We decided this summer that we were going to do a flock of meat chickens in the spring. We've been switching to a more organic diet and in order to afford this on a single income that means getting creative. A back yard flock seemed like a good way to start saving in the meat department, since an organic chicken is about $12-15 in the store! Yikes! In addition to harvesting chickens, we also hope to harvest a deer or two this fall (instead of eating beef) and are purchasing half a hog from a local farmer. We split half a hog last year with friends who have some connections and it was some of the most delicious meat we've ever put in our mouth! So we're definitely going back for more again this year!
Since Tractor Supply had some Fall chicks, we discussed it and decided to do a small flock this Fall to get our feet wet with all the different aspects of meat chickens. Most of you know we have 8 egg layers, but meat chickens are similar but different. We were planning on a flock of 30 this spring so we decided to do about 15... Which grew to 17ish when we did some research and found out how dumb they tend to be and we would likely lose a few to stupidity (theirs and ours). We didn't figure less than 15 in the freezer would even be worth our time.
So off we trekked to TSC to purchase our Cornish chicks! Upon entering the store, the boys announced we were there for chickens, this made the manager VERY happy. When we asked if they still had some, he replied "Yes! And I'm going to sell you all of them!". Once we get to the back, they had 25 Cornish chicks and he said if we took all of them we could have them for $1/each...50% off and cheaper than 15. How could we say no? We grabbed the other things we would need as well- lamp, heat bulb, feeder, waterer, feed, pine shavings, etc and headed home! Grand total of $75 (some of which can be reused next time)... We went back a few days later for a bigger waterer since the small one was being refilled 3 time's a day... Making our start up cost$80 total.
We're using our large Amazon subscribe and save box as a brooder for now. I'm guessing they will be outgrowing that soon and we may need to figure something else out, but it's working well. We're cleaning it out once a day and feeding twice and watering... Hopefully once or twice a day with the new waterer. So I would say about 15 mins a day of work the first week... And a mild odor in the basement.
So that's week one... Hoping to do weekly updates until slaughter on how we're all doing and to help me keep up with costs. Besides feed cost we are building a coop and possibly making a plucker... I've been watching a lot of you tube videos and with 25 chickens a plucker seems necessary, but we'll see. Hoping to borrow or buy a turkey fryer to scald with and either a vacuum food sealer or shrink bags to protect the meat.
Anyway, I'll keep you updated on weekly expenses to see how cost effective this project turns out to be. We are thinking that we might build and sell a coop with each flock to help offset that expense and actually pay for the whole enterprise. If we make a nice plucker we could probably rent it out to other people to help offset that cost as well. Trying to make this thing as economical as we possibly can!
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