2018 Meat Birds - By The Numbers

Each year when we raise Cornish Cross Meat Birds, we track expenses and other data that helps us to better manage the process and get better each year.  We've learned, however, that there are many variables that are out of our control.  We like to find areas of improvement and I find that looking at trends and historical comparisons interesting.

Here are the numbers we compiled for the 2018 meat birds:

Date Received:		3/2/2018
Date of Slaughter:		4/30/2018
Days old at slaughter:		61
Weeks old at slaughter:		8.7

It still amazes me how fast these birds grow.  In 61 days they gained 6 pounds.  They went from a fuzzy yellow ball to a monstrous meat bird.

Ordered	60
Received	63
Mortality	12	19.05%
Butchered	51

We received more than we ordered and this is typical.  The hatcheries throw in a few extra to make up for a few that inevitably die during transit.  We ended up losing 12 birds.  A 19% mortality rate was troubling.  When they arrived they appeared healthy.  However, a few days later they started dying.  When this happened previously, adding apple cider vinegar to the water seemed to help.  We really don't know what caused them to die.  They didn't get "pasty-butt" like the last ones.  All I can figure is that these were flown in all the way from Missouri.  Perhaps they arrived in a weakened state and began dying a few days later?

The birds cost $2.75 a piece.  Truly expensive, but not as expensive as the feed.  We fed them 15 fifty pound sacks of feed.  You can see why if you are going to have birds die, it is best for them to die before they've eaten a lot of feed!  Our chicken tractor is almost depreciated out.  The rest of the supplies costs are nominal.  The total cost of the project was $495.57 or $9.72 per bird.

As we always say, it is cheaper (and certainly easier) to purchase your birds at the grocery store.  Why do we do it?  Well, we know the birds never got antibiotics or other medicines.  We know the birds lived outdoors for much of their short 8 week life.  We know the cleanliness of the slaughtering process.  We feel better about raising and processing our own food.

                                             2017                                  2018
Cost per bird:                       $9.52                                 $9.72

Cost per pound:                   $2.12                                   $2.22

Feed consumed per bird:   18.56 lbs                             14.71 lbs                                                                                                             

Feed cost per bird:               $5.32                                   $4.45

Feed cost per pound:           $0.29                                   $0.30

Total pounds Cornish Cross Carcass whole:           222.87 pounds 
Average pounds per bird:                                            4.37 pounds

Last year our cost per bird was $9.52 - a little bit lower.  We butchered our 2018 a full week earlier than last year, so that was good.  We also have 51 birds in the freezer that we'll eat over the next year.  That is a very good thing!

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