The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Poultry & Waterfowl => Topic started by: BPowell on May 23, 2015, 07:49:57 pm
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What kind of money is involved in being a commercial chicken producer for a company like Perdue or Tyson? How much does it cost to put up the houses and get started? How hard is it to get started? Just wondering if a good living can be made by running chicken houses. Any info would be great.
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Very hard try 50 birds from chicks sext cost of feed etc ,I naw sell 3 or 4 weeks old £3 or 4 pound no fuss legbars marrans etc and don't go threw the winter whith stock . 25 to 50 hens could cost £300 to keep november till march no income heat lamps £2 a day for 2, 2 pens 25 chicks in each pen
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Very hard try 50 birds from chicks sext cost of feed etc ,I naw sell 3 or 4 weeks old £3 or 4 pound no fuss legbars marrans etc and don't go threw the winter whith stock . 25 to 50 hens could cost £300 to keep november till march no income heat lamps £2 a day for 2, 2 pens 25 chicks in each pen
I'm talking about commercial poultry farming with 40x500 houses, not a backyard hobby.
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I think it likely that these large Companies started on the scale of Victorian Farmer (keeping a careful eye on the economics) back in the 1950's and after decades of re-investment have grown to the size they are today BPowell. If that is the case there isn't a simple answer to your question.
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Very hard try 50 birds from chicks sext cost of feed etc ,I naw sell 3 or 4 weeks old £3 or 4 pound no fuss legbars marrans etc and don't go threw the winter whith stock . 25 to 50 hens could cost £300 to keep november till march no income heat lamps £2 a day for 2, 2 pens 25 chicks in each pen
I'm talking about commercial poultry farming with 40x500 houses, not a backyard hobby.
maybe try a forum thats not a smallholding one then.
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I'm talking about commercial poultry farming with 40x500 houses, not a backyard hobby.
Around £300,000 for one house which holds 30,000 broilers
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I'm talking about commercial poultry farming with 40x500 houses, not a backyard hobby.
Around £300,000 for one house which holds 30,000 broilers
That's what I'm looking for, thanks!
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CRIKEY!!!! :o
How many smallholders have that sort of money?
Mind you, how many smallholders want that many birds?
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Or to keep them intensively :(
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Sorry, didn't realize this was just a hobby forum. Just a bunch of wannabes on here acting like they actually know something about chicken farming. Forgive me poor boys.
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I'll also forgive you for your obvious inability to read. The name of the website is 'The Accidental Smallholder'. Don't worry, it sounds like your going to go far playing with the 'big boys'. ::)
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It's a shame that someone has to be so misguided as to enter our forum with such banal queries on large scale commercial poultry farming and deface it with a short volley of juvenile comments. Perhaps if this person knew what they were doing with their own operation, they would not be seeking counsel here in the first place?!
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Worth pointing out that in the world of broiler production 40x500 is tiny. When a commercial vet came to our place to blood sample our little flock of 28 he bought with him three trainees. He explained that they were with him for the day and he was going to show them the extremes of chicken keeping. Their next visit was to a broiler plant that had 200,000 on the site!
So by my calculations, to be competitive with economy of scale, you would need 8 of those houses (one empty being prepared). Add to that the processing facilities (slaughter, packing and freezing), plus the cost of the land and the total investment needed may be around the £4 million mark.
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??? Someone actually likes Mr Powell's abusive post??
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??? Someone actually likes Mr Powell's abusive post??
Nowt so queer as folk.
Nice to see the irony of the mighty commercially-minded BPowell seeking advice from a bunch of hobby-know-nothing-wannabes has been duly recognised. :thumbsup:
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Yes, well said Dan!
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??? Someone actually likes Mr Powell's abusive post??
That was me - I liked it because it amused me.
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I think it was loaded from the start. In the US they call those Tyson sheds 'bankruptcy sheds' I think. You start out with big ideas and then find out you are running a concentration camp, wearing a biohazard suit all day and are at the mercy of a huge corp. to sign you up for another contract or you are going to lose the farm. Lovely. Good luck B Powell. There are plenty of company insolvency forums on the net which you will need in a few years.
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Whilst we ignorant wannabes will still be enjoying our tiny flocks and, hopefully making our tiny profit ;)
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Careful Devonlady. Ignorant, yes. Wannabe? Definitely not! ;D
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True! BPowell is the wannabe, we've done it :thumbsup:
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I see that the H5N2 avian flu presently sweeping through the USA has led to the slaughter of 4 million birds on just two farms in Iowa. That's what you call a large-scale commercial operation. My poor brain aches at trying to imagine the scale of it, let alone what that many carcases looks like. Apparently they restrict light for the first two weeks, so the bird doesn't grow so fast its' frame fails before it can be slaughtered ... at five weeks old. Feed is presented on a moving conveyor belt to keep up its' interest in feeding and the sheds are heated so it doesn't waste energy in keeping warm but puts it all into growing.
