Reasons Why Chicken Farming is Profitable

Can organic chicken farming for a small farm be profitable and can you make a living raising pastured poultry on a large scale? You want to farm with chickens but are not sure if Chicken Farming is a Profitable Business. We made a breakdown on Reasons Why Chicken Farming is Profitable

You have land available and are ready to farm. Chickens are always a topic for new farmers, but how profitable is chicken farming really? We take a look at the pros and cons of chicken farming – and Is Chicken Farming Profitable and why?

Organic chicken farming or free range farming is a great addition to a profitable small scale farming business. Raising meat birds and layers organically is not only animal friendly but is good for the earth and totally opposite from mass produced caged or intensive chicken farming.

6 Reasons Chicken Farming is Profitable

• Broilers or Meat Birds has a quick turnaround which means a quick return on investment
• Meat chickens do not require a lot of space even to feed on pasture
• Broiler farming is very time efficient you need about 30 minutes to feed a flock of 500. This reduce labour cost.
• Free rang chickens is a premium product that can increase profit margins
• Layer Birds can provide income for more than a year
• More than one batch can be grown at a time

Small Scale or backyard chicken farming.

When you decide that you want to farm with chickens there are about 4 methods that you can use.

• Farming for Meat
• Farming for Layers
• Farming to resell layers
• Farming to sell day old chicks.

Yes there are many more categories on Chicken farming, but we will cover these 4 methods.

How profitable is Farming with Broilers Chickens

Broiler or meat chickens are very profitable if done correctly. Very profitable does not mean easy or fast, although you see your fastest return of investment in broilers.

Ross broilers are very popular for their fast growth and tasty meat but are more vulnerable to sickness. They grow from a 1 day old chick to a fully grown 2.8 kg chicken in just 6 weeks. You don’t have to grow them that big, but if you decide to sell them as live chickens you want that weight.

Market prices for chickens are always good and if you have done your homework you can sell broilers fast. You can sell broilers that you have slaughtered at an accredited abattoir to friends and family and if you are lucky enough to retailers. Provided that you supply quality meat retailers will often give you a fair change.

Remember when you do your business plan to include nominal items such as packaging, fuel, water and wages.

In SA broiler chicks prices range from R8 to R10 depending on province and availability.

Growing a broiler will roughly cost you R30 ,excluding water and wages

So let’s look at the breakdown of Broilers

• Buying Day Old Chicks R8
• Feed for a 6 week Cycle up to 2.8kg R30
• Selling live chickens or per kg R70
• That gives you a gross profit of R32 per chicken

To answer the question: How profitable is Broiler Farming we will give it 8/10

Farming with Layers

Layers takes much longer to see a return of investment and there is a lot of risk on the road to success. In most cases larger companies will buy layers a month before they are ready to lay eggs. This reduces the income stream time significantly but is a much more expensive route to follow. The logic behind this method is that larger egg companies has clients with needs and cannot wait 8 months for you to get back into production.

Once you have done market analyses for your layers and you have your clients lined up, Layer farming can be extremely profitable regardless if you are doing free rang or intensive farming.

How profitable is Farming with Layers Chickens?

Buying a layer chicken one month before it is ready to produce eggs will cost you on average R73. If you work sufficient and according to the book your feed should cost you roughly R0.54 per day.

A decent layer should give you at least 300 eggs per year. At current free range prices of R560 per box or R1.55 that is way up there to give you a decent return for your investment. (I am sorry, but I do not know the price of intense farmed eggs)

So let’s look at the breakdown of Layers

• Buying a Layer Chicken R73
• Feed per year R197
• Selling Eggs per Year 300 x R1.55 = R465
• Gross Profit per Chicken R195

To answer the question: How profitable is Chicken Layer Farming we will give it 9/10

So in conclusion, chicken farming is a very profitable business and if you have space or the facility, why not start farming

In the next chapter we will discuss how profitable is:

• Farming to resell layers
• Farming to sell day old chicks.

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