The typical meat chicken is a hybrid (32 levels deep in hybridization) between Cornish and Rock, also called a Cornish Rock, or a Cornish Cross. Chicks by mail from Murray McMurray hatchery cost $2.25 each when you buy 25-49 chicks in a straight run, which is a mixture of males and females. These birds gain weight fast! In 6-8 weeks, you can butcher them as fryers and get 3-4# dressed weight from them. That means they gained about 6-8# live weight in 6 weeks. Amazing! We're shooting for 600# of meat for the year (we have a big family!) so we'll need 150 chickens to do this; again this is assuming a full 4# dressed weight and no mortality. In those 6-8 weeks, they will also eat an amazing amount of food. One fellow blogger estimates 3# chick starter plus 21# chick grower. We don't want *icides in our feed, so we buy organic feed at $0.60/lb so this adds up to $14.40. We plan to put our chickens on pasture, which will replace 25% of their feed, so our feed cost is down to $10.80. If we're optimistic and have no mortality (ha!), our cost of feed plus chicks is $13.05 per bird, or a total of $1957 per year; if we are optimistic and get the full 4# dressed weight from these birds, our cost is $3.26/lb. Wait, we haven't included the cost of the equipment yet. We can do this is three batches of 50 birds each or 6 batches of 25 birds each. For economy of labor, the 3 batches of 50 birds sounds better. We can get all 50 birds in a 10x10 pasture pen, so we only need one of those, and we estimate it will cost $300 between caging material, watering system, and feeder. To process this many birds at once, there is no way I or my family will pluck by hand or manually keep scalding water to the right temperature, so a plucker and scalder are needed. We already have the freezer. The plucker from Premier 1 costs $1060 and the scalder costs $1390. 2 kill cones should be sufficient, at $30 each. We have knives and a processing table already. Total one-time equipment cost comes to $2780. If we split this cost between all the birds for the year, we're looking at an additional $18.53 per bird. Total cost for our family (equipment, chicks, and organic feed) would be $4737.50. Again, if we're optimistic and have no mortality and a full 4# dress weight per bird, this will cost us $7.89 per pound plus labor. The second year, we pay only $1957 for the chicks and feed, or $3.26/lb.
Switch gears with me. Let's take a look at rabbits instead. Instead of buying baby animals every year, we keep the moms and dads around and breed them ourselves. This costs us extra money to feed the parents, but then there we get baby bunnies out of the deal, so they pay for themselves. The kits (baby bunnies) are weaned at 6 weeks, and grow out to 12-14 weeks on grass alone, which means no feed costs. We feed the rabbits organic feed, as well, in the form of sprouted organic wheat (grown 7 days into a nice green grass). Bucks eat 2# fodder per day, or 730# per year. Does eat 2# fodder daily while they are not nursing, and up to 6# fodder daily during the 6 weeks when nursing. We breed three times per year and give them a break in the winter, so the does require 18*6 + 36*2 = 1260# fodder per year. The kits dress out at 2.5# each in 12-14 weeks, and we aren't concerned about how it takes to get to slaughter weight since the feed is free. To get the same 600# of meat, we need to produce 240 kits. Each doe can produce 8 kits per litter on average, so we need 10 does to produce this much meat. So we need 2*730 + 10*1260 = 14060# fodder per year. To produce 1# fodder, it takes 1oz organic wheat, which costs $0.36/#. So to produce all our fodder for a year takes 14060/16 = 879# organic wheat, which costs $317. The equipment to house 2 bucks and 10 does year round, plus 10 litters in separate pasture pens is estimated at $2,500. Processing equipment is a little more reasonable since a plucker and scalder are not needed. I use a processing station that I describe in another blog post, which cost me $10. So our total cost the first year is 2500+10+317 = $2,827, or $4.71/lb. The second year, we only pay $317 for feed, or $0.53/lb. Note that the second year, I'm my feed cost is a sixth the cost of chicken feed.
Here's a summary:
| 150 Chicken | 240 Rabbit | |
|---|---|---|
| Capital - caging, brooder, watering | $300.00 | $2500.00 |
| Capital - processing | $2450.00 | $10.00 |
| TOTAL Capital | $2750.00 | $2510.00 |
| Operating - chicks | $337.50 | $0.00 |
| Operating - organic feed | $1620.00 | $317.00 |
| TOTAL Operating | $1957.50 | $317.00 |
| TOTAL First Year | $4737.50 | $2827.00 |
| TOTAL Second Year | $1957.50 | $317.00 |
| First year cost per pound | $7.89/lb | $4.71/lb |
| Second year cost per pound | $3.26/lb | $0.53/lb |
So regardless of whether you look at this from a start-up cost perspective or a operating cost perspective, rabbit meat appears to be significantly lower cost. We also have been optimistic in both of our analysis. In reality, it is highly unlikely that there will be no mortality with chickens or rabbits. However, in our experience with rabbits and seeing friends raise Cornish Cross meat chickens, the mortality rates in the chickens seem to be much higher. It is equally unlikely that all the chickens will reach slaughter weight in 6 weeks, while rabbits can always reach slaughter weight since we aren't concerned if it takes them an extra 2 or more weeks to do so on free grass.
Now, back to my conclusion that we're still planning to produce meat chickens next year. The fact is, we like the taste of chicken just as much as rabbit, and we like variety. If we do smaller batches of birds, and possibly limit it to one batch per year, we could probably eliminate the cost of the scalder and plucker, or find some DIY projects like the Whizbang Chicken Plucker. We're also going to experiment with feeding the chickens some sprouted grain fodder to replace some (if not all) of the organic chick starter and grower feed. We are skeptical that we can replace all of it; our laying hens currently like the fodder, but really prefer the grains to the sprouts and they mostly ignore the root mat. I'll try to post again in a year with the actual results and I'll include actual mortality rates and recorded dressed weights of both types of animals.
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