There are many benefits of sustaining poultry. But is there a potential to earn money from your chickens? The answer is yes! So, how to make money with chickens?
If you want to earn money raising chickens, you need to learn a few things. Here are some of the guidelines so you won’t fail to make a profit.
This article will cover
- Understanding the Basics
- 5 Ways To Make Money With Chickens
- How and Where to Sell Your Products
- How to Start the Plan
Understanding the Basics
While many people view chicken farming as a hobby, you can earn a significant amount and make money with chickens if you keep expenses low and production high.
It’s surprising to know that you can market anything from your chickens. Apart from the eggs, meat, or live chickens, you can also sell their manure as fertilizers. The revenue generated may justify the effort you invested.
It is not that difficult to know and understand what you’re doing. Backyard chickens are growing popular. Most remarkably, it’s suitable for you if you have a particular piece of property for chicken rearing.
The size of a flock depends on you and the financial commitment you put into it. For first-timers, proper caution is a must.
Some raise chickens for profit, pastime, or recreational activity. But whatever the reasons, examine first the financial implications before going into serious business.
Chickens may provide a yearly, monthly, weekly, or even daily source of revenue. Raising chickens for profit is simple to do but needs time, area, and some understanding of chickens.
Suppose you decide to enter the chicken business. In that case, you must first determine whether the enterprise will be small, mid-sized, or big poultry.
Making money with chickens can be a very profitable business only if all aspects of the operation are well managed and done. That includes procuring chickens, coops, or free-range. More so, have the chickens fed, and vaccinated, and selling the final product.
Almost everything may be helpful and profitable out of your chickens—selling eggsand meat for consumption.
What’s more, you can also sell the plumes to businesses. Enterprises that produce cushions, ornaments, clothes, and accessories buy plumes.
Thus, chicken farming is lucrative. It’s because there will always be a business in demand for the products offered by your chickens.
More so, chicken coops are very simple to construct and manage. Compared to larger animals such as cows or goats, chickens need less roomand require less attention.
Chickens have lower dietary preferences. These fowls can consume everything, even table leftovers, veggies, and fruits. Constructing coops and homes is also cost-effective. Your hens don’t need a lot of room to wander through. As a result, you can keep more chickens in a smaller area than you can with other livestock.
Additionally, it would be best to keep in mind that healthy hens can produce a satisfying amount of eggs in a healthy environment. Egg production is even possible even without a rooster around. That’s why you need fertilized eggsintended to hatch another batch of your chickens.
5 Ways To Make Money With Chickens
The good news now is that you already know some of the basics about making money with your chickens. Now, you have a more intense eagerness to make a profit from your backyard chickens. It’s time to figure out how to do it and make it happen.
Listed below are a few that are typical of the many ideas you could make. So, read the whole article to learn how you can earn the most money from your chickens. Here below are some of the ways you can generate income by breeding chickens.
1.Sell Fresh, Healthy Eggs
Selling eggs is the most conventional way to make money with your chickens. Eggs usually sell for somewhere between $3.50 to $5.00. Yet, the price you charge will rely on your costs. You’ll need to measure your feed expense first and then set your pricing.
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2.Sell Fertile Eggs for Hatching
Along with your fresh eggs, you can also sell fertile eggs for hatching. These kinds of eggs are challenging to produce compared to fresh eggs. To make fertile eggs, you need to select a high-quality, popular chicken breed.
3.Sell Adorable Chicks
You may prefer to keep the lovely baby chicks. But you can also sell them to your fellow backyard flock enthusiasts. Chicks may cost depending on their breed. Breeds of higher quality and popularity can hold value over lower-quality breeds.
4.Sell Pullets and Mature Chickens
You can sell adult chickens in the same way that you sell chicks. Although roosters can sometimes be in short supply, hens are in high demand most of the time.
Backyard flock beginners usually pick pullets or mature hens. They prefer them to chicks due to their ease of raising and maintenance. Yet again, the pricing of an adult chicken varies. The prices depend according to the breed’s quality and popularity.
5.Make Use of Feathers and Manures, and Sell Them
While many people imagine beautiful accessories, they do not picture chicken feathers. Chicken feathers appear in an array of stunning, distinctive colors, shapes, and patterns. Many artisans know this and search for feathers for decorations, ornaments, and accessories.
So, chicken manure is considered valuable, like black gold, to landscapers and gardeners. Bizarre, but the waste you gather under your chicken roosts and coops is precious! The high nitrogen concentration promotes plant growth and provides the ideal soil amendment.
How and Where to Sell Your Products
Not everyone knows how to sell and where to sell. Apart from learning how to make money with chickens, you must also know how to start selling. These two pearls of wisdom are essential to apply your knowledge and make a profit.
Yet, everyone must be a responsible seller. You should consider the product’s freshness, pricing, and availability. Furthermore, also be cautious about your sanitation and packaging to avoid some issues. Remember, a satisfied customer keeps on coming back and will tell a friend. This strategy is word-of-mouth marketing.
