The Best Chickens to Make a Profit With

[writerskramp]

If you are considering making a profit with a backyard flock.. Consider cutting your neighbors yard with your own riding mower.. That can be profitable.. Chickens are a love hate relationship. Love keeping chickens and hate the expense, daily labor and yada yada.. Banty roosters are called Banty roosters for a reason.. The old man of the flock loves to challenge and spur.. Thankful his sons like to eat and protect me.. They're mother was a sweetheart, they took after they're mother..

 

[dheltzel]

I sell hundreds of chicks every year, mostly to backyard chicken keepers. For many of them, these are their first chickens. I don't do it for profit, or even to break even (literally, I lose at least 10k a year on this hobby). I do it for fun and to help people. You sound young and I love your enthusiasm, but please put the idea of this "paying its way" out of your mind, at least for a few years. Experience will come, but you will not get it right the first few times.
I could let you in on my "secrets", but really there aren't any, it's all common sense. Marketing can be a real pain, especially if you are not naturally good at sales. Get inside the mind of your typical customer (not the one you want, the ones that actually exist). The mainstream market for small amounts of chicks is to compete directly with TSC and other feed stores for the backyard chicken keepers. I can tell you from experience, that most want:

1. sexed pullet chicks. This is number 1 for a reason, you will sell 20x if you can guarantee the sex. Autosexing or sex-linked hybrids are the only option for this. Consider what you will do with the male chicks. If you can't bring yourself to euthanize them, you will be overwhelmed by this in a short time
2. colorful eggs. My main sellers are autosexing breeds/hybrids. I have chicks that lay blue, dark brown and olive eggs. No one pays a premium for light brown or white.
3. small quantities - if you over hatch, you will have to discount heavily
4. personal service - I put this last because most customers don't use this as a buying criteria, but in the end, it is my most valuable offering. Educating new keepers is a vital, and usually fulfilling, part of the job.

There you have it, 5 years of my most valuable experience rolled into one small post. If I wanted to break even I could, but I prefer to make rare and special breeds available to my (now very loyal) local customers. New varieties for 2021 include Lavender Marans, Opals (Isabel Legbars) and Lavender frizzle Cochin Bantams. Also the tried-and-true Cream Legbars, Welbars and autosexing Olive Eggers.

 

[PhilSanchez]

I am looking for one bantam breed and one standard breed of chicken that I can make at least enough money to the point that the chickens can "self sustain" themselves.
I have always had a mixed flock of chickens, but I have found it difficult to sell their chicks that I hatch. I will have to rely on broody hens to hatch my eggs for the time being until I can get a reliable incubator. I have room to house around 8 bantams comfortably, and enough room to house about 15-18 standards comfortably. If I reverse that I could house 25-30 bantams comfortably, and about 6-7 standards comfortably. I would love for some advice from anybody who has experience in this area of chicken keeping, but I would also love chicken breed ideas from people who have personal experience with their favorite or most "profitable" breeds.

Trying to put together chickens and profit in the same sentence.

 

[jlwquilter]

This has been a great thread! I’m struggling on how to turn a profit as well and keep hitting a wall on that. The best I’ve gotten so far is breaking even on feed and ancillary costs with maybe a bit extra. Forget covering time spent. And this is only because I’ve been lucky in some areas (balanced off by being incredibly dumb in other areas and making costly learning mistakes).

Some of the issues I’ve faced with trying to make a profit that weren’t mentioned here are: chickens get sick or injured and may become a complete loss before paying for themselves. A pullet just last week severely injured her leg - sprain or broke it probably by simply landing wrong coming off the roost. I can’t sell her, she’s not laying but she’s eating. What to do? See if she heals and starts laying? Cull her now? Pros and cons for either answer. Same for a hen that starts acting sick - cull right away and take the loss but protect the flock or wait and see if it’s fixable with the risk that whatever it is spreads to other flock members? Pros and cons. But inevitably this scenario will happen.

Chicks. Sell them fast. What if they don’t sell? Cull? Or you have to be able to keep them until they do sell. Need housing and feed for that. And if you keep hatching chicks you’ve got integration to deal with. And of course the always issue of males.

