2020 Meat Birds - By the Numbers

I promised to finish up on our segment of butchering our meat birds by giving a little recap of our costs and other figures we always track every year.

Ordered      50
Received    50
Mortality     3  (6% mortality rate)
Butchered  47

Date Mailed                3/23/2020
Date of Slaughter       5/16/2020
Days old @ slaughter             56
Weeks old @ slaughter            8

For comparative purposes, our Total Costs last year on 47 birds were $443.24, yielding a cost per bird of $9.43.  Much better this year!  Last year we fed 16 bags of feed.  This year we fed only 14.5.  Much better conversion of feed to meat as last year each bird consumed 17 pounds of feed and this year each bird consumed only 15.4 pounds of feed.

2020
Total pounds Cornish Cross Carcass whole            230.40 lbs.
Average pounds per bird                                              4.9  lbs.
Cost per pound                                                           $1.60

For comparative purposes, here are the numbers from 2019:
Total pounds Cornish Cross Carcass whole            193.10 lbs.
Average pounds per bird                                              4.11  lbs.
Cost per pound                                                           $2.30

On the same # of birds (47), we produced 37.3 pounds more of meat in 2020 over 2019.  Our cost per pound was $0.70 per pound cheaper in 2020 over 2019.

Overall one of our best years and I attribute it to two things:
#1   Purchasing the birds later in the year.  (2019 we got them on 2/28.  2020 on 3/23)  Getting them later meant that the birds were warmer.  Their calories were not expended keeping warm, but in growing.
#2   We put them on grass from day 1.  They were able to scratch and do "chicken things" like eat grass, bugs, and worms to supplement the feed we kept in front of them.

2019 Egg Production By the Numbers

Last week we summarized cumulative rainfall totals for 2019 that fell at our little farm three miles north of Jennings, Louisiana.  We also do the same thing with egg production.  For seven years we've written down the numbers of eggs we pick up each day.  First, it was Russ' job and then Benjamin's to gather eggs and record daily production. Now, we're experiencing the empty nest syndrome (pardon the pun), since it is just Tricia and me at the house, we gather eggs and record egg production daily.

So let's take a quick look at monthly and yearly egg production compiled since 2013:

Although we haven't counted the number of chickens in a few years, Tricia and I estimate that we have around 90 laying hens.  The number of hens we have vary over the years and that is one of the variables regarding the number of eggs we pick up.  We haven't added any new pullets to the flock in several years, resulting in the age of our flock becoming older and that results in fewer eggs.  We've lost a few hens to predators and old age, too.

As far as trends go, you can see that, once again, April is the best month for egg production on our farm.  The weather is nice - not too cool and not too hot.  Comfortable, non-stressed chickens lay more eggs.  There is also fresh, green vegetation growing in April and that yields more eggs as nutrition in better.  December is, once again, the poorest month for egg production.  Shorter days and a lack of fresh green vegetation diminishes the eggs we collect.  To alleviate this, we could leave lights on in the hen house and get more eggs, but we've decided against that.

In 2019 we picked up 8,446 eggs or 703.83 dozens.  Since we've been raising hens, we have gathered 64,422 eggs or 5,368.50 dozens.  That's a lot of eggs!  What do we do with all of them?  Well, we eat a bunch of them, we sell a bunch of them, and we give a bunch of them away.  They are delicious and nutritious.

Here is a summary of 2019 Egg Production by month:

The last thing is kind of interesting.  We have 90 hens.  They lay almost 94 eggs per bird per year.  We collect, on average, almost two dozen eggs per day.  The hens lay 0.26 eggs per day or put another way, the hens lay an egg every 3.89 days.  All these egg production numbers were skewed low this year as we did not count all the eggs that were broken by the egg eating chicken.  January 2020 egg production numbers are already markedly higher since we put her in the freezer.

2019 Meat Birds - By the Numbers

I promised I would post this tonight after work and so here goes:  Here is the scoreboard of the 10th Annual Cornish Cross Meat Bird Extravaganza!

Tricia is a great statistician, keeping accurate records year by year so that we can determine what's working and what is not.  Some things are within your control, and some are not.  Let's look first at the bird's ages.  Here is 2019 birds:

And here are 2018 birds:

The birds were one day younger this year than in 2018.  From a cost standpoint, the quicker you butcher them, the less you have to feed them.  Feed, as we look at next, is your biggest cost component.  We buy feed by the 50 lb sack.  If you do this on a large scale, you can cut feed costs by buying in bulk.  We are small-scale.  If you feed them organic feed only, you really drive up costs.  We are not organic, but we use non-medicated feed.  We may try organic feed next year.  Every year we look at it, but the cost drives us away.  We do stay away from medicated feeds, though.

Here is a tally of ordered birds for 2019:

And here are the numbers for 2018:

Big difference is the mortality rate.  We ordered 10 less birds this year and ended up butchering almost the same number of birds due to a lower mortality rate.  We only lost 4 this year compared with 12 last year.  This can be hard to analyze.  Sometimes the birds are weak from shipping.  That is outside of your control.  Sometimes, though, we lose birds we shouldn't due to poor placement of heat lamps, causing the birds to pile up and smother weaker ones.  That is human error and controllable.  In fact, 2 of the 4 birds we lost this year could have been saved with better management.

