Welllaidacres
Songster
I raised a batch of Cornish Cross chickens recently from Welp Hatchery and kept accurate records of inputs and outputs. I have raised our own birds before, but on this batch I raised extras and sold to family and close friends. This was a sort of trial run to see if I could expand this enterprise. Much of this information was on a comment in a different thread. I thought I would retitle it and give it its own thread so it may be easier for others to find searching. I just wanted to share my numbers in case anyone is curious about starting to raise meat birds for others or the profitability in it. I raised my chickens for 46 days. They were taken to a processor. Feed was withheld for 18 hrs prior to processor arrival. Feed was measured. The 21 lbs of leftover feed was used to encourage my pigs to root up a stump for me (Great success there). It is not attributed to the below costs
Inputs
Chicks (Welp Hatchery Straight Run) $1.50/bird (June Sale)
Feed (Hubbard Fast Grow no meds) 11.4 lbs/bird $2.85/bird ($12.50/50 lb bag, $0.25/lb of feed)
Processing (Bagged whole, neck in bag) $3.10/bird
Bedding(2-$7 pine shavings bag, 3-$5 straw bales) $0.69/bird ($29 total divided evenly by 42 birds)
Additional Electricity $0.76/bird ($32 divided evenly by 42 birds, explanation below)
Outputs
Sold Whole at $2.75/lb, 5.8lb dressed avg weight $15.95/bird (40 birds made it to processing
Garden manure/Compost $set your own value
Difference
I multiplied all inputs by the 42 birds purchased. All outputs were multiplied by only the 40 that were processed.
$638-$373.80=$264.20 or $6.61/processed bird. This does not add in any value from the glorious fertilizer I will use on my garden and sweet corn patch.
Other Comments
The above numbers do not attribute any cost of facilities or labor. I developed the electricity cost as follows: I figure my brooder for 2 weeks full time and one week only at night cost me somewhere in the neighborhood of $25. Maybe, another $5-10 total in additional electricity to run my well and turn (non heat lamp) lights on in barn. I do not have an accurate way of measuring this. This is simply an educated guess of labeled electrical usage of lamps as well as my electricity cost. The materials my pens were made from were all recycled from my farm. I did buy one roll of chicken wire, but have used it for a multitude of projects and will be continuing to use it in the future. I do not attribute any cost of feeders/waterers/fencing as they will be used multiple times over and I was able to buy a lot of about 50 feeders and waterers for $10 on an auction. I do not attribute labor to this, but I would estimate 1/2 hour per day was spent tending to the chickens. That equates to 23 hours and $11.48/hour. I would not be satisfied if that was my wage in the real world, but I am already in the barn tending to my other livestock, I enjoy my time spent raising livestock, and that wage will likely increase as I scale this up. Depending on time of year I have hens, pigs, cattle, cornish crosses, and turkeys in that barn, along with the greatest farm dog/red heeler ever. E-I-E-I-O haha. I will be in the barn already so whats a few more minutes to raise delicious chickens? My cornish cross chickens are raised inside my barn (no pasture). I gave them access via a door to go outside into a run, but they rarely strayed out there, so I just ended up leaving them inside full time. My brooder pen is 4x10 and they spend their first few weeks here depending on the amount of birds I am raising, weather forecast, etc. I start the chicks on shavings in the brooder and then move them to straw bedded growout pen. I used a 10x15' pen as a grow out pen. My birds out performed the Welp hatchery chart on their website (see image below).
Changes for next batch:
After seeing that I was at least in the black on this, I decided to make a facebook post and see if any of my other friends would be interested in farm fresh chicken or if I could scale this up a bit. It EXPLODED. I have another order of chicks placed for September 7 and have sold 125 chickens. I stopped at that number as I did not want to get in over my head and wanted to consider space requirements. I ordered extras to account for death loss. I will be building additional grow out pens in my unused barn space. The cornish cross chicks from Welp are no longer on sale, but due to the increased quantity I ordered, I was able to order them for $1.58/bird. I have talked to the local feed co-op about grinding me a batch of feed. Due to the small amount of feed for this trial batch, I did not meet their minimum grinding/bagging requirements (500 lbs) and instead bought a prepackaged feed from them. They can make this new to me custom blend for $9 per 50 lb bag. That will lower my feed cost to $2.05/bird for an increased profit of $0.80/bird. I also helped a neighbor bale straw and instead of cash he gave me 50 straw bales, fed me dinner, and quenched my thirst afterwards with cold adult beverages. I always like trading labor or goods with neighbors as they seem to be more willing to do the same for me when I need a favor vs. when we use cash payments. Maybe it is because it because cash makes it more transactional than just being neighborly or bartering goods. Anyway, my bedding cost for this next batch will be extremely low, because of the few hours I spent on an off day helping a neighbor. I will also give them a chicken or two to stay neighborly and maybe recruit a new customer.