Eggs. Having a steady market to sell to balanced by having the right number of hens to supply those eggs. I live where everyone that wants eggs has their own flock or has a friend/relative that has hens. My market is 45 minutes away where chickens are not allowed. So I deliver eggs. The actual delivery takes $20 in gas and an afternoon, every other week. Was working good to just cover the costs of all my flocks until the laying flock went into molt followed by shorter days and production nose dived. I haven’t had enough eggs to make the delivery worthwhile for many weeks. So I’m now not covering costs. So I’ve learned the hard way what the commercial farms know - sell out the hens before their first full molt. But that means staggered new flocks maturing to keep production steady. Which means more chickens to house and feed until they mature - which is all cost for many months - plus needing to get rid of/sell the ‘too old’ hens. In my case I did set up staggered flocks but the new girls didn’t start laying until weeks after the old girls shut down. Grr. So my customers have been waiting weeks for eggs and I’m just now reaching out to them to see who still wants eggs. Not all of them will reorder so I’ll have to get new customers as well. AND I need to raise my price per dozen eggs to continue to cover costs (not even to recoup for the weeks I didn’t sell any eggs). But there’s a limit to how much I can charge and expect to sell enough dozens to make all the effort worthwhile. Another challenge to work out!

And none of this addresses the fact that chickens take time and effort to keep. And for me there’s the added emotional toll of deciding to cull or not. I find that hard. Plus I’m now tied down so to speak. When I had one small flock I could ask the neighbor to check on them every day for a week. Now with 4 large flocks I don’t feel I can do that.

Weather. I live in southeast FL. What to do when hurricanes come? Hurricane proofing as best one can takes time and money. Also the rains means flooding and wet coops and runs and that brings work and worry about keeping the areas healthy. Other people may have winters to contend with. Or tornados. Or fires. What you’re going to do when things go bad, maybe really bad, needs to be thought about.

This is a really long post! But it’s much of the things that have been swirling around in my head the past several months. I’m struggling to find the right answers for me. Whether I’ll continue with trying to make this work as a small business depends on the time of day! I’ve had great luck and success in many areas of chicken keeping and many areas of disaster.

I don’t know how to end this post except to say thanks for letting me ramble and BYC is the best!

 

[Judy Todd]

I ordered hatching eggs from omega hills farm, they were all fertile, though my incubator was a mess. I had 7 and hatched 4, if I were to do a breeding flock I would get some from there and some from a place called sugar feather farm, just so I wasn’t inbreeding too badly. Both places have breeding flocks with frizzles so you have chances of frizzled birds. Baby pics just because...

Did I miss it, what are you chicks, they are just so cute.

 

[EveLa]

Well, cochins still for bantams. They're big for bantams but very popular. Very broody as well.

For standards I'm in Ameraucanas and Easter Eggers but they're not very broody. (I say that but I had 3 broody birds this year...) If I were picking something broody I'd raise Australorps, but Idk how well they'd sell. I'd also consider white Plymouth Rocks.

I love all 3 of those ,Australorps are great layers even during the winter time.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

I ordered hatching eggs from omega hills farm, they were all fertile, though my incubator was a mess. I had 7 and hatched 4, if I were to do a breeding flock I would get some from there and some from a place called sugar feather farm, just so I wasn’t inbreeding too badly. Both places have breeding flocks with frizzles so you have chances of frizzled birds. Baby pics just because...

Turnbolt polish, correct?

 

[EveLa]

This has been a great thread! I’m struggling on how to turn a profit as well and keep hitting a wall on that. The best I’ve gotten so far is breaking even on feed and ancillary costs with maybe a bit extra. Forget covering time spent. And this is only because I’ve been lucky in some areas (balanced off by being incredibly dumb in other areas and making costly learning mistakes).

Some of the issues I’ve faced with trying to make a profit that weren’t mentioned here are: chickens get sick or injured and may become a complete loss before paying for themselves. A pullet just last week severely injured her leg - sprain or broke it probably by simply landing wrong coming off the roost. I can’t sell her, she’s not laying but she’s eating. What to do? See if she heals and starts laying? Cull her now? Pros and cons for either answer. Same for a hen that starts acting sick - cull right away and take the loss but protect the flock or wait and see if it’s fixable with the risk that whatever it is spreads to other flock members? Pros and cons. But inevitably this scenario will happen.

Chicks. Sell them fast. What if they don’t sell? Cull? Or you have to be able to keep them until they do sell. Need housing and feed for that. And if you keep hatching chicks you’ve got integration to deal with. And of course the always issue of males.