Here's a detail of 2019 Costs:

And here is 2018 Costs:

The birds were cheaper this year by $0.42 per chick.  Feed was a little more expensive in 2019, but the birds ate a lot more!  17 pounds of feed per bird consumed in 2019 versus 14.7 pounds of feed per bird in 2018.

Here are the totals in comparison year over year:

We harvested about 200 pounds of chicken that we will eat on for the next year.  Our average pound per bird was a little lower than last year, but not significantly.

The biggest metric is cost per bird.  Our all-in cost (minus our labor) was $9.43 per bird in 2019 versus $9.72 per bird in 2018.  So here is where the rubber meets the road.  At our local Piggly Wiggly, whole cut up chickens sell for $2.29 per pound.  In raising our birds, our cost of $9.43 per bird divided by our average weight of 4.11 pounds per bird gives a cost per pound of $2.29.  Exactly the same!!

However, in purchasing your cut up chicken from Piggly Wiggly, you just have to drive to the store.  You don't have to feed them everyday for 8 weeks, push the chicken tractor everyday for 8 weeks, or spend an entire Saturday butchering them.  Labor costs, if added to the price per pound, even valued at minimum wage, would make it uneconomical from a pure financial standpoint.

If your goal of raising your own birds is to save money, well, that is a losing proposition.  However, there are other considerations.  We know exactly what went into their feed and bodies.  No hormones, no medications, no antibiotics.  They were treated humanely and raised on grass and sunshine and wind.  We handled them and butchered them in a clean setting.  I think our birds look better and taste better than store-bought birds, but I am biased, I know.

There is also a lot to be said about taking part in growing your food and knowing where your food comes from.  Although we'll soon be empty-nesters and the number of birds we'll eat per year will decrease somewhat, we'll still continue to do this as we have for the last 10 years.  Tune in next year as we'll once again resume operations on the Sonnier Chicken Ranch.  Yeehaw!!  

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!

Image Credit

2014 Cornish Cross Meat Birds - By the Numbers

Things change quickly don't they?  In just 10 short weeks, our Cornish Cross Chickens went from this:

1 day old - a few ounces

To this:

10 weeks old - 6 pounds

To this:

Change indeed

In what I promise to be the last post on Cornish Cross Meat Birds for a long time, this is the post where we look at the numbers and examine the hard facts about the birds. I think it is helpful to do this as it serves as a basis of comparison from year to year - sort of like a measuring stick.  It may not provide all the answers you need, but at least starts you asking the right questions.

Date of Receipt:           01/03/2014

Date of Slaughter:       03/15/2014

Days old at Slaughter:               73

Weeks old at Slaughter:       10.43
Number of Birds Slaughtered:  92

Expenses:

• Purchased birds:                  $40.00  (101 birds at $0.40 per bird)
• Propane                                $10.00
• Waterer/Feeders                   $14.50
• Bulbs for Heat Lamp            $19.55
• Fixed costs                            $37.50
• Ice                                         $  8.75
• Ziploc Bags                            $  6.13
• Feed  (40 bags @ $17.48)   $699.20 {50 lb bags}

Total Cost:                                    $835.63

Losses: 9 birds or 8.91% mortality rate - unfortunately, most of the losses occurred at the latter part of the ten week growing period, AFTER they had consumed a lot of feed.  If they are going to die, you want them to die early on.

The math:

Cost per bird:                   $9.08

Cost per pound:                $2.22

Feed consumed per bird:   21.74 pounds

Feed cost per bird:            $7.60

Feed cost per pound:         $0.35

At $9.08 per bird, those are some expensive birds.  Notice the expenses DON'T include labor and it is a lot of work for 10 weeks to care for, then butcher, then cut them up. If you were to sell them, you would need to find clintele that placed a premium on a natural, quality bird versus the 'factory birds' you get at the grocery store.

Total pounds Cornish Cross carcasses whole:  376.07 pounds

Average pounds per bird:  92 birds:                      4.09 pounds

This is very interesting information.  Our records from 3 prior batches show that the size or average pounds per bird was not materially different from prior harvests.  All other expenses compared to prior years were not materially different.  I have to tip my hat to Parsley's Feed Store in Jennings as the feed cost per bag of Chick Grower remains the same price since 2012!

But the Huge difference was the Feed Consumed per bird:  This year each bird consumed on average 21.75 pounds of feed.  Last year each bird consumed on average only 12 pounds of feed!!!  We experienced almost a doubling in the amount of feed the birds ate while harvesting a bird yielding the same carcass weight. Our feed cost per bird went from $4.20 per bird last year to $7.60 per bird this year - with NO CHANGE in the cost of feed!  How can this be?

I certainly don't have an answer.  I can tell you that the winter of 2014 was colder and wetter for longer than the 2013 crop year, which may have encouraged them to eat more this year to stay warm?  Or perhaps the colder weather hindered grass growth which supplements their diets, causing them to eat more feed?  Fact is, those are guesses and I just don't know.  It remains a mystery.

Sometimes life throws you curve balls and you just have to choke up, stay in the batter's box and keep swinging for the fences.  And that's what we'll do.

In the end, we have a better, more high quality bird than what you can buy in the store and we'll have some nice chickens to eat on all year long that were harvested right off of the pasture of Our Maker's Acres Family Farm.  Sure, you can purchase a cheaper bird, but you can't purchase a better bird.  These chickens will provide some mighty fine eating - and there's no mystery there!