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Oh please don't. That's a horror story :(
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I've just read 'Farmageddon' (fantastic book by the way) and aside from the welfare, the sheer scale of the amount of chicken s**t destroying the surrounding environment is just mind boggling. Certainly had an affect on my purchasing choices, that's for sure.
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I've just read 'Farmageddon' (fantastic book by the way) and aside from the welfare, the sheer scale of the amount of chicken s**t destroying the surrounding environment is just mind boggling. Certainly had an affect on my purchasing choices, that's for sure.
Same story with feedlot beef in the US and slurry. 'The Omnivore's Dilemma' was where I read about it, and the lunacy of the US corn industry.
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Just a bunch of wannabes
I'm such I should laugh at this or even sympathise but :furious: :furious: :furious: :furious: :furious: :furious: :furious: :furious: :furious: :furious: :furious: :furious:
Wannabe???? I have wanted this all my life- I live in the middle of nowhere with enough animals to put food on my table and I know they've lived a happy life. How could anyone want more than that?? :rant: :rant: :rant: :rant: :rant: :rant: :rant: :rant: :rant: :rant: :rant: :rant: :rant: :rant: :rant: :rant: :rant:
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How did a very polite smallholding question in the post below get 2 pages of generally impolite and off-topic sarcasm?? Can the moderators step in when this happens to continue to keep this forum a place where anyone can ask an interesting question without being shot down with snide remarks?
What kind of money is involved in being a commercial chicken producer for a company like Perdue or Tyson? How much does it cost to put up the houses and get started? How hard is it to get started? Just wondering if a good living can be made by running chicken houses. Any info would be great.
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How did a very polite smallholding question in the post below get 2 pages of generally impolite and off-topic sarcasm?? Can the moderators step in when this happens to continue to keep this forum a place where anyone can ask an interesting question without being shot down with snide remarks?
So you really missed the fact that the person who posted that initial question is also the one who was so very rude and insulting to those of us were (politely!) answering it?!?
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How did a very polite smallholding question in the post below get 2 pages of generally impolite and off-topic sarcasm?? Can the moderators step in when this happens to continue to keep this forum a place where anyone can ask an interesting question without being shot down with snide remarks?
What kind of money is involved in being a commercial chicken producer for a company like Perdue or Tyson? How much does it cost to put up the houses and get started? How hard is it to get started? Just wondering if a good living can be made by running chicken houses. Any info would be great.
the initial question was fine, the subsequent dismissive and rude post in answer to people who had taken the time to reply was not.
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The OP is a troll no doubt. A sensible conversation could have been had but it was them who decided not to go down that route.
Anyway, while we are on the subject of US avian flu, I am hearing reports that outdoor flocks are not being affected, much to the frustration of the USDA. Not sure how much truth there is in this. Salatin is saying that some British scientists found that exposure to soil and grass makes chickens immune to flu. Dunno. Funny old game. Not.
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Big commercial sheds in the US are often heated so all the feed goes into growing, not into keeping warm. With the ammonia from muck and moisture from breathing from permanently housed birds going into a heated shed you can see why any disease would run through like wildfire.
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me thinks mr i want to be a big chicken farmer needs to do a lot of thinking. we are doing 18 turkeys for christmas. we know to the penny the cost of feed cost of buying eggs. cost of [preparing. to ask a total stranger for a basic costing is dumb. 40 x 50 houses totally uneconomic. imagine building costs [stocking costs and every other cost. and planning consent. feed contract waste removal killing prepping and storing. imagine the number of bits of paper you would need. then free range or not all adds to cost. with out experience your doomed i wont even charge you for saving you 4 million.
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I can remember when we had 52 breeds qual phesents and geese in 2009 winter it came on the 22nd of november by christmas it was over a £1000 in food 4 times a day water then in januarey minus 22 .It was still there in late april no young stock no money for 5 months and a cost of £6000 in feed .The stock wasent worth half that . I think the more you have the harder it is .we have done well 2015 onley becouse iv been selling chicks and eggs .The sheep have Avaraged 2 out of each ewe .
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You have to spread your risk. Those big chicken or pig sheds are death or glory and the line is so fine. I don't want that. I want to find my market and supply it in a way that they and I are happy with. Always open, honest and transparent. I want to be so good that my customer comes to me. I'm not there yet but can see it.
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Mr Powell ( OP) is very quiet don't you think? :innocent:
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Mr Powell ( OP) is very quiet don't you think? :innocent:
OP is no longer with us (in the sense of access to the forum).
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Oh dear! Was it something we said? ;)
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Apparently they restrict light for the first two weeks, so the bird doesn't grow so fast its' frame fails before it can be slaughtered ... at five weeks old. Feed is presented on a moving conveyor belt to keep up its' interest in feeding and the sheds are heated so it doesn't waste energy in keeping warm but puts it all into growing.
Don't understand restricting the lighting, that wouldn't slow their growth.
Feeding with mechanical systems is a must on large scale farms, it's what we do here in the UK too.
Would you not heat a shed if you were keeping chicks under 5 weeks old in it?