I love seeing more farmers coming out and doing this. Im so sick of buying everything from huge billion dollar companies that don't care about anything but money.
Exceptional, and sobering analysis. In effect, you are showing the real cost of real food. Even with the great and detailed analysis there are additional costs which make things evenharder. Capital depreciation on your truck . . . the more you drive it to market, the sooner you will have to replace it. Also, the capital costs and depreciation on the chicken tractors. Then finally, you can only do this if you have land, and cost of the land, taxes, insurance and so forth must be spread out over the operation. My point is not to nit-pick your excellent analysis but to say that consumers do not understand or appreciate the real cost of real food, and few are willing to pay the real price of real food. I am glad to see that you are making it as a sustainable farmer, and hope you continue to find more customers willing to appreciate the value of real food.
Definitely some good points you made. I am just getting into small scale farming. Just bought some land and the more I research pastured poultry the more I am leaning towards starting with something else. The margins just aren't there.
good points, Paul, but several of these items would be depreciated across everything he produces not just the chickens. So while it does have to be figured in it wouldn't be as great a total as if the birds were the sole income.
I agree, but some portion has to be attributed to this. These fixed costs have to be split between farm projects. Also, when he is driving to the butcher, those miles depreciate the pickup, and have to be put on the chicken account. I am not trying to nit pick, but just pointing out how expensive it is to do things right (as he is doing). If you do not attribute the costs to various projects around the farm, you can end up where every endeavor on the farm is "profitable", but yet the farm is losing money (because you did not account for all your costs). Wow, I tip my hat to this guy, and admire him greatly as he is making a go of it in a very hard business. Wish him the best of luck, and luck to the others like him trying to grow real food in a sustainable way.
Paul McWhorter I agree with you. when I sold eggs I calculated pretty much everything I could think of that was going into the production of the eggs and was charging what I needed to break even or make a couple cents on the eggs and people(even other egg sellers) said that I over charged... when I started talking to them about what goes in they were like oh.. well whatever.. and other farmers were like well I don't count that... all I could say was, well then your losing money.
Paul McWhorter I agree with you. when I sold eggs I calculated pretty much everything I could think of that was going into the production of the eggs and was charging what I needed to break even or make a couple cents on the eggs and people(even other egg sellers) said that I over charged... when I started talking to them about what goes in they were like oh.. well whatever.. and other farmers were like well I don't count that... all I could say was, well then your losing money.
Yes it is! It took us 3 batches to finally get it "mostly" figured out(we actually only made $80 on 100 chickens on one batch), but we are finally doing well with our pastured poultry...and it is a lot of work, especially since we process our own, but we are making a decent profit now, & the work is very satisfying! We are doing a Non-GMO bird(not organic) & we have found a local source for non-gmo feed for $11.50 per bag(50 lb), & our whole chickens sell for $4.25 per lb, which equals roughly $15-20 per bird....when we got started, we thought that no one would pay that for chicken in our small rural area, but we were dead wrong...people will pay it & we sell every single bird with no problem at all......Thanks for all the videos you do John!! They have been very helpful for us, throughout the years...even your very first ones from your original channel..Thanks again! And have a happy Thanksgiving
Cog Hill Farm & Homestead Your comment sounds directly out of the horses mouth ( reliable ). how do you market the chicken .@ a live stock auction as a retail vendor , or at a urban farmers market or advertise for customers to call ahead to order
Bob Brawley we actually asked our friends, and then they told people they knew, then they told people they knew, and it just snow balled from there. Quite amazing actually! But it took us roughly 6 months to get a good solid base to sell to that way.
Cog Hill Farm -Jason Smith I'm looking at starting a chicken farm myself. I want to raise pasture-raised chickens and Market them as such free range GMO however. My fear is the market in which I live in. Unfortunately, I live in chicken capital of the world Georgia! I guess the small Gamble and start small
Cog Hill Farm -The Dancing Farmer we raise Rollin S chickens and have zero mortality and this breed actually has better feed and pasture conversion! We will be ordering chicks in May
Just making some noise here, but you can decrease your feed costs significantly by throwing some corn, and sunflower seeds over an acre or more of your property. Also, raise meal worms and soldier fly's.. These 3 things I mention will drop your feed costs down to a minimum...For the most part, once you lay your seeds, the corn and sunflowers will need very little labor. I raise a much smaller flock but have found that I am selling feed at the end of the winter because on my 3/4 acre farm, I am growing enough to feed my family, my birds, rabbits and neighbors, and still have hundreds of pounds of feed left over.. 3/4 acres? thats got to be wrong right? Nah... I can grow 100 stalks of corn in a 25 foot strip of land, using landscape timbers to create a step ladder wall that can be lowered and raised with one hand, and using the corn structure to grow pole beans. Living on such a small farm I have figured out ways to grow a huge crop with very little space. Get those costs down and you can nearly double your profit margin.... Hope all is well and have a good day
Sounds like a good way to go Kyre. However, if you do that you really should account for the production value of the land that you are dedicating to "chicken feed". B/C that land could be put to other productive use like hogs, sheep, more chickens or cash vegetable crops.
Totally agree, 22dollars a bag of feed doesn't make sense! Better buy bulk grains by the ton! I am sure there are many other ways to decrease thé feed cost.
Thanks John, I know these videos took a lot of time and dedication to complete. Your calculations have shown me where I've gone wrong in my record keeping. One tracking sheet beginning to end is going to save me so much time figuring final costs. And with multiple projects at the same time, Hallelujah! I've shown my husband your feeder design in the layer videos, this year is going to be so much easier, and a lot more enjoyable. Thank you!
One thing that wasn't mentioned is your start up costs. Cost of equipment, cost in materials and labor to build the tractors, feeders, waterers, moving crates, brooder set up, etc. Just an example, if it cost $10,000 to get set up and each batch of broilers nets out on average $2,000 it will take 5 batches before you cover the costs of start up and can begin making a true profit. Someone that wants to raise a couple batches of 240 birds may not see profits if they didn't account for the start up costs. Another thing I was curious about is licensing for legal resale of poultry products. In Maine we seem to have very strict rules where only one processing plant is certified if we planned to legally sell the meat and it can only be whole roasters, not parted out. Other small farms find loop holes by selling the birds live, dropping them off at a processing plant, then having the customer pick up the processed/packaged birds directly from the butcher. Seems difficult to sell this way at farmers markets and traditional places like that. I think your other videos mentioned that you are located in Connecticut? Are the rules and regulations different in your state? Or how do you get around the legalities of it all? We can also only sell in state and directly to the consumer, not to retailers/grocery stores. Do you have to also carry a general liability insurance if anyone were to get sick from a bird and try to sue? Or would the processing plant be the one to carry the liability if that happened? Not saying your birds are going to make anyone ill, people are just sue happy these days. Thank you for the great videos and help!
Hey Eryn, I'll cover pretty much all of your questions in my new content coming up. Sorry I'm not going to type it all now but thank you for writing in. Stay tuned! John
If you use resources you already have its not that expensive to start up. We have a lean-too that opens up to pasture so the lean-too is where they live and they go out on the pasture daily. Lights are cheap and we made feeders out of 5 gallon water bottles. Everyone's costs will be different.
It depends on your demographics and availability of good feed. I've been a small farmer for 40 years. We cannot compete with Walmart on price when a whole chicken costs $6 and it costs us $12-$15 per broiler to raise them in portable pens. Taste and nutrition makes it worth it. There is also value for me utilizing the manure to make compost with my red wigglers.
Good to see this video. I have always been amazed at how farmers manage to survive since I learned Scottish sheep farmers get $1.50 per fleece in the spring. The place I was at had 800 sheep so that was $1,200 income or about 5 days of operating expenses on a small farm. I walked away impressed. Another takeaway was the farmer said she had been criticized for driving a very nice truck, but in her words it was the difference between holding $2,000,000 in debt versus $2,020,000 in debt. Might as well drive a nice car as you slowly sink under the waves.
