How much is that chicken in the freezer......?

Our meat chickens are home and in the freezer.  Here is the breakdown of what raising and butchering this flock of 24 birds cost us:

15 bags of feed $16.50/bag = $247.50
Butchering/cut up fee = $133.00
Fuel to take them and pick them up = $100 (approx.)
Total "cost" = $480.50
Cost per bird $20.02
The average bird weighed 9lbs = $2.23/lb

Keeping in mind the above "cost" does not include our many many hours of labour, the equipment ie feeders/water founts, trucking shavings, "di cal" to keep the bones strong, etc etc etc!!!

These days it's hard to find a good cut of chicken in the grocery store for under $3.00/lb so we didn't do too bad as far as our monetary cost is concerned.  Having your own home grown meat in the freezer, fed garden veggies and raised in the sunshine is priceless!

I am very disappointed that our up and coming flock are having health issues.  They have been put in a new room where no other birds have been before so they are not contracting it from exposure at this point.  They may have caught something from the smaller pen they were housed in but talking to the processor today she said they have to start out with something wrong sometimes as they sometimes die at 3 days old.  This we knew but since we have had problems with losing birds to the previous mentioned parasite in the past we assume this is what has hit these birds.  We have lost 3 new chicks so far.  What really bothers me is that we have to medicate!  But, as the organic activist said on Market Place, medicate when necessary.  And, this is necessary or we will lose the remaining 37 chicks.  We do not intend to feed medicated feed until they are butchered.  We will get this illness cured and then return to non medicated feed and garden veggies.  I am freezing tomatoes to feed them when they get bigger, they will have squash and pumpkin and maybe cucumber if they grow quickly enough.

We were told a trick by the lady that runs the farm where we had the birds processed.  Feed them food grade D.E. from chick to processing.  It's natural, not a medication, it coats their gut and helps prevent/ward off many parasites and illnesses.  So, for this flock we can add a container of food grade D.E. to the cost of raising them!  Sad we didn't know sooner, may have saved a few of our chicks.

'til next time!