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Chicken School - The Last Le$$on

Posted at 8:52 AM on June 27, 2008 by Donna McClurkan (12 Comments)

Chicken School officially ended June 15. The chickens are in the freezer. The coop has been cleaned out. Now it's time for bookkeeping.

Background:
- We purchased 25 Hubbard White Mountain Broiler chicks, also known as Cornish X; these docile meat birds are bred to grow quickly, which makes them the bird of choice for the fast food industry and supermarkets.
- We received 26 chicks, four of which died within the first two weeks.
- Industrial poultry practice is to confine chickens, use high protein feed for rapid growth and slaughter at 6-7 weeks. In contrast, ours were given high quality, lower protein feed to slow their growth and reduce the risk of broken legs (a common occurrence in the commercial poultry industry). Our birds were given plenty of space to forage and roam, which also helped keep their legs strong.

Statistics:
- 550 lbs. of feed was consumed, which works out to 25 lbs. of feed per bird, or 2.27 lbs. of feed per bird per week.
- Our birds weighed 9 lbs. on average at just over 11 weeks of age
- Dressed weight (after slaughter) = 6.75 lbs. on average

Costs:

$108.06		feed
$39.50		purchase 25 chicks @ $1.58 ea.
$33.48		electricity for April & May
$88.00		slaughter fee ($4.00 ea.)
$20.00		straw
$6.00		estimated transportation/fuel costs (feed, straw, sawdust)
$1.00		hand sanitizer
$1.00		electrolytes
$297.04		TOTAL

The bottom line: $13.50 per chicken, at $2.00 per lb. This doesn't include labor, amortized cost of reusable assets (e.g. brooder lamps, waterers, feeders, etc.) or overhead (land, chicken coop, etc.).

Obviously, this is a much higher cost than we would pay at the supermarket. Next time, Carrie and I will experiment with ways to reduce the "true cost" of raising our meat birds while maintaining high quality and food safety.

Comments (12)

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Thanks for the cost breakdown, Donna. That was actually about what I would have thought they would cost. I recently purchased organic pastured chickens from a local farm (Step-N-Tyme Farm, http://www.step-n-tymefarm.com/). I purchased 5 dressed chickens for a total of $70.17 or $3.00 per pound. So, for a bit of work and endless enjoyment (at least to me) growing your own does cost less when you are including all the costs.

Lori

Posted by Lori | June 27, 2008 11:48 AM

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I really enjoyed the chicken project. Thank you for sharing the experience with me. These birds are some of the most beautiful I've ever grown.
Carrie

Posted by Carrie | June 27, 2008 5:16 PM

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Hey Carrie - Thank YOU for all the time you spent teaching me so much of what you know about chickens. It was a very rewarding 11 weeks, and I look forward to doing it again with you!
Donna

Posted by Donna McClurkan | June 27, 2008 8:07 PM

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Donna, This is fascinating. I've learned a lot about chickens from you, and I can appreciate the price as we will eat a very small $5 tomato today. Your talk last Thursday was wonderful, too. Sorry we didn't get a chance to visit either then or at the party last weekend.
Bev

Posted by Bev Folz | June 28, 2008 12:13 PM

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Dear Bev - thanks for your comment. Let me know if the flavor of that $5 tomato was worth what was probably the true cost to grow it. I look forward to getting caught up soon.
Donna

Posted by Donna McClurkan | June 28, 2008 1:45 PM

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This is very helpful information and I greatly appreciate that the time was taken to track it so closely. This is my first year raising chickens and we're excited about the prospect of fresh eggs in a month or so. We may try meat birds next year and your figures will make planning much easier.

