Raising while also Profiting from Chickens??

[dsfrango]

Unfortunately selling eating eggs is not very profitable unless you have lots of good layers and high demand in your area. I've advanced to selling purebred hatching eggs in many different places online or poultry shows even. I have only 30 birds on average but 4 different breeds. They are all pets to me but to make a few bucks is even better. I usually get about 15$-20$ profit after shipping every week off each breed all spring summer and fall. That's at least 60$ a week. I have a couple layers in each flock so I know which eggs came from them. Those I eat and the rest I hatch or sell. The better the quality standard wise the more you can make. Not everyone shows poultry but it is unarguably a growing hobby among poultry enthusiasts. I can't get enough of it. I attend as many shows as possible and more ribbons means better rep and more you can charge. Sorry for the book! I could go on for days but I'll cut it off here haha

Good luck to everyone!

 

[ShadyGroveFarm1]

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[RonP]

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[aoxa]

You should have the best breeder birds you can and sell started birds, hatching eggs or chicks. Eggs for eating hardly covers cost of feed.

I find chicks or hatching eggs the easiest way to make a profit. Why? Because growing out birds costs money, and you need a lot of room. Rarely do people actually want roosters, so you end up giving them away or eating them.. The risk of predator attacks is also a factor in why I'd rather sell hatching eggs and started birds.. Runs cost a lot of money and I am usually done hatching season by the time the weather clears up and I start to free range. We lost a lot due to a skunk last year. Live and learn. I could have sold them as day olds and avoided it... or I could have ran out of room and kept them cramped (I will never do this..).

My adult birds have electric netting now, but still.. flying predators are an issue, and I am not in the position to cover an acre with netting to prevent them. Maybe one day when we make enough to pay for good solid runs I will have more room to grow them out, but for now chicks and hatching eggs are my main profit margin.

Straight run chicks on my farm run from $2.50 to $10 per day old. My started hens range from $10 - $30 (the lower range is for mutts). My hatching eggs range from $1 a piece to $5 a piece. I sell each egg for 50% of the cost of a day old chick roughly.

If you get 50/50 male to female ratio and have to give away the male (other than the ones I raise to figure out who to use as a breeder, I just give them to a friend as a cull as soon as I can tell to save money on feed. It's hard to justify to the customer why a started pullet costs so much more. We prioritize chick sales as #1, Hatching eggs as #2 and started birds as #3 priority.

You can pull a profit if you cut costs by buying in bulk from the feed store with both bedding and feed. Use heat plates to cut costs with electricity (a heat light costs roughly $30 to raise a brood of chicks!).

Our highest costs are as follows:

#1 Feed
#2 Tractor payments
#3 Bedding
#4 Utilities

I save roughly $300 every 6 weeks by buying my feed by the tonne. I save $10 every 10 bales of shavings if I get ten at a time ($6.99 each or $5.99 each if you buy 10 or more).

I'm a bookkeeper by day, so I really have a good idea of what goes into it. If you have any questions, you can PM me any time.

 

[Southern Dad]

If you have multiple breeds of chickens and roosters, do you have to keep them completely isolated to be able to sell them in the future? My fridge stays full of eggs, maybe I should look into that direction. I'm really not looking to make money on them, I just want to not have an expensive hobby.

 

[RichnSteph]

I just want to not have an expensive hobby.

It seems like every hobby I have from skeet shooting and hunting to chickens and gardening are expensive so I know exactly what you mean.

 

[jk47]

I sell eating eggs for $4 and make $76 profit
And I raise red sexlink chicks to 7weeks old
And sell them for $10 a chick and make $200 dollars profit every 2months. I also live in CA and near a couple of citys that allows 5 hens for each house hold so people I think buy them because raising your own and buying local is in right now and they dont want to deal with chicks or if they buy eggs having to care for the chickens at all

 

[sarahandbray]

So far, the only thing I've found profitable and easy enough to make $$ is selling fertile eggs & day-old baby chicks. Not big $$ profitable, but making the hobby cost-neutral and maybe making a few bucks.
I'm selling mixed hatching eggs for $8/dozen and day-old mixed straight-run babies for $2.50/chick.
So far, my first two batches have produced 30-32 chicks. So about $75/hatch. One small bag of medicated feed has lasted me for more than two hatched. After this 3rd hatch, I'll have the $200ish incubator paid off.
Hatching eggs are expensive around here for purebred ($20-40/dozen!), so selling my mixed eggs for $8/dozen seems to have a niche. The parents are all cool breeds (Black Copper Maran, Olive Egger, Lavender Orp, Welsummer, various reds, Brown Leghorn, Cream Legbar, etc) but I don't want the hassle of separate breeding coops at the moment, so this works out fine.
Selling eating eggs for $4/dozen.
So each week, off of 30 hens, 8 roosters, I'm making about $50-60 in egg sales. Each month, about $75 in baby chicks. So close to $300/month is pretty good at the moment in a very non-lucrative business!!!!

 

[sarahandbray]

Oh, and I've got a guy that locally grows/mills his own chicken feed two towns over and drops off 50lb bags of it on my doorstep for $10/bag!! Cheaper than TSC and healthier!!

 

[sarahandbray]

Totally NOT profitable? Buying a large order of day-old females from a hatchery, having them sent, and hoping to make a few $$ off of them. That was just stupid on my part. With shipping, heat packs, electrolytes, etc., each chick cost $4.50 to my door.
The most I was able to sell them for was $5.50.
When all was said and done after 2-weeks, I was finally able to get all of the chicks I didn't want sold, but it only reduced my cost of each chick to $2ish.
For all the hassle and time, it wasn't worth it.
I was banking on a stronger number of suburbanites who would be willing to pay $7-8/female chick since they couldn't meet the 25 chick mail-order minimum for February.
Forgot that these are the same people who don't want to have an icky brooder in their basement or garage in February and will probably just go buy chicks at TSC in March or April.
Live and learn! Didn't lose $$ at least!