Pricing questions

[HeartoftheMatterFarm]

I had a couple people stop in and ask if we raise meat birds. I said this is our first year getting them. They wanted to know if we would sell them some.
So my question is what do I charge?
Price for if I have to do all the processing
Price for if they buy the birds live and do their own processing
Price for if they buy birds live and ask to do the processing on my farm ( one person that asked lives in townhouse)

 

[HenriettaPizzaNolan]

You're going to want to look at how much you spend on feed and care, and then do the math. If you want to be technical about it, it would probably be best to do this batch and keep track of all the numbers, then on the next batch you will know what to charge. And what you charge will depend on what kind of profit margin you want. Is this a potential business endeavor? If so, you'll want to pay more attention to those profit margins, and also what farms around you are charging per pound of meat they raise. I'm no expert but there are many factors to consider.

 

[123RedBeard]

And ... Check for any laws that need to be followed, or permits that might be required ...

 

[littledog]

Also, it would be important to find out why they would rather get meat birds from you, rather than buying an $8.99 (or similar price, depending on your area) roasted bird from the local supermarket.

Do they want safer meat/healthier quality? No growth hormones or unnecessary antibiotics? Birds from an individual source, where bird flu is less of a risk? Are they into buying local to help the environment, or to not support the big Ag industry? Do they want meat that came from a less cruel source, birds who were humanely slaughtered on the farm instead of a high-speed slaughterhouse by underpaid workers?

Or do they just think buying from you would be cheaper?
Finding out their reasoning will help you price accordingly.

We recently butchered our first meat birds, and I haven't done the math - kind of afraid to, because I know for sure all the costs for incubating, raising and feeding them definitely came out WAY more than the pre-roasted birds available from our supermarket for $8.99!

But as we do it more, we'll definitely get more efficient at it, not only the slaughtering and butchering aspect, but also knowing the right time to hatch eggs, and how to grow meat chickens in a happy and healthy environment for them, until the right age to butcher them in the right weather.
Once we get going with a good system, then I'll do the math, but I doubt we will ever get our costs down to the $8.99 supermarket bird price. Not that we care too much about that, we care more about raising our own food as healthily and humanely as possible, and being self-sufficient.
Our county allows people who raise less than 1000 birds at a time to sell them to the public, so if we learn all we can, we hope to make this a retirement job in a few years.

You need to know your customers! Why would they rather go to you than the supermarket? If they expect you to be less expensive, turn them away because it won't be. A huge industry based on fast-growing breeds of chickens in small cages and minimum-wage laborers to process them will always undercut your price.
Give them a better reason to buy from you, based on things like safety, no bird flu, no additives, buying from a local source, etc. Once you find out their motivation, price them accordingly.

If you just intend to raise them for yourselves and your friends and neighbors, just make sure you cover your own costs.

 

[Ridgerunner]

No growth hormones

I'll address this point only. Growth hormones for chickens were outlawed in the 1950's in the United States at the request of the commercial meat bird operations. They could achieve what they wanted to achieve through selective breeding with the creation of the Cornish Cross. This did not apply to other meat animals. Beef or pork may legally use growth hormones unless something had fairly recently changed.

I'm not talking about antibiotics or any of that other stuff but mention of growth hormones is misinformation in the United States.

 

[HeartoftheMatterFarm]

Money doesn’t seem to be a problem with them. They are buying eggs from me and is giving me more then what I am asking for them. I told them, they don’t have to do that and they said no the eggs are worth it.
They are use to buy from farmers and processing themselves because of where they came from and they would rather get their meat and produce from local farmers then the grocery stores.

 

[littledog]

Money doesn’t seem to be a problem with them. They are buying eggs from me and is giving me more then what I am asking for them. I told them, they don’t have to do that and they said no the eggs are worth it.
They are use to buy from farmers and processing themselves because of where they came from and they would rather get their meat and produce from local farmers then the grocery stores.

Sounds good, so you should do the math and charge them a bit more than what it costs you to raise them!