I live in the Central Valley we are stuck eating Foster Farm chickens. I never saw chickens that look so healthy. Your video was precise, clear and straight to the point. I now understand way supermarket are sold so cheaply. Supermarket chickens chickens are raised in a condition to increase profits. Supermarket chickens are cheaper but more hazardous to your health.
If you're going to do it this way you might as well buy chickens in the store, they're a lot cheaper. Look at your numbers. Feed is a massive bill yet you're "free ranging". Look into growing your own feed and raising insects. With a little planning you can reduce that number to zero. Chickens are called pigs with wings for a reason, they'll eat practically anything. You can supplement feed with old food from grocery stores, bread, etc. If you want to stay pure organic raise vegetables and seed crops to feed to the chickens and any vegetables that aren't good enough for market are perfect for chickens. You've also got to do your own processing. It means investing in building as in a place to do it but that's another huge bite out of your profits. I keep seeing this with your operation by trying to do everything "the right way" you're killing your profit margin. You don't even need starter feed for chicks, they're called insects. If you look at the protein and fat ratios in chick feed they match insects for a reason. Raise black soldier flies and crickets. Stop giving all your profits to the feed store and raise your own!
Grayhand, I have to respectfully disagree. Number 1- If you buy chicken from your local supermarket it is nothing like pastured poultry. (Obviously you have never done it. ) They are subsidized operations known as CAFO's and the animals that come out of them will NEVER be as healthy as pastured animals of any kind. Number 2 -You talk of planning can lower his feed Bill to zero, thats insane, just because he raises "Free Range" or "Pastured poultry" does not mean that they are not feed any grain. The shear fact that they are outside eating grass and getting sunshine (and yes even some bugs)makes for a heather bird and even healthier food for you. Number 3- He does not have to process his own there are people out there who will do it for you. And Number 4 -I agree anybody can raise a half dozen birds by feeding them scraps, hell you just might keep from killing all of them. But you will not do that running batches of 250 at a time. (Obviously you have never done it!) And if you are? you are my newest best friend. Because I want to come see how you do it.
Grayhand, the guy in the video isn't a real farmer. Like most youtube "farmers". Not everyone can be a farmer, it's a breed that makes a good farmer. My family were farmers for a very, very long time. Even though I am what you consider a city slicker. If I had my own farm I naturally know how to cut corners to cut cost down to nothing. In fact I was thinking of it the whole time I was watching this video. I saw in a another video from some other youtuber where he has equipment to make soil holes for planting. Sure it makes things faster but by simply using a hoe and his hands he'd cut planting cost to nearly nothing. The whole point of farming is to put in work. Don't get me started with people who build expensive plant boxes. Haven't these people heard the ground is free?
Good operating numbers! Your capital costs would also be an interesting video. Land, equipment, etc. The nice thing is that you've got a 51% operating profit per rotation. That money can recycle through 5 rotations per year. This means that you put $4,251 to work, recuperate that cost in two cycles and be on house money after 4-5 months. Said differently, you can make $10,954 per year on a $4,251 investment a 258% return! I'm amazed that you're able to sell at $6 per lb. Most of what I'm seeing for whole organic chicken is grossing about $2.50 per lb which would wipe you out since you're at $3.98 per lb.
Yeah, it's rather interesting how you're able to get that much per lbs. Even in my country, Kenya, 2.8$ seems to be the average high price of the year per lbs on bulk production. Retail only does up to a net margin return of $1.50/=
I'd like to know where I can find organic chicken for 2.50/lb. The prices I see in the grocery stores are 7-8$ or more per pound in Texas and Tennessee.
How are you figuring a 258% return. Looking at one cycle, he’s grossing $6,407 on sales, expenses of $4,309, netting $2,098. Income divided by expenses is only 48%. Am I missing something here?
Its not always about being able to grow and butcher animals cheaper than you can buy the meat else where. Its always worth it to raise your own mostly because you know what all that animal has consumed and how it was raised. It makes it all worth it.
ya were around the $4/lbs. Although that's not Organic. Not a huge market out in our area for organic (we live around a ton of farms and not close to any major cities). Love the video's John. Enjoy your vacation time and rest up :)
Great job creating the business and capturing the profits. Whoever said the American family is broke. A chicken at $30 tells me there is a ton of disposable income.
To be fair he could cheapen his set ups with Solar, and doing it all himself. Not saying he could/should make it cheaper but he could make his profit bigger.
The problem is nearly always the distributors. Often they demand very little but charge alot more to make maximum profits. I have been preferring to buy directly from farmers or where not possible I ask farmers which distributor gives them the best cut and I buy only from those. it's not so much about people wanting cheap, it's often they just do not realise how much work goes into what is on their plate, and how much percentage the farmer is getting over the distributor. Recently in my town there was a milk distributor that was fucking over our diary farmers, the brand of milk was not the cheapest, nor the most expensive so had a good customer base, but it was giving our farmers a pittance in return for their hard work. Once this was known people stopped buying it and essentially ran the distributor out of town, and the dairy farmers created their own distribution, did the costs rise? Yep, about double, but people are happy to pay for it because they are now knowledgeable. TLDR, people are not hypocritical so much as they are just ignorant of the facts.
Very nice john. I did chicken farming almost identical to what you have here a few years back as an apprentice on an organic farm in MN. Only difference is we couldn't squeeze in that many batches here, more like 3, maybe 4 on a longer hotter year. But my boss never did break down the cost of chickens. thank you. I'm planning a start up this year and I look forward to it. Tough job but so rewarding.
Just sat down to my first two Suscovich Camps Road Farm's eggs! Thought I'd play this video to try to bond a little deeper with my food! Yep, one egg in and I'm feelin a bit of a bond here! Tell Sheeba ta back off tha vaccine! She's not Sick! She's a LAYER! Great job! Thanks for your efforts at educating us eaterz!
1st timer here doing 700-1,000 my 1st season. Your videos have been a great resource .Let’s go! The only way this makes any real money is to scale. $2k on the side is nice but I think this has to go to a net profit of $200k to reduce the risk of even doing it.
Your tractors are very cool. A great set up is great way to start. Your numbers are similar to mine, but I don't raise organic and save on grain that way. But most consumers don't understand how much it costs....and the work. New hatched chicks are a lot of work.
Thanks for doing this, John- both the series in general, and this ep in specific. It was really helpfull to see the work involved and the numbers from an actual broiler run
Great series! Thanks. I had a question at the first one about chicken tractors. I decided to watch the entire series before bothering you. At the end, I still had that question. It must the the dumbest question you'll get. I wondered why your tractors had no place for the chickens to roost. I know you intend not to be processing eggs, but your chickens don't know that. In the end, I researched it myself and learned most chickens don't start to lay eggs until 6 months old. I'm telling you this because it's easy to forget how ignorant some of your viewers are. Keep up the great work. I was glad to see you paid yourself labor costs. That's something a lot of people overlook.
These are Cornish X. They process them at about 6 weeks and because they grow so fast they are not roosting birds. (Sometimes they can't even stand up) Happy on the ground and will eat 24/7 if allowed.
Excellent video!! What is more amazing is the whiteboard!!! Farmers with whiteboard skills are the best. Some say more cowbell, I say more whiteboard!! Cheers!
This is a great video man! I am glad that you put all that out there. If you are looking for collaborative thinking, here are my thoughts. Feed cost, I think could be lowered. I am buying the same product (non-GMO) for $10.50/ 50 lbs bag. I don't know if you can find that in your area but you could certainly find at least $15/ bag? Labor rate is too low. $16-$18/ hour is what I use. It is difficult to find GOOD help for less where I live. I do not have a cost for bedding. Bedding is whatever I can get my hands on, leaves, hay, free sawdust, etc. Your profit margins are good - 34% - but it is largely because the price of your product is so high. I applaud you for finding a market at that price. That is awesome. If you can really hire people at $12/hour then you could probably grow your own feed lot to at least offset that cost. That is your biggest expense by far (same for all of us), but could certainly be reduced. Great video.
