Re: Chicken/Advice
Posted by: dhaley <dhaley@...>
I too had excellent survival rate from McMurray in the past. However, the
person that advised you to buy your birds from an auction gave you a good
suggestion as well.
A few years ago an Amish friend of mine and I decided to try an experiment.
This has been about 4 years go but I don't think the pricing should have
changed dramatically. She kept track of her expenses and I did too. We
tracked the chick starter, laying mash, initial costs of birds, etc. We had
a local Amish auction where pullets that had just begun to lay were sold
each Spring and Fall. We were trying to figure out if it really "paid" to
raise pullets to sell at the auction. We were always amazed that they would
sell for$5-$8 a piece (roosters going the higher price). We thought these
guys were making a mint by raising hens! We did an early spring batch for
our price tracking. Our plan was to go together and order a big batch of
chicks in the fall and we'd raise them for the Spring auction. The hens
usually sold for $6-8 at the Spring auction...we had high hopes (a bit less
at the Fall auction).
However, after tracking all that'd we'd spent (this did not include our
time), we discovered that we had around $5-6 into the hens by the time they
were 5-6 months old. I had almost $6 into them (she had more chicks than I
so her costs were less overall). Needless to say it was more cost and time
effective for me to buy new laying pullets than to raise them from chicks.
I'm sure others have stories of raising them more cheaply but this was our
experience....Deanna