All the meat chickens are in the fridge/freezer, and I have done up my numbers (cost, poundage, etc) to share. (Sorry for the formatting stuff, it looks fine in the edit screen, but obviously not so fine when it’s live.)
In March we purchased 4 Rhode Island Red day-olds and 2 Americauna day-olds. So the costs for the heating lamp, feeder, and waterer belong to those chicks. We also purchased 25 Cornish Rock cross day-olds, and the additional feeders to support those.
Cornish Rock chicks 25 $1.49 $37.25
RIR chicks 4 $2.49 $9.96
Ameraucana chicks 2 $2.99 $5.98
. $53.19 Cost of chicks
PRODUCT COST cornish-only?
Waterer $4.99
Feeder $8.99
Sav-a-chick powder $2.99
Heat lamp $20.00
white feeders $1.98 $1.98
Emergen-C $4.00 $4.00
Electricity ?
Water ?
. $42.95 Product costs for laying chicks
. $5.98 Product costs for Cornish alone
Deaths in the first week included 1 RIR, 1 Americauna, and 4 Cornish, bringing my total to 25 birds. For the 9 weeks I grew the Cornish, I spent $170.71 on feed.
FOOD TYPE WEIGHT COST
Chick Starter 18% 50 $15.99
Chick Starter 18% 50 $15.99
Flock Raiser 20% 50 $21.20
Meat Chicken 22% 40 $14.51
Meat Chicken 22% 40 $14.51
Meat Chicken 22% 40 $14.51
Meat Chicken 22% 40 $14.51
Meat Chicken 22% 40 $14.51
. 350 $125.73 $0.359 per pound of food at 8 weeks
Organic 20% 40 $22.49
Organic 20% 40 $22.49
. 430 170.71 $0.397 per pound of food at 9 weeks
The chickens were butchered over a four day period, but the days were not consecutive. Two chickens weren’t done until they were 10.5 weeks. Carcass weight includes bones, I took all the chickens down to plucked or skinned whole birds.
Date Processed Live Weight Carcass Weight H/R (Hen or Roo)
5/16/2012 5.33 4.00 H
5/16/2012 5.33 4.25 H
5/16/2012 5.33 4.00 H
5/16/2012 8.00 5.50 H
5/18/2012 6.00 4.50 H
5/18/2012 6.00 4.50 H
5/18/2012 7.00 5.00 H
5/18/2012 5.50 4.00 H
5/18/2012 7.50 5.50 H
5/18/2012 9.00 6.00 R
5/18/2012 8.00 5.00 H
5/18/2012 6.00 4.50 H
5/26/2012 7.00 5.00 R
5/26/2012 7.50 5.00 R
5/26/2012 9.00 5.50 R
5/26/2012 10.00 6.00 R
5/26/2012 8.00 5.25 R
5/26/2012 7.00 4.75 R
5/26/2012 6.00 4.50 R
5/29/2012 9.00 5.50 H
5/29/2012 7.50 5.00 H
. TOTALS 149.99lb 103.25 lb
(Plus approximately 12 lbs of giblets and feet, which I did not include in these weights or in the cost analysis)
So for the analysis:
CORNISH CHICKS $37.25
MISC $5.98
FEED $170.71
. $213.94 TOTAL COST FOR 21 CORNISH TO 9 WEEKS
$213.94 Cornish costs
103.25 Total carcass weight
. $2.07 COST PER POUND FOR WHOLE BIRDS IN FREEZER
I am quite satisfied with that. (I could have been more exact with assigning the cost of feed, but I did what I could. In my extimate, my laying chicks have cost $10.67 apiece to date.) I expect to do meat chickens again in the future, but only after I find a source for bulk food that costs less. But for happy, healthy, back yard meat chickens that were finished on organic food, I am accepting of $2 per pound. The meat is more tender than store-bought, and it has more flavor. Even my husband noticed and agreed with that. But I need the cost to come down if I am going to do this regularly. All in all I’m pleased with this experiment.
Have any of you raised chickens for meat? Do you think it’s best to raise your own when you can? What were your results?
Ranting About Rectangles 
Did you butcher your birds yourself?
Yes. Butcher, pluck or skin, and eviscerate. That’s why the dates were spread out so much, I can only do 8-10 in a day comfortably, mostly because I need more finger strength. If you have any questions about the process, I’d be happy to answer them.
Nice cost analysis. I have never tracked it to that point yet. If you are paying about $22 for 40# of organic feed, that is not a bad price. We spend almost $80 for 200# so it is just about $20 for 50#.
DrJeff7
http://www.heritagebreedsfarm.com
I did some quick math (hope it was correct!) and if I had gotten feed at your price instead of mine, it would have reduced my final meat cost to $2.02 per pound – 5 cents per pound cheaper. Not much, but not miniscule either. It’s something I’ll have to pay attention to if the price for chicken food increases, too. A little change in feed price trickles straight through to a change in per-pound of meat cost.
Yeah every little bit helps. I have never figured it out, as we are doing chickens for eggs right now. We sell for $2 a dozen and I am sure it costs us close to that in production costs. I am not too worried about it right now as we get great nutritious eggs and can sell the extras.
http://heritagebreedsfarm.com