Thank you for the cost analysis. It basically cost you $4/lbs, including minimum wage labor, to produce this meat. Add a little bit more for amortizing the land and equipment. You could sell the meat at $5/lbs and still have money left over to give yourself a nice bonus. If someone can scale up their chicken operations to 10000s of birds per batch, the cost/bird will naturally go down even further. The problem with confined chicken tractors are that the birds are overcrowded. They are grown outdoors on a pasture, sure, but this approach doesn't qualify them even as a free range chicken unless your tractor has at least 2 sg. ft. of space per bird. A truly pastured chicken needs a minimum of 108 sq. ft. of open space as per the current standards.
This is a fantastic video. I have always a math nerd and am just recently getting into farming. This is my first video of yours Ive seen but I really enjoyed seeing the numbers broken down. Thank you! Ill be looking out for future videos.
can't support these prices in new zealand , i mean big companies are charging around 3 to 4 new zealand dollars a kilo , i have been raising pasture poultry but had to stop completly because of the market that was not favorable for that product yet . of course this is the right way to raise chickens i agree , but how can you compete with tegel or those companies that have a tremendous amount of money and you that have started very small and counting every single penny to try and make it work . i had done my ground work , found customers , everything like you did on this video but at the end of it couldnt make it work or profitable enough . i am not saying that so people dont do it , quite the contrary , go for it ,try if you can make it work that is great ! this is how its suppose to be done ! great work john , you have done well ! it is very nice to see people more and more interested in raising poultry and livestock in general the right way !! keep up the good work !! all the best from a french guy in new zealand !!
I think factory farm chicken prices are the same in the US. You're right, it would be tough to make a lot of money but I think it has more to do with good marketing. If you are producing meat, eggs, vegetables, farm tours, etc... and pitch it to the correct marketing program I suspect you could make money in NZ but I don't know if you could make "enough" to support your personal situation. For me it would be too much WORK! XD
If you live in a hipster area, people are willing to pay a premium for these chickens. I say they're suckers, since non-GMO, organic feed is just marketing BS with no real meaning, but chances are the pastured birds DO taste a bit better, since they have more variety in their diets and are healthier.
I was going to grow some chickens but after seeing how much trouble and the cost …. I said bump it and went to KFC for dinner. I enjoyed the video. Also, we get grade A roasted chicken for $4.99 at Costco.
For those that are going "ahhhh!" at the $6/lb. Have you been in the grocery store lately? This is not that far above and sometimes UNDER Tyson chicken raised under much less ideal conditions. If a family is conscientious about how they use a bird it can feed the whole family for at least one meal. How much did your last take out meal cost your family? If you are in a high COL area like his it's probably about the same amount.
Costco is less than $2.50 per lb for organic whole chicken retail. No idea how this farmer finds a market for chicken that expensive. Perhaps they are retailing it themselves.
@@jonathancover4658 Yes, they market it themselves. And that organic label at the grocery store is useless. The USDA organic program allows many practices and pesticides that people would object to if they knew what was going on.
Nice John, it was a question I had so am pleased you covered it in such detail. Of course there should also be an allowance for incidentals ie everything has a finite life and wears out/needs maintenance and that wasn't covered at all. It's one of the more tricky ones to calculate, and where so many businesses get in to trouble by not allowing for it, but notwithstanding that you provided a good start point. Thanks.
Awesome information that's very nice to see this here for us people out there to understand. I wouldn't mind taking one of them burning their little rear ends up on my stove. With trimmings of course!
very good video I know it's old but love it. I am getting chickens next month my.family and.I. I hope to be starting videos soon of how well the chickens do! and our pigs. thanks John your amazing.
You're very welcome Stephanie. That video isn't that old. The numbers in that video are what I used to create my 2017 budget. The numbers vary a little year to year but in general that is a good guideline.
John Suscovich:-) Nice. cool I guess I misunderstood.. anyways really love watching you. your smart and educated and very very good looking too! love farm guys! 💖💖💖💖💖
I'm glad you wrote all this up, but I'd like to point out that you don't have any numbers for the cost of acquiring the land, cost of the equipment (and its depreciation and maintenance) or taxes.
Thanks for this helpful breakdown! I'm looking into slowly working my way into pastured poultry on my families forest land (So forest poultry?) and seeing the cost breakdown is really helpful!
Hatching your own chicks is an obvious step to improve profitability. Chickens are very easy to incubate & hatch although a large incubator & hatcher with the divided room will set you back a few bucks. You would need breeding stock or a supply of cheap fertile eggs.
see when people buy chicken from my family, the want the "colin mitchell raise poultry" and John has his own niche where people are looking for HIS ethics, His enthusiasm for sustainability, and HIS birds. People will pay a premium if they are into this kind of stuff. We always have more orders then we have birds to fill those orders.
Mate2Frio And Bryan says 15 to 20 dollars a bird. I got to get to Wegmans a high end grocery store and see what their highest price for an organic bird . I can't believe 15 dollars for a chicken and I can buy a rotisserie chicken at the same store for 5 dollars ? So I'm not in to saving the planet, supporting the family farmer, GMO or whatever . $18, $27, $ 30 for a whole chicken . I didn't know such a thing existed.
@Colin Mitchell as a consumer I believe you, for example, I happily pay premium prices for pasture and certified humane eggs, and we eat eggs every day so a large amount of $$$ of my grocery budget goes to eggs...and that's also the reason why I only buy the best because eggs are a staple food in our diet I need to make sure my family is consuming the healthiest product, I refuse to buy .99 cents/doz eggs because I am very suspicious of how those poor animals are raised and what they are feed....
I pay $2.59/lb for organic birds at "Fresh Thyme Farmers Market". I would like to buy pasture raised birds, but the price differences are just too significant for me to consider buying these birds.
I recently started buying as much organic eggs and grass fed organic beef as I can and then just cut the steak in half and have one each week. so 20 dollar organic g.f. steaks gives me 1 steak a week every month. Try to use organic grass feed burgers and pastured whole chicken and make own bone broth for joints. :)
Question: After net expenses, what are costs to market the birds? Is your CSA your sole marketing method for poultry?.Really enjoyed the video. We ordered your chicken tractor book.
Guessing you forgetting some stuff? Lang, incurrences, administration, startup costs (like buildings, fences, feeders) and maybe more ;) Nice to see you let the births live an okay/good life!
Holy crap. I use to pay $1.50 a bird. That was processed, wrapped and chilled. It's been a little while but last I heard my guy was now $2 a bird. I use the amish though. Supplement feed with bulk crack corn and talk to local schools about food scraps. It will greatly lower feed costs. Your tractors are freaking awesome. My old ones were flat topped but I'm thinking of going your route when I start up again. Just have 6 meat and about 100 mixed that I will cull the roosters from. Do you front graze your birds with other livestock to knock down the tall grass?
wow how things have changed . when I grew chickens feed was $3 per hundred lbs . I grew them for eggs so I feed laying mash .. but I also know of a guy that paid $3000 for a farm and the talk was how in the hell can you afford that ..so I guess everything is relative .. my hens only cost me 17 cents each over 40 years ago . good video
It depends on the feed. I was paying about $760 a ton for non-GMO, no corn, no soy broiler feed. You can get conventional broiler feed for about $400-450 a ton. It takes about two tons to do a batch of 250 birds. Going Certified Organic feed would have been about $1,250 a ton.
This is a great information, being a corporate soul I'm searching for alternatives & poultry was on the list. this is very informative piece, helps me visualize the entire process not just the cost. although I'll have to convert these numbers n figures to my demography.
