The costs associated with my broilers (an accounting)

[greyfields]

I'm at $3.75 / lb this year. I sold probably 15 last week, which means I'll be through the last batch of 50 in 3 weeks which is perfect. That's if I stop eating all the profits myself.

 

[d.k]

* Could be worse. You could have had one pet hen that got attacked by a possum and cost $87.OO for the meds and supplies to heal her up. Plus $3O for supplies for her first batch of homemade feed, since you couldn't find a feedstore nearby, and so on!!! She's 'paying me back' in eggs now, about a dozen every 24 days give or take-- but . . . . .

 

[Peruvian]

I've got about $110 into my chicken tractor, $60 into the brooder (hardware cloth is expensive around here!), $175 in feed (DW only will allow organic feed at $22-25/bag), $35 for 25 CX chicks, and about $500 for the chicken plucker I built. Of course the plucker has a great re-sale value so it could be reduced significantly or amortized slowly.

I'm guessing this batch will run about $18/bird. Organic/pastured chickens bring in $4-4.50/lb at the farmer's market. I'm trading with a friend for her organic/free range eggs which run $4/dozen. Each dozen gets her a pound of chicken so I owe her about 4 birds so far.

My next batch in the fall should have a lower per bird cost.

 

[kstaven]

Here are our stats for 100 meat birds.

Chicks $154.75 (100)
Starter $72.00
Feed $625.00
Permit $20.00

Processing $350.00
_________
$1201.75

 

[Oblio13]

After factoring in your labor at minimum wage, I figure your broilers cost you $48.27 per pound.

Which is a bargain compared to my eggs.

 

[kstaven]

I prefer to use minimum wage standards from china when factoring that in. It doesn't look so bad that way.

 

[joebryant]

ROFLMAO!
Raising chickens is like raising children; don't ever stop to figure out what either of them are costing you; otherwise, you'll put them all up for adoption.

 

[Daycare Mom]

I agree, much more fun to raise them and forget about the math. Don't want to get discouraged!

 

[d.k]

* Joe!!!! I THINK you just came up with the next BYC T-SHIRT!!!!! Meanwhile, can I stitch your words of wisdom into a sampler???

 

[greyfields]

I recall last year we estimated how much revenue we had on the farm then divided it by hours worked. It came out to around $0.30 per hour we were 'making' from our farm.

Note that was revenue, not profits.