Pricing?

[EnnieM]

I bought 30 cockerels, all dual purpose but all good meat breeds. Many family and friends are requesting to buy a couple. I know there are laws, so I’m selling live and offering free processing before delivery. I need help figuring out pricing. If I just broke even, I’d be happy. We will be butchering all @ 16 weeks.

Chick + tax/shipping: $1.33/ea
Shrink wrap bags/labels: $1.30/ea
Processing: Free
Feed: $13.99/50 lbs (I don’t feed throughout the night past 1 month, unless I should since they’re intended for meat?)

I won’t include electricity, bedding, or supplies because their brooder is in the chicken coop and I get my bedding free from our dairy farm. Thanks!

 

[Egghead_Jr]

Chickens don't eat when it's dark. I'd process younger than 16 weeks. The birds will be smaller but tender enough to grill/broil if done 14-15 weeks of age- 15 weeks is pushing it in my opinion. At 16 weeks they are fryers and can be roasted obviously.

Sounds like you are getting hatchery birds. They don't grow out as well as breeder stock dual purpose. Most will be under 3lbs processed weight.

I've never actually tracked feed to the penny. They don't take much to 6 weeks then start to consume, at 6-8 weeks you can start using pellets to reduce waste. Somewhere around 10+ weeks of age they consume 1/4 lbs feed per day. Spit balling into a ball park 15 lbs of feed to process age of 14 weeks.

$3 for bag and chick, A buck in feed, $4 for pain and suffering of processing= $8 per bird donation. or $2.75 per pound donation.

 

[iwltfum]

I wouldn't sell your birds for anything under $4/pound - I would go higher than that personally. Processing will take you all day to do 30 with two people if you're not experienced at it - especially if you include the set up and break-down/clean up hours. At $10 dollars an hour, that's $5.30 per bird by itself. Don't screw yourself over and loose money on your meat birds is my opinion. Account for everything you can account for including your extra time you spend tending to them and processing. I understand that you have chickens already and you are raising them in the same place, but it will definitely take you extra time to raise an extra 30 birds no doubt at all. If you feel like you can't legally charge a processing fee, then just add it to your "pain and suffering" charge. I'm a huge proponent of not shorting yourself as a farmer. You devalue your products and confuse people about the actual cost of raising a bird for meat when you do that. This is work that you're doing for the buyers of these birds. If you're doing it simply for the joy of it, then just give them away, that's alot better than under charging for them. People will feel like you gave them something special instead of selling them something cheap and invaluable. Just my opinion. I raise birds for sale and I do account for every penny when I raise them and I don't pay myself very much per hour and my costs come in at slightly less than $3 per pound even with an efficient system and a fast crew processing the birds.

 

[Egghead_Jr]

OP was talking of selling only for family and friends not general public. $3/ lbs is a good friend price. I wasn't too far off with 2.75/.

 

[iwltfum]

I appreciate where you're coming from and by the OP's numbers, I agree, these chickens would cost around what you've figured, but I maintain my position.

I started my business by selling to friends and family and I wouldn't have been able to expand my flock to the size it is now and actually turn it into a project that I could make some money on without knowing my costs to a fairly exact degree and charging a fair price for my product. I still sell to friends and family and give them a discount, and sometimes we deliver eggs, whole chickens, and turkey meat to families in our community that we know are in need - free of charge, but I always know if I can afford to do so or not. It's just a personal conviction. I know this is "Backyard Chickens" and I respect that maybe the OP just wants a fun project, but I do think they should at least be knowledgable about the associated costs. It's easy to say the price of a bird is the amount you paid for the chick plus the dollar amount of feed that it ate while alive, but it's so much more than that. I have this conversation with my farmers market customers all the time, because everyone is so used to subsidized, big corporation poultry prices that they seem to expect me to fix my costs so that I can fit the market price and that's just backwards to me. Don't mean to be a curmudgeon - it's just a topic that I'm passionate about.

 

[TheRealCliffordWilliams]

Dang @iwitfum well put. Just because you can go and get a $10 chicken, that doesn't mean the value of a chicken is $10.
Let's see what the market says:
$38.50 for a 3.5lb. pastured heritage (well freedom ranger) bird
https://www.goodeggs.com/sfbay/root...itage-chicken-frozen/5d0aba9c1f6416000e239556
There are some more expensive ones, and some cheaper ones too...but nothing really below $20....
I think charge whatever you want for it. It sounds like you weren't planning on selling any so you're not hoping to sell a certain amount, so if your price is too high for anyone that's just more chicken for you and yours...
Anything less than $15 a bird and its definitely not worth it IMO. Processing is time and labor intensive, and is an involved process. I think $20 is definitely fair for everyone, but remember if you sell 10 birds for $20 each that's only $200...Is that worth it to you?
If you plan on doing this again you want to set precedent that what you're producing is worth something, and not have to raise prices down the road.
Hope this helps!