That was a nice break down of your real costs. I was actually shocked at how expensive it is to bring a chicken to market. Your customers definitely aren't like me. I buy chicken for 2.79 per lb. for breast meat, frozen of course. Does the meat taste a lot better when its pasture grown as opposed to the way the big farms that i essentially buy from through my grocier.?
I would say that without a doubt the chicken that is raised on pasture tastes better. It is also healthier for you. At APPPA.org there is a lot of good information and studies done on the nutritional benefits. As for the taste as you mentioned, I mean, you can dress a chicken up with a lot of spices. Fried chicken is fried chicken. But if you want to do nothing to a bird and get the most flavor, the least effort in the kitchen for the biggest return, the best quality protein you can put in your body, then grass-fed animals are where it is at.
Tesco (UK) free range chicken cost £11.95 whereas with these numbers each bird costs £13.95 for a net loss of £2.00 per bird. You could shave some of these costs off if you were to breed your own birds, produce hydro electric, grow some feed yourself and do all the processing yourself I suppose. Interesting vid! Thanks!
This is why Feed for chickens Is a huge topic. It can be solved by capturing neighborhood stray dogs and cats and feeding those to the chickens. Thats what my neighbor jimbob does.
I raised birds in Texas and eight weeks old broilers alive would sell for no more than $8 local. If you processed it they payed the same. With these costs I would have went under. The costs are actually why I stopped raising all poultry. Locally in the south people don't want to pay even what you have in the birds. I raised Cornish Rocks that were very heavy healthy birds also.
I like the video. Going organic here isn't worth the extra feed cost. I raise about the same number of birds as you and I get $4.50/lb max. Overall...great job.
I think the key is to be able to get the higher price per pound. My experience was similar to yours on the expense side, but I was only getting $4-$4.50 a pound for non-GMO, soy and corn free pastured broilers which really cuts the margin thin. When I had a bad batch it went negative quick. I usually ran batches of 200 to 300 with about 5% mortality. I did have one batch a sickly birds from a local small hatchery that was horrible. I only processed 67 out of 200.
Devin Goulding I am in the Dallas / Fort Worth Texas area. Unfortunately that seems to be the going rate for whole birds. you can make a bit more selling cut-ups but then you have a lot more inventory issues.
Use more compost and get rid of the feed and your profit goes up even higher. Start growing your feed on those 52 acers and use compost materials that you create and get for free. Your highest cost of everything on your list was the feed. Do the feed yourself. Just a thought.. :) Congratulations.
as an agricultural economics graduate and as an accountant i would like to point out that technically you are understating the profit from the standpoint of a homesteader considering whether to raise chickens. the owner/operator of a homestead accrues all the profit to him/her self for his labor. therefore unless he pays for outside labor I would leave labor out so that it shows a more accurate profit number. this would allow the homesteader to see what their true return would be. your analysis shows the profit of your farm to the business entity of the farm which is correct since you have investment partners and paid labor. am I making sense? accounting is a wierd science.
so to restate your numbers from the standpoint of a family farm with no outside labor the return would be gross income $6442- expenses $3315 = net to the owner $3127 or $14 per bird.
so if a homesteader could raise 221 chickens with 78 hours of labor and net $3127 he would be earning $40/hr. not bad in todays market. if he could turn that rate of profit for a standard 2000 hr. work year he would be equating to $80,000 annual income.
Very interesting breakdown. It seems like you had a sudden spike of mortality at the end that you never mentioned in your other videos so it'll be interesting to see what that was about. In my area the typical price is $4/lb so your next video about marketing will be helpful to see how you can command such a good price for your birds.What do you think your cost savings is by having birds on pasture vs having them raised in barn?
Something I noticed is that in the labor costs you included yourself. IMO, since the business owner is entitled to the fruits of his efforts, his portion is the net from the business operation. But of course this is just my view of business.
May be a dumb question but I don’t know the answer so... when raising meat birds does it matter if you use male or female birds? I just got your chicken tractor book and love your design, love the idea of having one I can stand up in. I had rabbits in a “traditional design” and hated trying to get into it for various things
I pay $7/dozen for eggs that are organic & pasture raised. Initially I had a really tough time paying that when the eggs right next to it are $2/dozen for conventional & $3.25/dozen for organic. But once you taste the difference and see how creamy the yolks are to the finish and how gelatenous the whites are, I'm never going back to conventional eggs. Organic eggs are decent but they can't compare to the organic pasture raised ones.
- I grew up around my families ranches. We weren't rich. The only way any of my relatives made disposable income if they raised racehorses or cattle for rodeos/grassfed meats. You have to love farming to produce organic, free range poultry & eggs. Not just be a stereotypical "greedy" farmer. It's a way of life some families choose and they should be paid fairly.
Thanks for sharing. Glad you can make on your enterprise. However, it will only work where there is a market for such a specialty product, plus quality feed and processing may not be available everywhere.
job well done John..try to minimise the unnecessary expenditure like the electricity which you can subsidise with solar energy/biogas .grow your own feeds..thank you for the breakdown altogether
I love seeing more farmers coming out and doing this. Im so sick of buying everything from huge billion dollar companies that don't care about anything but money.
Exceptional, and sobering analysis. In effect, you are showing the real cost of real food. Even with the great and detailed analysis there are additional costs which make things evenharder. Capital depreciation on your truck . . . the more you drive it to market, the sooner you will have to replace it. Also, the capital costs and depreciation on the chicken tractors. Then finally, you can only do this if you have land, and cost of the land, taxes, insurance and so forth must be spread out over the operation. My point is not to nit-pick your excellent analysis but to say that consumers do not understand or appreciate the real cost of real food, and few are willing to pay the real price of real food. I am glad to see that you are making it as a sustainable farmer, and hope you continue to find more customers willing to appreciate the value of real food.
Definitely some good points you made. I am just getting into small scale farming. Just bought some land and the more I research pastured poultry the more I am leaning towards starting with something else. The margins just aren't there.
good points, Paul, but several of these items would be depreciated across everything he produces not just the chickens. So while it does have to be figured in it wouldn't be as great a total as if the birds were the sole income.
I agree, but some portion has to be attributed to this. These fixed costs have to be split between farm projects. Also, when he is driving to the butcher, those miles depreciate the pickup, and have to be put on the chicken account. I am not trying to nit pick, but just pointing out how expensive it is to do things right (as he is doing). If you do not attribute the costs to various projects around the farm, you can end up where every endeavor on the farm is "profitable", but yet the farm is losing money (because you did not account for all your costs). Wow, I tip my hat to this guy, and admire him greatly as he is making a go of it in a very hard business. Wish him the best of luck, and luck to the others like him trying to grow real food in a sustainable way.
Paul McWhorter I agree with you. when I sold eggs I calculated pretty much everything I could think of that was going into the production of the eggs and was charging what I needed to break even or make a couple cents on the eggs and people(even other egg sellers) said that I over charged... when I started talking to them about what goes in they were like oh.. well whatever.. and other farmers were like well I don't count that... all I could say was, well then your losing money.
Paul McWhorter I agree with you. when I sold eggs I calculated pretty much everything I could think of that was going into the production of the eggs and was charging what I needed to break even or make a couple cents on the eggs and people(even other egg sellers) said that I over charged... when I started talking to them about what goes in they were like oh.. well whatever.. and other farmers were like well I don't count that... all I could say was, well then your losing money.
Yes it is! It took us 3 batches to finally get it "mostly" figured out(we actually only made $80 on 100 chickens on one batch), but we are finally doing well with our pastured poultry...and it is a lot of work, especially since we process our own, but we are making a decent profit now, & the work is very satisfying!