I hope you enjoyed looking over my numbers and explanations. These were my prices and will vary based on your location, but may still give you a general idea. Feel free to comment with questions or suggestions. Thanks!
Inputs
Chicks (Welp Hatchery Straight Run) $1.50/bird (June Sale)
Feed (Hubbard Fast Grow no meds) 11.4 lbs/bird $2.85/bird ($12.50/50 lb bag, $0.25/lb of feed)
Processing (Bagged whole, neck in bag) $3.10/bird
Bedding(2-$7 pine shavings bag, 3-$5 straw bales) $0.69/bird ($29 total divided evenly by 42 birds)
Additional Electricity $0.76/bird ($32 divided evenly by 42 birds, explanation below)
Outputs
Sold Whole at $2.75/lb, 5.8lb dressed avg weight $15.95/bird (40 birds made it to processing
Garden manure/Compost $set your own value
Difference
I multiplied all inputs by the 42 birds purchased. All outputs were multiplied by only the 40 that were processed.
$638-$373.80=$264.20 or $6.61/processed bird. This does not add in any value from the glorious fertilizer I will use on my garden and sweet corn patch.
Other Comments
The above numbers do not attribute any cost of facilities or labor. I developed the electricity cost as follows: I figure my brooder for 2 weeks full time and one week only at night cost me somewhere in the neighborhood of $25. Maybe, another $5-10 total in additional electricity to run my well and turn (non heat lamp) lights on in barn. I do not have an accurate way of measuring this. This is simply an educated guess of labeled electrical usage of lamps as well as my electricity cost. The materials my pens were made from were all recycled from my farm. I did buy one roll of chicken wire, but have used it for a multitude of projects and will be continuing to use it in the future. I do not attribute any cost of feeders/waterers/fencing as they will be used multiple times over and I was able to buy a lot of about 50 feeders and waterers for $10 on an auction. I do not attribute labor to this, but I would estimate 1/2 hour per day was spent tending to the chickens. That equates to 23 hours and $11.48/hour. I would not be satisfied if that was my wage in the real world, but I am already in the barn tending to my other livestock, I enjoy my time spent raising livestock, and that wage will likely increase as I scale this up. Depending on time of year I have hens, pigs, cattle, cornish crosses, and turkeys in that barn, along with the greatest farm dog/red heeler ever. E-I-E-I-O haha. I will be in the barn already so whats a few more minutes to raise delicious chickens? My cornish cross chickens are raised inside my barn (no pasture). I gave them access via a door to go outside into a run, but they rarely strayed out there, so I just ended up leaving them inside full time. My brooder pen is 4x10 and they spend their first few weeks here depending on the amount of birds I am raising, weather forecast, etc. I start the chicks on shavings in the brooder and then move them to straw bedded growout pen. I used a 10x15' pen as a grow out pen. My birds out performed the Welp hatchery chart on their website (see image below).
Changes for next batch:
After seeing that I was at least in the black on this, I decided to make a facebook post and see if any of my other friends would be interested in farm fresh chicken or if I could scale this up a bit. It EXPLODED. I have another order of chicks placed for September 7 and have sold 125 chickens. I stopped at that number as I did not want to get in over my head and wanted to consider space requirements. I ordered extras to account for death loss. I will be building additional grow out pens in my unused barn space. The cornish cross chicks from Welp are no longer on sale, but due to the increased quantity I ordered, I was able to order them for $1.58/bird. I have talked to the local feed co-op about grinding me a batch of feed. Due to the small amount of feed for this trial batch, I did not meet their minimum grinding/bagging requirements (500 lbs) and instead bought a prepackaged feed from them. They can make this new to me custom blend for $9 per 50 lb bag. That will lower my feed cost to $2.05/bird for an increased profit of $0.80/bird. I also helped a neighbor bale straw and instead of cash he gave me 50 straw bales, fed me dinner, and quenched my thirst afterwards with cold adult beverages. I always like trading labor or goods with neighbors as they seem to be more willing to do the same for me when I need a favor vs. when we use cash payments. Maybe it is because it because cash makes it more transactional than just being neighborly or bartering goods. Anyway, my bedding cost for this next batch will be extremely low, because of the few hours I spent on an off day helping a neighbor. I will also give them a chicken or two to stay neighborly and maybe recruit a new customer.
I hope you enjoyed looking over my numbers and explanations. These were my prices and will vary based on your location, but may still give you a general idea. Feel free to comment with questions or suggestions. Thanks!
