cost of eating home-raised chicken

[enjoy the ride]

I'm amazed at your prices for store birds- I think because California raises such a lot of chickens for eggs that it keeps the price down. A whole bird might cost under $1.50/lb here now. And $2 per 18 extra large eggs at Costco.
It's nice to hear something is less here- I'm still paying $4.80 per gallon for diesel.

 

[patandchickens]

For some reason, basic supermarket chicken seems to be more expensive in Canada than in the US. I'd be curious to hear others' experiences, but in Ontario in the northern GTA, the basic price for a whole chicken is normally $6.59/kg (I found my calculator - that's $2.92/pound), although occasionally it is on sale for like $3.95/kg ($2.22/lb). I NEVER see whole birds cheaper here, not ever, nope.

Cheapest you'll ever see for boneless skinless breast (ugh) is $3.99/kg ($2.23/lb) but that is for heavily-'seasoned' freezerburned factory-reject stuff sold loose in large plastic frozen bags, like they sell in walmart sometimes.

It's a mystery <shrug>

Our chantecler cockerel was pretty good for dinner last night btw - held overnight in fridge, marinated in buttermilk, then put (covered) in slow oven and cooked a couple hrs with some root veggies and a couple cups of water. Very good. DH did not complain. Whew

Pat, having chicken corn chowder tonight for dinner, made with the resulting broth

 

[ticks]

What about a BBB turkey?
It takes 6 months give or take. But how much do they eat?

 

[miss_thenorth]

processing for 23 birds@ 3.20/bird =73.60

Birds were processed at 8 wks of age, average weight 7 1/2 lbs.

If you process you own, you can save that $73.60 and put that into more chickens.

I will be raising dual purpose birds. I have 9 barred rock pullets, and a RIR roo. (and unfortunaltely one BR cockerel) These will produce black sexlinks, of which we will sell the pullets and eat the cockerels. My dh will help, (or shall I way I will help him ), but doing 23 at one time was not worth it to him.

We are doing another batch of meat birds, b/c the first batch went so well. These too, we will send to the processors. My BRs will be laying in October or November, and soon after that, we will be trying the dual purpose birds.

Just to let you know--i wanted to process the birds ourselves. My dh said he could work for an hour or two to pay for it. i kinda agreed with him--it would be alot of work. However, when we do the DP birds, we will only be doing a few at a time, so it won't be so daunting.

 

[patandchickens]

Just updating, as encouragement for others:

I processed the first 5 of my 10 CornishX "meatballs" yesterday. It was a looong morning, about 3 1/2 hrs plus cleanup time (did it all myself, would have gone faster with help) and my fingers are tired from plucking. BTW, does anyone have any plucking tips, because I just totally suck at it

The chicks were $1.35 apiece from the feedstore; I have thus far used 2 1/2 bags of starter at $14 apiece, and 1 bag of shavings at $5, plus $3 worth of electricity. They were kept in the kennel til about 3 wks of age and then given daytime access to a run (would have used a tractor but there were technical issues); kept a red light on 24/7 and the bldg was about 65 F at night, so they probably grew about as fast as they're gonna. Fortunately I had no health issues or losses, dunno if this is because I did things right or just got lucky

So I figure I have about $5 total invested in each chicken. They dressed out at an average of just under 4 lbs (3 1/2 - 4 1/2) - this is before/without brining and without neck or giblets, so they probably compare to a slightly heavier store bird. I figure that puts them at $1.25/lb or $2.79/kg, which is almost exactly half of the lowest store 'sale' price you get around here for fresh whole chickens. (Supermarket chicken seems to be more expensive in Canada than in the States, dunno why).

Even if I'd paid to have them processed - which I would be inclined to do if I ever had more than 5 or so to do at one time, unless I had help - I figure I'd still come off as good or slightly better than store-bought.

So, it *can* be done, at least sometimes

Off to check the one currently roasting in the oven,

Pat

 

[pioneergirl]

Hey Pat, not sure how you plucked, but here's what I did when I did mine by myself...

have a stock pot of water set at 140 degrees, dunk the chicken for 10 seconds, remove. Do this 4-6 times, depending on size. I wore textured rubber gloves, and to test the feathers I would pluck one from a wing or the rear end, as those are tougher. If those came out easy, its time...hang the bird (either hold it or hang it) by its feet over a trash can, then simply run your hand against the grain of the feathers. They should just slide right off. Some are a bit stubborn, but with little effort they all come out easy.

Hope this helped!!