We are doing a Non-GMO bird(not organic) & we have found a local source for non-gmo feed for $11.50 per bag(50 lb), & our whole chickens sell for $4.25 per lb, which equals roughly $15-20 per bird....when we got started, we thought that no one would pay that for chicken in our small rural area, but we were dead wrong...people will pay it & we sell every single bird with no problem at all......Thanks for all the videos you do John!! They have been very helpful for us, throughout the years...even your very first ones from your original channel..Thanks again! And have a happy Thanksgiving
Cog Hill Farm & Homestead Your comment sounds directly out of the horses mouth ( reliable ). how do you market the chicken .@ a live stock auction as a retail vendor , or at a urban farmers market or advertise for customers to call ahead to order
Bob Brawley we actually asked our friends, and then they told people they knew, then they told people they knew, and it just snow balled from there. Quite amazing actually! But it took us roughly 6 months to get a good solid base to sell to that way.
Cog Hill Farm -Jason Smith
I'm looking at starting a chicken farm myself. I want to raise pasture-raised chickens and Market them as such free range GMO however. My fear is the market in which I live in. Unfortunately, I live in chicken capital of the world Georgia! I guess the small Gamble and start small
Cog Hill Farm -The Dancing Farmer we raise Rollin S chickens and have zero mortality and this breed actually has better feed and pasture conversion! We will be ordering chicks in May
I'm curious, Cog Hill Family Farm, what the feed is composed of if you're getting non-gmo feed that cheap--and is it organic?
Just making some noise here, but you can decrease your feed costs significantly by throwing some corn, and sunflower seeds over an acre or more of your property. Also, raise meal worms and soldier fly's.. These 3 things I mention will drop your feed costs down to a minimum...For the most part, once you lay your seeds, the corn and sunflowers will need very little labor.
I raise a much smaller flock but have found that I am selling feed at the end of the winter because on my 3/4 acre farm, I am growing enough to feed my family, my birds, rabbits and neighbors, and still have hundreds of pounds of feed left over..
3/4 acres? thats got to be wrong right? Nah...
I can grow 100 stalks of corn in a 25 foot strip of land, using landscape timbers to create a step ladder wall that can be lowered and raised with one hand, and using the corn structure to grow pole beans. Living on such a small farm I have figured out ways to grow a huge crop with very little space.
Get those costs down and you can nearly double your profit margin.... Hope all is well and have a good day
U should make videos. I would watch them
Make videos for sure.
Sounds like a good way to go Kyre. However, if you do that you really should account for the production value of the land that you are dedicating to "chicken feed". B/C that land could be put to other productive use like hogs, sheep, more chickens or cash vegetable crops.
Growing beans up your corn stalks.....duuuude you just gave me so many ideas. Thanks for that comment
Totally agree, 22dollars a bag of feed doesn't make sense! Better buy bulk grains by the ton! I am sure there are many other ways to decrease thé feed cost.
Thanks John, I know these videos took a lot of time and dedication to complete. Your calculations have shown me where I've gone wrong in my record keeping. One tracking sheet beginning to end is going to save me so much time figuring final costs. And with multiple projects at the same time, Hallelujah! I've shown my husband your feeder design in the layer videos, this year is going to be so much easier, and a lot more enjoyable. Thank you!
This is the reason I love chicken, these animals are a blessing in every way.
Really loving this format. I'm a visual person so having things literally spelled out for me helps a TON! Thanks for the video! :)
One thing that wasn't mentioned is your start up costs. Cost of equipment, cost in materials and labor to build the tractors, feeders, waterers, moving crates, brooder set up, etc. Just an example, if it cost $10,000 to get set up and each batch of broilers nets out on average $2,000 it will take 5 batches before you cover the costs of start up and can begin making a true profit. Someone that wants to raise a couple batches of 240 birds may not see profits if they didn't account for the start up costs. Another thing I was curious about is licensing for legal resale of poultry products. In Maine we seem to have very strict rules where only one processing plant is certified if we planned to legally sell the meat and it can only be whole roasters, not parted out. Other small farms find loop holes by selling the birds live, dropping them off at a processing plant, then having the customer pick up the processed/packaged birds directly from the butcher. Seems difficult to sell this way at farmers markets and traditional places like that. I think your other videos mentioned that you are located in Connecticut? Are the rules and regulations different in your state? Or how do you get around the legalities of it all? We can also only sell in state and directly to the consumer, not to retailers/grocery stores. Do you have to also carry a general liability insurance if anyone were to get sick from a bird and try to sue? Or would the processing plant be the one to carry the liability if that happened? Not saying your birds are going to make anyone ill, people are just sue happy these days. Thank you for the great videos and help!
Hey Eryn,
I'll cover pretty much all of your questions in my new content coming up. Sorry I'm not going to type it all now but thank you for writing in. Stay tuned!
John
@@farmmarketing What’s the link for the video?
If you use resources you already have its not that expensive to start up. We have a lean-too that opens up to pasture so the lean-too is where they live and they go out on the pasture daily. Lights are cheap and we made feeders out of 5 gallon water bottles. Everyone's costs will be different.
This is the only channel that I think has addressed the business part of pastured poultry. Love your video John, subscribed & thumbs up.
What a very specific breakdown of the costs associated with raising chicks, thank you !!
It depends on your demographics and availability of good feed. I've been a small farmer for 40 years. We cannot compete with Walmart on price when a whole chicken costs $6 and it costs us $12-$15 per broiler to raise them in portable pens. Taste and nutrition makes it worth it. There is also value for me utilizing the manure to make compost with my red wigglers.
Keep up the good work. These birds taste so much better than supermarket counterparts
Thank you! I believe chicken raised on pasture is far superior to barn birds. It is what keeps me motivated.
Good to see this video. I have always been amazed at how farmers manage to survive since I learned Scottish sheep farmers get $1.50 per fleece in the spring. The place I was at had 800 sheep so that was $1,200 income or about 5 days of operating expenses on a small farm. I walked away impressed. Another takeaway was the farmer said she had been criticized for driving a very nice truck, but in her words it was the difference between holding $2,000,000 in debt versus $2,020,000 in debt. Might as well drive a nice car as you slowly sink under the waves.
I live in the Central Valley we are stuck eating Foster Farm chickens. I never saw chickens that look so healthy. Your video was precise, clear and straight to the point. I now understand way supermarket are sold so cheaply. Supermarket chickens chickens are raised in a condition to increase profits. Supermarket chickens are cheaper but more hazardous to your health.
If you're going to do it this way you might as well buy chickens in the store, they're a lot cheaper. Look at your numbers. Feed is a massive bill yet you're "free ranging". Look into growing your own feed and raising insects. With a little planning you can reduce that number to zero. Chickens are called pigs with wings for a reason, they'll eat practically anything. You can supplement feed with old food from grocery stores, bread, etc. If you want to stay pure organic raise vegetables and seed crops to feed to the chickens and any vegetables that aren't good enough for market are perfect for chickens. You've also got to do your own processing. It means investing in building as in a place to do it but that's another huge bite out of your profits. I keep seeing this with your operation by trying to do everything "the right way" you're killing your profit margin. You don't even need starter feed for chicks, they're called insects. If you look at the protein and fat ratios in chick feed they match insects for a reason. Raise black soldier flies and crickets. Stop giving all your profits to the feed store and raise your own!
Grayhand, I have to respectfully disagree. Number 1- If you buy chicken from your local supermarket it is nothing like pastured poultry. (Obviously you have never done it. ) They are subsidized operations known as CAFO's and the animals that come out of them will NEVER be as healthy as pastured animals of any kind. Number 2 -You talk of planning can lower his feed Bill to zero, thats insane, just because he raises "Free Range" or "Pastured poultry" does not mean that they are not feed any grain. The shear fact that they are outside eating grass and getting sunshine (and yes even some bugs)makes for a heather bird and even healthier food for you. Number 3- He does not have to process his own there are people out there who will do it for you. And Number 4 -I agree anybody can raise a half dozen birds by feeding them scraps, hell you just might keep from killing all of them. But you will not do that running batches of 250 at a time. (Obviously you have never done it!) And if you are? you are my newest best friend. Because I want to come see how you do it.
