We went through 8 1/2 bags of feed which brings it to 425 lbs of feed for 25 Freedom Rangers feed up to their 10 week old hatch dates. They were 10 weeks exactly on the day of processing. They were fed the Purina grower throughout their life along with some free ranging the last few weeks before processing. Trust me when I say, they STILL ate a lot of feed even though they were eating grass too. A 50 # bag of Purina grower is 12.59 per bag so that totals up to right around 109.00 and the cost of processing was right at 102.00 4 bags of pine shavings 4.59 for 3 cubic feet of shavings. we did lose one bird on the way to the processing plant so that throws off our totals by just a few bucks. But below you will find the totals for all 24 remaining birds.
55.00 Price of chicks Ordered from JMHatchery
+109.00 Feed
+102.00 Processing (1/2 of them quartered 1/2 of them eighted)
+ 18.36 Pine Shavings
+ 20.00 Heat lamp use
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314.36 TOTAL COST
Amount of actual meat we brought home was 87 lbs (bones in of course). So....
314.36 total cost
/ 24 birds
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= 3.61 per pound which isn't bad considering these are chemical free and pretty close to organic
13.10 per bird is what we paid to raise them and feed them and process them.
Give me your thought on this if YOU raised meat chickens.
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Thanks for the information! I was wondering how much feed I might need for my new Freedom Rangers. I learned a lot by reading. Thanks again!
ReplyDeleteGreat information. This is will be our first time raising meat birds. Learned alot. Now I know how much feed to order. Do you suppose a 12X12 modified horse stall will make a sufficient house for 50 chickens? I'm constructing a 2 to 3 foot high wire tunnel about 20 feet long of sorts that will connect the hen house to the upper field. Do you think the rangers will use it? Ours are coming March 26, 2010. Should be fun..Janet
ReplyDeleteHi, I too found this information very helpful. I didn't keep quite as good of records as you but I raised 25 FR also. I lost count of the bags of feed but they have been eating about 1/2 pound per bird since about 5 weeks.
ReplyDelete26 arrived, 1 died @ 10 days, 1 blew away in a windstorm, possum ate one, both of those at about a month old. Processed 3 @ 6 1/2 weeks 3lb 1oz average.
5 @ 8 weeks 4 lb avg.. 5 @ 9 weeks 4 lb. 12 oz. avg.(all roosters) They are just over 10 weeks now, I have 1 cockerel and 9 pullets left. I'll process 5 this week and the other 5 at 12 or 13 weeks.
I fed 24% protein flock raiser till 7 weeks and switched to 15% finisher to slow them down. I may have pushed them a little too much one of the 8 week olds had just gone lame.
Next time I'll probably try for something between 20 and 22%.
They were in a field pen from 4 weeks, they stripped it bare and I moved them to a new field pen at 9 weeks. The field pens are over my raised garden beds with a cover crop of wheat, oats, field peas, winter vetch, buckwheat and clover.