Eggs. Having a steady market to sell to balanced by having the right number of hens to supply those eggs. I live where everyone that wants eggs has their own flock or has a friend/relative that has hens. My market is 45 minutes away where chickens are not allowed. So I deliver eggs. The actual delivery takes $20 in gas and an afternoon, every other week. Was working good to just cover the costs of all my flocks until the laying flock went into molt followed by shorter days and production nose dived. I haven’t had enough eggs to make the delivery worthwhile for many weeks. So I’m now not covering costs. So I’ve learned the hard way what the commercial farms know - sell out the hens before their first full molt. But that means staggered new flocks maturing to keep production steady. Which means more chickens to house and feed until they mature - which is all cost for many months - plus needing to get rid of/sell the ‘too old’ hens. In my case I did set up staggered flocks but the new girls didn’t start laying until weeks after the old girls shut down. Grr. So my customers have been waiting weeks for eggs and I’m just now reaching out to them to see who still wants eggs. Not all of them will reorder so I’ll have to get new customers as well. AND I need to raise my price per dozen eggs to continue to cover costs (not even to recoup for the weeks I didn’t sell any eggs). But there’s a limit to how much I can charge and expect to sell enough dozens to make all the effort worthwhile. Another challenge to work out!

And none of this addresses the fact that chickens take time and effort to keep. And for me there’s the added emotional toll of deciding to cull or not. I find that hard. Plus I’m now tied down so to speak. When I had one small flock I could ask the neighbor to check on them every day for a week. Now with 4 large flocks I don’t feel I can do that.

Weather. I live in southeast FL. What to do when hurricanes come? Hurricane proofing as best one can takes time and money. Also the rains means flooding and wet coops and runs and that brings work and worry about keeping the areas healthy. Other people may have winters to contend with. Or tornados. Or fires. What you’re going to do when things go bad, maybe really bad, needs to be thought about.

This is a really long post! But it’s much of the things that have been swirling around in my head the past several months. I’m struggling to find the right answers for me. Whether I’ll continue with trying to make this work as a small business depends on the time of day! I’ve had great luck and success in many areas of chicken keeping and many areas of disaster.

I don’t know how to end this post except to say thanks for letting me ramble and BYC is the best!

Anything could happen, and on the other side of that coin?? You'll have to have monies to invest to safeguard yourself and flocks, or just go with it and don't over think it. I am sure we have all won and lost. I'm not in it for the money, I have other projects for that. But it can be a little costly to get started. Study the breeds, you're in a mostly hot climate area so look for birds that can take the heat. Set up sprinklers to cool them down if need be. Automatic waterers, I made my own feeders with buckets and pvc pipe, Google has great ideas. My chicken yard has a tree in it so it really helps to keep them cool. I free range when I know I'll be home all day which saves me on feed cost, I have geese also that scares anything away LOL
I think bird netting would be the way to go if I had problems with predators. And I too could go on and on , Goodluck to Ya !!

 

[Ruthster55]

Once you have a setup (coop or coops) and either an incubator or broody hens, I think a lot of whether you can break even or not depends not only on feed costs and the potential for predator or disease losses but also on:

- What is your cost of living? There are places I might attempt to earn money with chickens and other places where the idea would be a total loss before getting started. If I lived in rural Massachusetts or California, even if people were willing to pay $8/dozen for eggs, I don't think it would work because other living costs are so high. Bottom Line - don't even try if you live anywhere with a high cost of living. I know that biases toward Red states or places abroad. There are some places where it's better to be a lawyer or software engineer than a chickeneer.

- Do you rent or have a mortgage? The only way I can see to make "anything" with chickens is to pretty much own an unzoned farm outright. You need to be somewhere that roosters are allowed. Regarding mortgages and loans.... people who have farms and contract with the big broiler or egg producers often lose money, especially when there is a mortgage or loan for equipment or buildings and prices for eggs or broilers are low.

- If you own your land free and clear and have a decent coop and run, check your local market. I notice that a lot of people who produce either eggs or chicks like to market on either Facebook or Craigslist.

- Definitely go with a specialty that is popular in your local area that peoole will pay better for than grocery store eggs or TS bin chicks. Depending on where you are, that specialty might be pastured eggs, Easter eggs, or chicks that are sexable at hatch or chicks of a very cute and rather quiet breed that is popular in nearby suburbs.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

I guess it also helps to know if you want to profit enough that it's your job or that you aren't losing money on each feed pellet