Yeah, his feed costs seem pretty high for tractor chickens. Even just doing barley fodder or a larva system gets you to almost 0.
Grayhand, the guy in the video isn't a real farmer. Like most youtube "farmers". Not everyone can be a farmer, it's a breed that makes a good farmer. My family were farmers for a very, very long time. Even though I am what you consider a city slicker. If I had my own farm I naturally know how to cut corners to cut cost down to nothing. In fact I was thinking of it the whole time I was watching this video. I saw in a another video from some other youtuber where he has equipment to make soil holes for planting. Sure it makes things faster but by simply using a hoe and his hands he'd cut planting cost to nearly nothing. The whole point of farming is to put in work. Don't get me started with people who build expensive plant boxes. Haven't these people heard the ground is free?
@@PirateTubeTV lol u said this mans not a farmer but is woth 2.6 million.........bruh he is a real farmer
@@beaverrick9789 Agreed but you can definitely supplement their feed and maybe cut the bill in half, depending on how much land you have of course.
Good operating numbers! Your capital costs would also be an interesting video. Land, equipment, etc. The nice thing is that you've got a 51% operating profit per rotation. That money can recycle through 5 rotations per year. This means that you put $4,251 to work, recuperate that cost in two cycles and be on house money after 4-5 months. Said differently, you can make $10,954 per year on a $4,251 investment a 258% return! I'm amazed that you're able to sell at $6 per lb. Most of what I'm seeing for whole organic chicken is grossing about $2.50 per lb which would wipe you out since you're at $3.98 per lb.
Yeah, it's rather interesting how you're able to get that much per lbs. Even in my country, Kenya, 2.8$ seems to be the average high price of the year per lbs on bulk production.
Retail only does up to a net margin return of $1.50/=
I'd like to know where I can find organic chicken for 2.50/lb. The prices I see in the grocery stores are 7-8$ or more per pound in Texas and Tennessee.
How are you figuring a 258% return. Looking at one cycle, he’s grossing $6,407 on sales, expenses of $4,309, netting $2,098. Income divided by expenses is only 48%. Am I missing something here?
Really great video. I love how you broke down the numbers and explained how you got those numbers. Thanks!
Yes I agree. And I love your channel as well.
What a beautiful example of an analytical mind. I loved this cost break down.
Superb analysis. Putting a sharp pencil to things, for good or for ill, makes for clear-headed thinking. Well done!
Its not always about being able to grow and butcher animals cheaper than you can buy the meat else where. Its always worth it to raise your own mostly because you know what all that animal has consumed and how it was raised. It makes it all worth it.
$6/lb? That's a great market you created. I think that's a bit higher than the Midwest markets I'm familiar with. Congratulations John!
ya were around the $4/lbs. Although that's not Organic. Not a huge market out in our area for organic (we live around a ton of farms and not close to any major cities).
Love the video's John. Enjoy your vacation time and rest up :)
Great job creating the business and capturing the profits. Whoever said the American family is broke. A chicken at $30 tells me there is a ton of disposable income.
Great illuminating video for this city dweller, (Toronto, Ontario, Canada) THANKS
I’m glad I could shed some light on the topic.
People are hypocritical as fk. Want their meat to be treated humanely yet still wants their meat to be cheap.
To be fair he could cheapen his set ups with Solar, and doing it all himself. Not saying he could/should make it cheaper but he could make his profit bigger.
The problem is nearly always the distributors. Often they demand very little but charge alot more to make maximum profits. I have been preferring to buy directly from farmers or where not possible I ask farmers which distributor gives them the best cut and I buy only from those.
it's not so much about people wanting cheap, it's often they just do not realise how much work goes into what is on their plate, and how much percentage the farmer is getting over the distributor. Recently in my town there was a milk distributor that was fucking over our diary farmers, the brand of milk was not the cheapest, nor the most expensive so had a good customer base, but it was giving our farmers a pittance in return for their hard work. Once this was known people stopped buying it and essentially ran the distributor out of town, and the dairy farmers created their own distribution, did the costs rise? Yep, about double, but people are happy to pay for it because they are now knowledgeable.
TLDR, people are not hypocritical so much as they are just ignorant of the facts.
Not everyone has a 200k job😞
EXACTLY.
Very nice john. I did chicken farming almost identical to what you have here a few years back as an apprentice on an organic farm in MN. Only difference is we couldn't squeeze in that many batches here, more like 3, maybe 4 on a longer hotter year. But my boss never did break down the cost of chickens. thank you. I'm planning a start up this year and I look forward to it. Tough job but so rewarding.
Just the difference in quality of product makes it worth it!
Just sat down to my first two Suscovich Camps Road Farm's eggs! Thought I'd play this video to try to bond a little deeper with my food! Yep, one egg in and I'm feelin a bit of a bond here! Tell Sheeba ta back off tha vaccine! She's not Sick! She's a LAYER! Great job! Thanks for your efforts at educating us eaterz!
Great work. Thanks. Really revealing.
Is it at all possible to update this to the end of 2021/Jan 2022?
Question John Suscovich, how often do you sell these 200 or so batches of birds annually?
the. best. natural teacher. !!!
Planning to start raising broilers in the spring time. I am 17 years old
you should be 19 by now
Luke Hofer my best advice is to make sure your coops and pens are vermin proof.
1st timer here doing 700-1,000 my 1st season. Your videos have been a great resource .Let’s go! The only way this makes any real money is to scale. $2k on the side is nice but I think this has to go to a net profit of $200k to reduce the risk of even doing it.
He profits $30 a day
Your tractors are very cool. A great set up is great way to start. Your numbers are similar to mine, but I don't raise organic and save on grain that way. But most consumers don't understand how much it costs....and the work. New hatched chicks are a lot of work.
Thanks for doing this, John- both the series in general, and this ep in specific. It was really helpfull to see the work involved and the numbers from an actual broiler run
Great series! Thanks. I had a question at the first one about chicken tractors. I decided to watch the entire series before bothering you. At the end, I still had that question. It must the the dumbest question you'll get. I wondered why your tractors had no place for the chickens to roost. I know you intend not to be processing eggs, but your chickens don't know that. In the end, I researched it myself and learned most chickens don't start to lay eggs until 6 months old. I'm telling you this because it's easy to forget how ignorant some of your viewers are. Keep up the great work. I was glad to see you paid yourself labor costs. That's something a lot of people overlook.
These are Cornish X. They process them at about 6 weeks and because they grow so fast they are not roosting birds. (Sometimes they can't even stand up) Happy on the ground and will eat 24/7 if allowed.
Thanks John, great vid mate....just building another tractor and getting into the game myself. Glad to hear its profitable!!!!!
That's really cool to hear Richard!
Excellent video!! What is more amazing is the whiteboard!!! Farmers with whiteboard skills are the best. Some say more cowbell, I say more whiteboard!! Cheers!
More whiteboards coming! I liked making this video. It took me a lot longer, but I think it was really effective. Glad you liked it.
You are so smart, and have your stuff all out together. Been watching your channel a long time.
Thanks for the details John! Your transparency makes getting into the business less daunting.
You're most welcome Kyle.
This is a great video man! I am glad that you put all that out there. If you are looking for collaborative thinking, here are my thoughts. Feed cost, I think could be lowered. I am buying the same product (non-GMO) for $10.50/ 50 lbs bag. I don't know if you can find that in your area but you could certainly find at least $15/ bag? Labor rate is too low. $16-$18/ hour is what I use. It is difficult to find GOOD help for less where I live. I do not have a cost for bedding. Bedding is whatever I can get my hands on, leaves, hay, free sawdust, etc. Your profit margins are good - 34% - but it is largely because the price of your product is so high. I applaud you for finding a market at that price. That is awesome. If you can really hire people at $12/hour then you could probably grow your own feed lot to at least offset that cost. That is your biggest expense by far (same for all of us), but could certainly be reduced. Great video.