Posted by Cayce York | June 29, 2008 7:18 AM

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Cayce, thanks for your comment. In addition to raising the meat birds, I also helped Carrie care for her layer hens. There is such a thrill to reaching under a hen and retrieving a still-warm egg ... you will get to experience that soon! If you decide to raise meat birds, keep in mind the rising cost of grains, as this will drive up your feed costs considerably. That's something Carrie and I will be looking at next time, too. Good luck!
Donna

Posted by Donna McClurkan | June 29, 2008 7:27 AM

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Donna, I don't know if you have had the experience of going back to factory farm produced eggs from eggs from true free range chickens. I made the unfortunate mistake of feeding a large pile of what I beleave were greens of the black mustard which tried to take over my garden early this spring. I thought " wow this will work out well, fresh greens for the 4 hens left from last year,who had been happily providing me with close to 2 doz eggs a week". Taps sound from stage left at this point in the drama. Despite the fact that they loved them, 3 of the girls sloughed off this mortal coil from what may have been the toxicity of the mustard oil in the greens. The last hen is back to normal behavior but hasn't laid any eggs yet. At any rate cage free may or may not be free range and access to out side the same. You can certainly tell the real thing by the color of the yolks and the difference in the flavor or lack of it in the store bought eggs. Sadly for those of us, myself included, who are a little squemish about butchering our own chickens; I fear that the biggest cost saving measure would be home processing. I suspect that the flavor of those chickens will help warrent the extra expence. My recollection from nearly 40 years ago when I last butchered a chicken that I had raised free range was that it tasted more like pheasant.

Posted by mike | June 29, 2008 10:52 PM

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Donna,
I'm going to agree with Mike on this one: One major way to reduce your poultry-raising costs would be to do the processing at home. You may or may not consider this a viable option, but it's really not that difficult or complicated. Chickens are among the simplest animals to process, in my opinion. Butchering is certainly not a pleasant task, but it is a necessary chapter in the life of a carnivore. Maybe you could find an old farmer or someone in your area who knows how to butcher chickens and work out a trade with them: a percentage of the meat in exchange for butchering expertise? In any case, congratulations on your successful poultry-raising experience. Enjoy the tasty meals that await you!
Autumn

Posted by Autumn Long | June 30, 2008 3:23 PM

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Mike - so sorry to hear about the loss of your chickens from exposure to mustard oil in greens.

Mike and Autumn - Carrie and I will definitely consider slaughtering our birds next time. She says we need a picker to make the feather removal process go quickly enough to justify doing it ourselves. We have had several folks volunteer to teach us how to do this work. It may take me a while to get up the nerve to do it, but do it I will! Thanks to both for your comments.
Donna

Posted by Donna McClurkan | July 1, 2008 6:03 AM

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Donna,
I loved how closely you tracked the costs of raising your birds. I have wondered about the real cost of raising birds for meat and eggs. I haven't tracked it myself. I also wasn't about to go back (to conventional store birds) even if it was a lot more expensive.

As a comparison, I recently purchased 5 whole dressed meat chickens from a local farm (Step-N-Tyme Farm at http://www.step-n-tymefarm.com/. The cost was $3.00 per pound. So, by raising your own, even with the cost of having someone else process them, you saved $1.00 a pound.

In either of these cases, it's important to remember that this is the real cost of the food- we aren't externalizing any costs or postponing them to our childred and grandchildren's time.

Great work, Donna!
Lori

Posted by Lori | July 2, 2008 12:04 PM

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Donna,

The remaining hen finally started to lay again yesterday. It was interesting to put her egg in the frying pan next to cage free organic egg from HV which I had thought was at least a reasonible facimility to the eggs my hens had been providing. Wrong! Not only was the taste better on my hens egg but there was still a very noticible difference in the couor of the yolk. Also the egg white on the fresh home produced egg stays closer to the yolk when you put it in the pan. So there is apearently a viscosity difference to. To add insult to injury tonight I went to purchase 2 half gals of milk which was pleased find the new store carring in returnable glass bottles. This milk from cows not given antibotics in their feed and organicly fed. I had been geting this at Greatest Grains but this store is much closer. Imagine my surprise to discover on questioning the cashier about the total of the bill to see the milk which was clearly marked 2.19 per 1/2 gal listed on myreciept at 2.49. This sometimes happens but then in looking closer we saw deposite on the bottles $2 each, fine, refund on the bottle I had returned $1.50. This seemed to me to be just a little too much. I suggested to the cashier who I knew that this was deceptive pricing and that I should also be charged the price marked. She couldn't help me nor could costomer service or the night floor manager. I told them I would be taking my business else where from now on. I just don't know what else to say about this. Agrivated in Rock Island.

Posted by mike | July 2, 2008 10:10 PM