. I certainly hope that will turn around and we will make a decent profit in the future. For now, we are pinching pennies and hope to see the light at the end of the tunnel soon. As soon as we are done "fleecing" the public with our overpriced chicken of course.