Farmer’s Market and Flea Market
Farmer’s markets always welcome people selling their fresh produces. Sometimes, participation and registration are fee-based in these markets.
Another issue is that eggs and chickens are not usually distinctive at a farmer’s market. You have to be resourceful and creative to get attention to chicken handling. Unfortunately, special meals and competing with larger farms can be costly.
Flea markets provide a greater variety of goods, and their primary draw is inexpensive pricing. You can find less marketing of other chicken goods in flea markets. But in this market, there’s more marketing of live chickens.
Restaurants
Some people want to sell but are not interested in setting up and maintaining a market booth. So, these individuals or groups may sell to restaurants or local shops.
The packaging of your goods is essential. You can also get official labels like USDA for cage-free or organic accreditation. But the brand can also have a significant effect on the amount retailers are prepared to pay for goods. But, if you live outside the US, you might want to consult your local agriculture department about obtaining official labels and accreditations for your products.
Online Marketplace or Groups
Establishing an online shop enables you to market your goods more effectively. Convey information in a straightforward method. It’s by telling a narrative about your products or by using videos and photographs.
Additionally, social media may assist in spreading the news about your products. And, of course, your postings should have specific details of your products.
Through your Friends and Relatives
You may sometimes find it embarrassing to ask a little favor from them, but it’s not. It’s not much to ask a simple help from family and friends. Asking them to refer you to people looking for poultry products or suppliers is a small favor.
This selling technique is only up to you. It is the easiest and most effective if your business spreads through word of mouth.
How to Start the Plan
Are you interested in starting to make money with chickens? Many benefits exist for establishing a chicken business because it’s lucrative and requires little work. Plus, it yields profits more quickly.
Small poultry farms are acquiring popularity at a rapid pace at present. These farms are small-scale systems. When you decide to establish a chicken business, you will become both a farmer and a businessman.
Set A Business Plan
To begin, create a strict business strategy and stick to it. A thorough business plan is one of the most critical documents to develop as an element of your business.
The business strategy should include objectives and goals. Put into detail what you want to do and the path you want to choose to get where you want to be.
Choose the Right Chicken Breed
It’s imperative to pick the right breed of chicken if you want your business to thrive. Here are a few reasons why:
- Productivity: Different breeds lay different amounts of eggs or produce varying levels of meat. If you choose one known for being highly productive, you’ll get more out of your resources and make more money.
- Market demand: People have different preferences regarding their chickens, so that some breeds might be more popular than others. When you pick ones that fit what customers want, it will be easier to sell them at competitive prices and build up repeat customers.
- Adaptability: Wherever they live can affect your hens’ health and happiness! Some breeds do better in certain climates or environments than others, so picking the ones that work best in those conditions could save time and money down the line.
- Cost efficiency: Depending on which breed it is, some eat less feed than other varieties- this means lower costs for running things like electricity used by heating lamps too!
- Disease resistance: Certain types fared better against parasites/diseases after passing through genetic evolution over centuries; finding these hardy birds should shield farmers from flock disease outbreaks without spending much on medicine and management techniques anymore.
Choose How You’d Like to Raise Your Flock
Decide on the best way to grow your flock. Usually, chicken producers rear their flock in one of two manners. These methods are conventional or free-range.
The Basic Needs
There are critical components in starting a chicken husbandry business. These components are space, money, and equipment.
Additionally, whether conventional or free-range, coops are still necessary. Also, it may need some equipment and technology to keep your farm operating, whether it’s big or small.
Select your Business Sector
Determine the products you like to sell through your chicken farm. Chicken farming is a large sector with two distinct sub-sectors. These subsectors are broilers and layers. Broilers are for meat production, while layers are for egg production.
Additionally, you may establish a chicken husbandry company. This enterprise incubates eggs and raises chicks. But there are also various chicken breeds for good meat production. These breeds also have tender and tasty meat as broilers.
You can also profit from your chickens’ feathers and manures. It may surprise you that people and businesses want to buy them, apart from those two sectors.
Marketing
Establish your presence clearly to prospective clients. There are several ways to promote a business where you are selling chicken products. One of these methods is to inform others.
Usually, marketing through word-of-mouth is the least expensive. More so, it’s also the most straightforward kind of promotion. But it is also the most popular marketing.
Advertising your goods on social media is a substantive benefit. More so, marketing your produce via local advertising pages as well.
Summary
The next logical move is to discover how to make money with chickens now that you know breeding earns money. Take note that it’s essential to understand the fundamentals of the chicken enterprise.
The knowledge will enable you to earn dollars faster. That is after deciding whether you plan to market or start a large-scale business.
Joseph Hudson
Joseph Hudson has been raising chickens for over 15 years. In 2018, he completed the Agriculture & Natural Resources program at Mt. San Antonio College. He currently raises over 1400 chickens on his 7.5-hectare farm. He keeps sharing his experience on raising healthy and happy chickens on Chicken Scratch The Foundry.
