Our happy and healthy pastured chickens.
* Add wheels to the portable pens! We meant to do this last year and never got around to it. It is pretty awkward to pull them around by dragging them across the ground using rope handles and I am afraid someone is going to hurt their back if we don't make sure to get some wheels on it. It will save us time and energy having an easier way to move the portable pens which will make for happier helpers and more positive thoughts overall about raising meat chickens.
This pen is 8' x 10' and is a little heavy to be dragging on the ground,
it's doable but wheels would make it much easier!
* Design a more effective brooder. A brooder is where we house the little chicks before they are ready to go onto pasture. The size of our brooder facility meets the general recommendations for the amount of chicks we raise in each batch, but I honestly want them to have more room, especially as they grow that 2nd and 3rd week of life. I want the option to keep them in the brooder another week or so just in case the weather is really bad and we need to delay their move to the pasture pens. I also would like to add more windows for natural light and ventilation. I haven't decided if I want to just remodel the current coop we use, or build a portable pen we can sit right on the ground. I am leaning towards building a new structure simply because the coop we have been using really is meant to be used for our laying hens and I wouldn't mind keeping that just for the layers and not having to move the hens to a different pen. I'd also like to build an additional small structure within the brooder facility to hold the heat lamps for more even heat and less heat loss than with a standard hanging heat lamp. I read about it as neat DIY project on Morning Joy Farm Blog, you can visit that post here.
* We need to try to buy feed in larger bulk quantities. I think we can save at least 10% by purchasing the feed by the ton. We don't currently have a pickup or trailer suited for this type of hauling, let alone machinery to move 1 ton of feed at a time if it were in a large bulk bag and not in 50# sacks that we could move individually. Finding somewhere that the feed will stay dry, cool, and rodent-proof will be a challenge, but surely we can figure out a solution. We have also found a source for organic feed, I hope to try this out this year and hopefully our growth rates won't change too much with this food rather than the non-medicated feed we used last year. I was really happy with the results using the feed we did last year so if the organic source doesn't work out I would be happy to do that again this year as well. Also, with that feed I can get 10% by buying one ton of the 50# bags at a time, and I can save an additional 10% buy purchasing on a Tuesday discount day. I do want to offer our customers the non-GMO organically fed chickens, because we did have a few customers ask about that last year. There has to be a balance between being able to offer a reasonably priced product and a modest return for our extra hassle and expense in obtaining organic feeds (we have to drive 2+ hours one way to get the feed). Ideally I'd like to raise equal amounts of each type of bird both non-medicated traditionally fed and the organic, non-GMO, no-corn, and no-soy fed. Our family would be happy with the non-medicated traditionally fed birds honestly. I think our birds raised on pasture are far and away superior to anything you can get from the store that is grown commercially and it is enough of an improvement for us personally. However, we want to offer the organic option to those that feel that is important as well.
Chicks in the brooder with fresh shavings and heat lamp.
* Shavings/Bedding for the brooder phase. We need to buy by the truckload instead of in the smaller bales from feed store at $7/bale. An entire load cost us about $25, and we still have some left. We'd have to lay it out to dry some before we used it each time because the pile is a little damp but that would be a posssible way to be able to save money. We typically went through at least 3 bales per batch of 100 chicks, and we are planning to run 4 batches of chicks this year. So we'd be saving roughly $55+ on that part alone, plus we'd have extra to use in the horse and hog shelters as well.
* Grit for the chickens digestion. We've bought chick grit several times and it is quite expensive and heavy to transport in a bag. We plan to gather a couple buckets full from a creek to feed the chicks. We believe this will likely be healthier for the chicks rather than the over-processed stripped down chick grit available in feed stores. This will save us $30+ from each year's production costs.
* Ice for the processing stage. Ice is the largest expense and hassle of the processing day (we usually don't have room for 12 bags of ice in the freezer at any one time so we have to go buy 6 bags in the morning and 6 more bags in the afternoon). We buy roughly 12 bags of ice for each 100 chickens processed. We don't want to take any changes of not getting the chickens chilled down quickly for the absolute safest food possible. We don't skimp on ice in the least. 12 bags of ice costs roughly $25. We need to start making ice in earnest and bagging it in the freezer as we have space to store it leading up to our processing date so that we can reduce the amount of purchased ice. This will take some diligence and time but the savings will hopefully help us keep the cost of raising the chickens reasonable so we can extend that to our customers. We hope to save 50% by trying to stockpile ice. First, we need to fix the ice maker or get some serious amounts of ice trays to use! We've looked into a commercial ice machine but since our ice needs are so inconsistent (one month we need very little, one day we need 20 bags) this would likely not help us save any money for a very long time due to the initial cost of the ice machine.