Thank you for the cost analysis. It basically cost you $4/lbs, including minimum wage labor, to produce this meat. Add a little bit more for amortizing the land and equipment. You could sell the meat at $5/lbs and still have money left over to give yourself a nice bonus. If someone can scale up their chicken operations to 10000s of birds per batch, the cost/bird will naturally go down even further. The problem with confined chicken tractors are that the birds are overcrowded. They are grown outdoors on a pasture, sure, but this approach doesn't qualify them even as a free range chicken unless your tractor has at least 2 sg. ft. of space per bird. A truly pastured chicken needs a minimum of 108 sq. ft. of open space as per the current standards.
I've been following along in this series. Thank you for allowing me to learn along with you. Great job!
Generously engaging authentic presentation covering all line items of the business cycle
It's work, but it certainly can be profitable and enjoyable as well:)
Enjoyable and delicious!
This is an excellent cost analysis!
I really appreciate the video you put out. I will now be checking out ALL of your videos! Thank you
This is a fantastic video. I have always a math nerd and am just recently getting into farming. This is my first video of yours Ive seen but I really enjoyed seeing the numbers broken down. Thank you! Ill be looking out for future videos.
Thanks so much for the video. I am glad someone is doing some videos on sustainable agriculture from a business rather then just hobby perspective.
Thanks John, great video. This made me order my first 100 meat birds. thanks for the motivation.
Nice insight. Your video will prove to be a great help once i start my poultry farm. Thank you so much.
can't support these prices in new zealand , i mean big companies are charging around 3 to 4 new zealand dollars a kilo , i have been raising pasture poultry but had to stop completly because of the market that was not favorable for that product yet . of course this is the right way to raise chickens i agree , but how can you compete with tegel or those companies that have a tremendous amount of money and you that have started very small and counting every single penny to try and make it work . i had done my ground work , found customers , everything like you did on this video but at the end of it couldnt make it work or profitable enough . i am not saying that so people dont do it , quite the contrary , go for it ,try if you can make it work that is great ! this is how its suppose to be done ! great work john , you have done well ! it is very nice to see people more and more interested in raising poultry and livestock in general the right way !! keep up the good work !! all the best from a french guy in new zealand !!
I think factory farm chicken prices are the same in the US. You're right, it would be tough to make a lot of money but I think it has more to do with good marketing. If you are producing meat, eggs, vegetables, farm tours, etc... and pitch it to the correct marketing program I suspect you could make money in NZ but I don't know if you could make "enough" to support your personal situation. For me it would be too much WORK! XD
If you live in a hipster area, people are willing to pay a premium for these chickens. I say they're suckers, since non-GMO, organic feed is just marketing BS with no real meaning, but chances are the pastured birds DO taste a bit better, since they have more variety in their diets and are healthier.
Fantastic! Actual numbers and math! Thanks so much!!
I was going to grow some chickens but after seeing how much trouble and the cost …. I said bump it and went to KFC for dinner. I enjoyed the video. Also, we get grade A roasted chicken for $4.99 at Costco.
For those that are going "ahhhh!" at the $6/lb. Have you been in the grocery store lately? This is not that far above and sometimes UNDER Tyson chicken raised under much less ideal conditions. If a family is conscientious about how they use a bird it can feed the whole family for at least one meal. How much did your last take out meal cost your family? If you are in a high COL area like his it's probably about the same amount.
Costco is less than $2.50 per lb for organic whole chicken retail. No idea how this farmer finds a market for chicken that expensive. Perhaps they are retailing it themselves.
@@jonathancover4658 Yes, they market it themselves. And that organic label at the grocery store is useless. The USDA organic program allows many practices and pesticides that people would object to if they knew what was going on.
Nice John, it was a question I had so am pleased you covered it in such detail. Of course there should also be an allowance for incidentals ie everything has a finite life and wears out/needs maintenance and that wasn't covered at all. It's one of the more tricky ones to calculate, and where so many businesses get in to trouble by not allowing for it, but notwithstanding that you provided a good start point. Thanks.
Thanks for sharing! Be well and safe everyone!
Awesome information that's very nice to see this here for us people out there to understand.
I wouldn't mind taking one of them burning their little rear ends up on my stove.
With trimmings of course!
very good video I know it's old but love it. I am getting chickens next month my.family and.I. I hope to be starting videos soon of how well the chickens do! and our pigs. thanks John your amazing.
You're very welcome Stephanie. That video isn't that old. The numbers in that video are what I used to create my 2017 budget. The numbers vary a little year to year but in general that is a good guideline.
John Suscovich:-) Nice. cool I guess I misunderstood.. anyways really love watching you. your smart and educated and very very good looking too! love farm guys! 💖💖💖💖💖
I'm glad you wrote all this up, but I'd like to point out that you don't have any numbers for the cost of acquiring the land, cost of the equipment (and its depreciation and maintenance) or taxes.
Thanks for this helpful breakdown! I'm looking into slowly working my way into pastured poultry on my families forest land (So forest poultry?) and seeing the cost breakdown is really helpful!
Hatching your own chicks is an obvious step to improve profitability. Chickens are very easy to incubate & hatch although a large incubator & hatcher with the divided room will set you back a few bucks. You would need breeding stock or a supply of cheap fertile eggs.
Im hooked, I love your videos pal. Im looking to start my own farm soon, thanks for the knowledge !
Wow that was a really great break down. Thanks a lot for the information :)
So average just a hair under $30 for a whole bird at retail. I don't know if my area can support those prices.
Mate2Frio I know my area will not. I get 15-20 per bird.
see when people buy chicken from my family, the want the "colin mitchell raise poultry" and John has his own niche where people are looking for HIS ethics, His enthusiasm for sustainability, and HIS birds. People will pay a premium if they are into this kind of stuff. We always have more orders then we have birds to fill those orders.
Mate2Frio And Bryan says 15 to 20 dollars a bird. I got to get to Wegmans a high end grocery store and see what their highest price for an organic bird . I can't believe 15 dollars for a chicken and I can buy a rotisserie chicken at the same store for 5 dollars ? So I'm not in to saving the planet, supporting the family farmer, GMO or whatever . $18, $27, $ 30 for a whole chicken . I didn't know such a thing existed.
@Colin Mitchell as a consumer I believe you, for example, I happily pay premium prices for pasture and certified humane eggs, and we eat eggs every day so a large amount of $$$ of my grocery budget goes to eggs...and that's also the reason why I only buy the best because eggs are a staple food in our diet I need to make sure my family is consuming the healthiest product, I refuse to buy .99 cents/doz eggs because I am very suspicious of how those poor animals are raised and what they are feed....
I pay $2.59/lb for organic birds at "Fresh Thyme Farmers Market". I would like to buy pasture raised birds, but the price differences are just too significant for me to consider buying these birds.
Very transparent and informative. Ah the joys of reality. Good Job Sus!
I recently started buying as much organic eggs and grass fed organic beef as I can and then just cut the steak in half and have one each week. so 20 dollar organic g.f. steaks gives me 1 steak a week every month. Try to use organic grass feed burgers and pastured whole chicken and make own bone broth for joints. :)
Question: After net expenses, what are costs to market the birds? Is your CSA your sole marketing method for poultry?.Really enjoyed the video. We ordered your chicken tractor book.
Guessing you forgetting some stuff?
Lang, incurrences, administration, startup costs (like buildings, fences, feeders) and maybe more ;)
Nice to see you let the births live an okay/good life!
