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On-farm chicken and turkey processing holds a special place in my heart. It paid the mortgage. It introduced us to great people with great farms. It created speaking opportunities. Perhaps, most importantly, on-farm chicken butchering has been demystified and I think it’s one of the keys to unlocking a self sufficient life.
In this episode, I share some reasons to process on-farm, talk through why I believe the scalder is the single most important purchase you should make, and provide some cost analysis to owning and operating your own processing equipment.
Pastured Poultry Headlines and News
I take a few moments to share some recent events:
- The APPPA Professional Pastured Poultry Producers Conference in Fayetteville, Arkansas, wrapped up in January 2018. Listen to Spence and I on the Fighting Farmer for some discussion. Figure out a way to attend this great farmer-to-farmer event in 2019.
- Mike Badger edited and published the Third Edition of Pastured Poultry Feeding and Management by Jeff Mattocks in 2017. The book has approximately 20% more content and more than 37 feed rations for all types of poultry, including heritage poultry.
- The Fighting Farmer podcast with Terrell Spencer will soon have its own show feed. Stay tuned for details.
Advantages of Processing Chickens On-Farm
The expense of purchasing equipment, the regulatory climate, or even the mystery of slaughtering chickens are often cited disadvantages of processing your own chicken, but here are some of the reasons you should do it anyway:
- Control of the final product.
- Pay yourself for the processing and recapture the drive time to the processor.
- Access markets not available with customer slaughter.
- Flexible timing and scheduling of processing day.
The Manual Chicken Scalder Is the Most Important Piece of Equipment
If you can only afford a plucker or a scalder, you choose the scalder. That’s how important a properly scalded chicken is.
I use and recommend the Poultry Man line of commercial equipment for the small scale processor.
How to Calculate the Cost of On-Farm Processing
How much does it cost you to get your chickens processed by someone else? How much expense do you lose traveling to the processor? You need this basic information so that you can have an accurate comparison of the costs of purchasing your own equipment.
In this episode, Mike Badger walks through an example cost analysis of a 23″ Poultry Man Plucker, a Poultry Man Manual Scalder, and accessories. Using some real-world numbers, this calculation explains how you can easily pocket $1.00 per chicken, if you process and bag your own birds.
That’s $1.00 you’re not paying out as an expense. Add in another $1.50 per chicken cost to own the equipment (at 500 birds per year), and you’re packaged bird cost is $2.50, excluding any facility overhead.
Here are your key calculations:
- Yearly Equipment Cost = Equip Cost / # Years to depreciate cost
- Equipment Cost per Chicken = Yearly Equipment Cost / Birds per Year
- Processing Hours = Batch size / Birds per Hour per Person
- Packing Hours = Batch size / Birds bagged per Hour per Person
- Total Labor Per Chicken = (Processing Hours + Packing Hours) / Batch Size
Many things affect the actual results of these calculations, including equipment cost, labor rate, scale, and your skill. The idea is not to give you exact numbers, but to share a process that helps you analyze the costs for yourself. Your decisions will flow from that analysis.