* Shrink bags for once the chickens are processed. We want a nice looking finished product that will store well in the freezer and maintain freshness as long as possible. Shrink bags are a really easy way to accomplish this. The bags cost us roughly 40 cents each. We could reduce this cost if we were to buy them by the 1000 at 25 cents per bag and sell smaller packages of 25 or 50 at 40 cents per bag. By doing this we can reduce our costs to possibly only 10 cents per bag or even less if we sell roughly 50% of the 1000 bags. It would take extra time to list the extra bags for sale and to package and ship them off once they do sell, but it would be a valid way we can reduce the production costs and not have to cut corners on quality.
* Order and schedule all the chicks at the beginning of the season. The hatchery will know how many chicks to incubate for our needs and when to ship them and I won't have to worry about availability as much as when I waited to order until closer to when I needed them shipped. Sometimes our shipments got delayed and our production season went longer than we'd have preferred. One time we had 3 batches at a time instead of only 2 and we needed extra waterers and feeders and heat lamps and we are never doing that again! If I could schedule all the shipments and make sure we had the chicks we needed available it would greatly reduce stress and possibly give us a quantity discount we wouldn't have qualified for when ordering smaller batches at different times.
* Larger/Longer feeders for each pen. The pen with the longest feeder last year produced larger birds, even though there were more birds overall in the pen. We will give each pen one additional feeder to help give each bird more feeder space in case that helps them have equal access to feed.
* Customer pick up schedules. I need to find ways to make it simple for customers to come get their product. It is hard to know exactly when the chickens will be ready for pickup due to many variables on processing day (how long it takes to catch and haul the birds to where we are processing, to if the chicken plucker is working correctly, or if we are waiting for large pots of water to come to proper temperature to be able to dunk them for scalding before plucking etc). There are so many variables and we have yet to perfect it. Yet once we are done with the first 50 chickens we really need customers to pick up quickly so we can continue processing and get the remaining 50 done for the day. We only have 2 very large coolers to store finished birds in. If we had a way to store more chickens easily without having to buy a ton of ice to keep them cool it would help. We have an extra frig we normally use, but it isn't big enough to be able to store more than about 40 chickens in at any one time and it is a pain to transport 40 chickens from processing area to the inside frig. There have even been times where we have to store birds for a day to wait for a customer to come get them. We aren't sure if we will need to set up a minimum order amount, deposits when taking orders, or more strict pick up times if we can provide that at some point or a person dedicated to the customer to be able to contact them and take care of the customers on processing day. because trying to focus on processing chickens AND customers coming at all times can be really hard. I feel torn, I want to get to know our customers and visit and take time to give a tour or spend time with them, but we also have more chickens we need to get chilled and ready to go for the next customer too. So ideas to help in this area are an additional person on customer details (make calls/texts with updates on how processing is coming along and when to pick up and to take money and make change). Buying an additional extra frig to store processed chickens in until customers come to pick up (we could leave it unplugged except before and during processing days). We could buy or borrow extra coolers and deal with the extra expense of ice to keep them chilled. We have options we just need to put some thought into it.
* We need more buckets, water nipples, and food scoops. Buckets are very useful! We need back up buckets for us to install waterer nipples into in case the current waterer spigots get clogged or the bucket gets broken and buckets to haul feed and supplies. Buckets are used for anything and everything. Also feed scoops are so handy but oh so mysterious in how they seem to disappear around here!
Things we really like about how last year went production wise.
* We LOVE the DIY chicken plucker our brother-in-law built for us! It makes processing day such a breeze compared to hand plucking! Whew.
* We really like the movable pasture pens and that the chickens get to have fresh areas to roam and eat fresh greens each day, and sometimes several times per day. We feel great about how our chickens live, that breezes and fresh air are all around them, that they have shade from hot sun, shelter from strong winds, and that they seem to thrive in this type of setting.
* We love producing a product that not many have time or space to grow yet many people want and or need. I've always had a hard time feeling ok with selling anything I've made or grown. Even though I honestly believe we have a great product that has value I feel uncomfortable "trying" to sell anything. It needs to be able to sell itself or I feel really uncomfortable. That might make me a not very good business person but it's just how I feel when it comes down to it. I am not a salesperson in the least.
* We like how seasonal this project is. We love the flurry of production and activity, for a time. We couldn't do this all year....it would be WAY too overwhelming and too much work to sustain long term for us. We like that winter can be a time of planning, figuring and resting. Spring is a busy time of planting, growing chickens, piglets and baby chicks, and farm improvement projects. Summer is a time of maintaining the farm and garden and eventually harvesting the bounty of things as well as the chicken operation wrapping up, the irrigation season for the hay field comes into full swing, hay harvests are coming along, and food preservation is keeping us all busy. Fall means pumpkin patches, hunting seasons, lots of harvests, canning and freezing, battening down the farm for winter, and the hope of a slower season of rest coming. I love each season and how different the tasks are each season.
I hope you learned something from our tips and review of how the 2013 chicken production went.
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