Holy crap. I use to pay $1.50 a bird. That was processed, wrapped and chilled. It's been a little while but last I heard my guy was now $2 a bird. I use the amish though. Supplement feed with bulk crack corn and talk to local schools about food scraps. It will greatly lower feed costs. Your tractors are freaking awesome. My old ones were flat topped but I'm thinking of going your route when I start up again. Just have 6 meat and about 100 mixed that I will cull the roosters from. Do you front graze your birds with other livestock to knock down the tall grass?
wow how things have changed . when I grew chickens feed was $3 per hundred lbs . I grew them for eggs so I feed laying mash .. but I also know of a guy that paid $3000 for a farm and the talk was how in the hell can you afford that ..so I guess everything is relative .. my hens only cost me 17 cents each over 40 years ago . good video
Wow Ed, things have changed!
It depends on the feed. I was paying about $760 a ton for non-GMO, no corn, no soy broiler feed. You can get conventional broiler feed for about $400-450 a ton. It takes about two tons to do a batch of 250 birds. Going Certified Organic feed would have been about $1,250 a ton.
THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!! This is going to really help as I plan to start a farm this next year. Great info, great detail. Love. It.
This is a great information, being a corporate soul I'm searching for alternatives & poultry was on the list. this is very informative piece, helps me visualize the entire process not just the cost. although I'll have to convert these numbers n figures to my demography.
I'm glad I could be helpful. My goal is to help more people get into farming so if this helps you at least visualize it then I am doing my job.
That was a nice break down of your real costs. I was actually shocked at how expensive it is to bring a chicken to market. Your customers definitely aren't like me. I buy chicken for 2.79 per lb. for breast meat, frozen of course. Does the meat taste a lot better when its pasture grown as opposed to the way the big farms that i essentially buy from through my grocier.?
I would say that without a doubt the chicken that is raised on pasture tastes better. It is also healthier for you. At APPPA.org there is a lot of good information and studies done on the nutritional benefits. As for the taste as you mentioned, I mean, you can dress a chicken up with a lot of spices. Fried chicken is fried chicken. But if you want to do nothing to a bird and get the most flavor, the least effort in the kitchen for the biggest return, the best quality protein you can put in your body, then grass-fed animals are where it is at.
YES! Been waiting for this. Great job John! Inspiring.
Tesco (UK) free range chicken cost £11.95 whereas with these numbers each bird costs £13.95 for a net loss of £2.00 per bird. You could shave some of these costs off if you were to breed your own birds, produce hydro electric, grow some feed yourself and do all the processing yourself I suppose. Interesting vid! Thanks!
excellent John.............. thanks very much
Great video . People need to No what the cost is . Thank you
This is why Feed for chickens Is a huge topic. It can be solved by capturing neighborhood stray dogs and cats and feeding those to the chickens. Thats what my neighbor jimbob does.
This is extremely accurate.
happy new year john .and i need thank you for all information for chickens
Very informational thank you for sharing.
Ps love the rooster at the end
I raised birds in Texas and eight weeks old broilers alive would sell for no more than $8 local. If you processed it they payed the same. With these costs I would have went under. The costs are actually why I stopped raising all poultry. Locally in the south people don't want to pay even what you have in the birds. I raised Cornish Rocks that were very heavy healthy birds also.
I've been waiting for this video, thanks John!
Good vid as usual, keep up the good work. Of you haven't already done so, I'd really like to see a video on the profitability of your pastured pigs.
I like the video. Going organic here isn't worth the extra feed cost. I raise about the same number of birds as you and I get $4.50/lb max. Overall...great job.
Great breakdown on Profit/loss statement.....I love your videos and keep up the great work! Happy Thanksgiving!
I think the key is to be able to get the higher price per pound. My experience was similar to yours on the expense side, but I was only getting $4-$4.50 a pound for non-GMO, soy and corn free pastured broilers which really cuts the margin thin. When I had a bad batch it went negative quick. I usually ran batches of 200 to 300 with about 5% mortality. I did have one batch a sickly birds from a local small hatchery that was horrible. I only processed 67 out of 200.
Paul, what area of the country are you in where you get $4-$4.50/lb? I am looking to start up a small farm in the Chicagoland area and trying to gage.
Devin Goulding I am in the Dallas / Fort Worth Texas area. Unfortunately that seems to be the going rate for whole birds. you can make a bit more selling cut-ups but then you have a lot more inventory issues.
Paul Ewing I live in Dallas I have sold birds at 7$/lb. If you come to the city farmers markets I think you too can get that.
Thanks for showing the numbers! Very informative video.
Use more compost and get rid of the feed and your profit goes up even higher. Start growing your feed on those 52 acers and use compost materials that you create and get for free. Your highest cost of everything on your list was the feed. Do the feed yourself. Just a thought.. :) Congratulations.
Holy crap, seems like the price should be higher. But i love your videos inspries me to look into starting a small veggie/rabbit farm.
Excellent cost breakdown. Well done for including as many costs as you could remember. Are you selling them as Organic? 💭
I don’t call them organic because I am not certified. I do mention that they eat certified organic feed to supplement their diet.
as an agricultural economics graduate and as an accountant i would like to point out that technically you are understating the profit from the standpoint of a homesteader considering whether to raise chickens. the owner/operator of a homestead accrues all the profit to him/her self for his labor. therefore unless he pays for outside labor I would leave labor out so that it shows a more accurate profit number. this would allow the homesteader to see what their true return would be. your analysis shows the profit of your farm to the business entity of the farm which is correct since you have investment partners and paid labor. am I making sense? accounting is a wierd science.
so to restate your numbers from the standpoint of a family farm with no outside labor the return would be gross income $6442- expenses $3315 = net to the owner $3127 or $14 per bird.
so if a homesteader could raise 221 chickens with 78 hours of labor and net $3127 he would be earning $40/hr. not bad in todays market. if he could turn that rate of profit for a standard 2000 hr. work year he would be equating to $80,000 annual income.
Very interesting breakdown. It seems like you had a sudden spike of mortality at the end that you never mentioned in your other videos so it'll be interesting to see what that was about.
In my area the typical price is $4/lb so your next video about marketing will be helpful to see how you can command such a good price for your birds.What do you think your cost savings is by having birds on pasture vs having them raised in barn?
Another Great video! Thanks John!
Something I noticed is that in the labor costs you included yourself. IMO, since the business owner is entitled to the fruits of his efforts, his portion is the net from the business operation. But of course this is just my view of business.
May be a dumb question but I don’t know the answer so... when raising meat birds does it matter if you use male or female birds? I just got your chicken tractor book and love your design, love the idea of having one I can stand up in. I had rabbits in a “traditional design” and hated trying to get into it for various things
I pay $7/dozen for eggs that are organic & pasture raised. Initially I had a really tough time paying that when the eggs right next to it are $2/dozen for conventional & $3.25/dozen for organic. But once you taste the difference and see how creamy the yolks are to the finish and how gelatenous the whites are, I'm never going back to conventional eggs. Organic eggs are decent but they can't compare to the organic pasture raised ones.
- I grew up around my families ranches. We weren't rich. The only way any of my relatives made disposable income if they raised racehorses or cattle for rodeos/grassfed meats. You have to love farming to produce organic, free range poultry & eggs. Not just be a stereotypical "greedy" farmer. It's a way of life some families choose and they should be paid fairly.
Exactly farming can make you be financially stable and rich if you take it seriously
Sorry to say he gave a vaccine not organic at that point.
Thanks for sharing. Glad you can make on your enterprise. However, it will only work where there is a market for such a specialty product, plus quality feed and processing may not be available everywhere.
job well done John..try to minimise the unnecessary expenditure like the electricity which you can subsidise with solar energy/biogas .grow your own feeds..thank you for the breakdown altogether
Please provide plans for biogas