17 replies to this topic

[che]

Have a read of this newspaper article

http://www.lep.co.uk...usiness_1_97684

Then do the maths

300 doz @ £2.20 = £660 - costs will more than probably leave you enough to cover viability.

BINGO if you are worried scale it up but remember after 350 chickens you will need egg packing station.

Dave C

[Romany]

Have a read of this newspaper article

http://www.lep.co.uk...usiness_1_97684

Then do the maths

300 doz @ £2.20 = £660 - costs will more than probably leave you enough to cover viability.

BINGO if you are worried scale it up but remember after 350 chickens you will need egg packing station.

Dave C

Hi Dave
I'd be wary of using the fact this lad has 300 customers to mean he sells 300 dozen a week. I've done the maths based on 200 instead and it's still looking pretty healthy. However, even 200 dozen means a minimum of 342 birds laying every day of the year which we all know is not feasible. At 6 days laying you're into 400 birds

All power to the lad though and certainly as a sideline it should help bring in a tidy sum for anyone keeping a decent sized flock. Unfortunately in my area the number of people with poultry is too high to make this viable for me - although maybe I could take a leaf out of this lad's book and ask if I can sell eggs for others - it would at least bring in an income which can then be put to good use on the holding (i.e. it might pay for the barn, polytunnel etc )

Perhaps others could use this idea to bring in an income whilst waiting for their holding to become profitable in its own right.

Romany

[Lynne]

You have to admire the young man for using his initiative. For whatever reason he was finding it difficult to get a job he didn't let it beat him & he did something about it.

I have to admit I don't know a huge amount about poultry at the mo other than having kept the odd couple now & then, but do intend to keep them for egg sales at the gate. But I was wondering if any of you thought there may be a market for selling "hatching" eggs or chicks and if this was something any of the members were doing or thinking of doing.

[Romany]

But I was wondering if any of you thought there may be a market for selling "hatching" eggs or chicks and if this was something any of the members were doing or thinking of doing.

Hi Lynne
There does seem to be a market, I know locally they sell hatching eggs at the weekly auction market in Brigg, including of ducks, geese and other poultry eggs, and they seem to make quite decent prices.

At the right time of year there are usually also hundreds of sellers on ebay (there's a few on tonight already as I found when I was looking for particular eggs). However you have to factor in the cost of post and specialist packing bearing in mind they are fragile things (and probably have to be sent by courier although many sellers on ebay do seem to use Royal Mail).

Not sure about chicks although the smallholder magazines have plenty of classifieds listing day olds upwards. (I myself would be interested if anyone has either of the breeds I'm after - Speckled Sussex or Red Sussex, although that would obviously be a one-time sale!)

Romany

[maisy123]

Have a read of this newspaper article

http://www.lep.co.uk...usiness_1_97684

Then do the maths

300 doz @ £2.20 = £660 - costs will more than probably leave you enough to cover viability.

BINGO if you are worried scale it up but remember after 350 chickens you will need egg packing station.

Dave C

Hi i am also from shropshire as i see you are, just read the link, this kid is an inspiration to us all i think.
I keep poultry on a small scale but looking to expand when we get some acerage ie smalholding, and poultry would hopfully be one of the strings to our bow!! so to speak, as i make poultry housing in my spare time this would tie in with the enterprise to.
Are there large egg companies about that would give you a contract to collect your fresh eggs so your Market would be secure,or is this a path that should be avoided. its nice to chat with like minded people with similar thoughts.

[che]

Hi i am also from shropshire as i see you are, just read the link, this kid is an inspiration to us all i think.
I keep poultry on a small scale but looking to expand when we get some acerage ie smalholding, and poultry would hopfully be one of the strings to our bow!! so to speak, as i make poultry housing in my spare time this would tie in with the enterprise to.
Are there large egg companies about that would give you a contract to collect your fresh eggs so your Market would be secure,or is this a path that should be avoided. its nice to chat with like minded people with similar thoughts.

Hi Maisy,

Most on here are of the opinion that selling direct is the only way to turn a profit on a small scale. The big margin in most products not just farming belong to the retailer. What sort of poultry are you keeping and where are you looking for land.

[maisy123]

Hi Maisy,

Most on here are of the opinion that selling direct is the only way to turn a profit on a small scale. The big margin in most products not just farming belong to the retailer. What sort of poultry are you keeping and where are you looking for land.

Hi There,
Are interest is in the more traditional and fancy breeds not so much egg machines and selling on growers ie llight sussex, rhode island reds and marrans in the large fowl and pekins and seabright in the fancy, these breeds do seem to sell usually.
As regards land we would like somewhere within a five mile radius of Newport because both sets of our parents are still around and we visit most days.

[meekle]

Maisy

If you are in the Shropshire / Staffs border then traditional breed poultry is a good bet. I used to live near to Gnosall and found that Penkridge do a specialist sale three times a year (the next one is actually this thursday evening coming - i will be there) and the prices there can be eye watering, but this is very good news for sellers.

I have seen columbian pekins sell on "specialist" night for around £45 each! normally you would be hard pushed to get £15 each for them!

we now live on a rented farm in wales and are trying to build up cash to buy some land. For poultry - i would honestly aim for Welsummer, Light Sussex, Cream Leg Bar, Rhode Island Red as these are what the punters eem to like in a traditional breed. I went to a farm sale today and the Light Sussex were going for £15 each.

As for a bit of vairety, i would chuck in silkies, pekins and barbu d'uccle bantams as fancy birds, and quite prolific layers too. You get good money for them too. If you cross your silkie cock to a light sussex hen you get "gold tops" or "clockers" which make excellant broodies and they sell very very well to the "in crowd".

If you have a hen on a few chicks, sort through the chicks for ones you want to rear, and either pop under a broody and foster on, or artificially rear them, but a hen and 6 chicks easily hits £35 - 40 at auction.

Just some thoughts to help you plan out your poultry business.

We also do christmas turkeys, buy in around 150 poults in late July, dres sout ready for christmas. selling at £3.50 per pound and couriering them all over the UK, we made nearly £3500 this year on turkeys alone! go for a bronze or commercial white or mixture of both. that way the bronze will get to around 15lb for christmas, and the commercials can either be harvested earlier and frozen ready for the customers, or can be taken to heavier weights if you need to joint them up and sell as crowns.

[maisy123]

Maisy

If you are in the Shropshire / Staffs border then traditional breed poultry is a good bet. I used to live near to Gnosall and found that Penkridge do a specialist sale three times a year (the next one is actually this thursday evening coming - i will be there) and the prices there can be eye watering, but this is very good news for sellers.

I have seen columbian pekins sell on "specialist" night for around £45 each! normally you would be hard pushed to get £15 each for them!

we now live on a rented farm in wales and are trying to build up cash to buy some land. For poultry - i would honestly aim for Welsummer, Light Sussex, Cream Leg Bar, Rhode Island Red as these are what the punters eem to like in a traditional breed. I went to a farm sale today and the Light Sussex were going for £15 each.

As for a bit of vairety, i would chuck in silkies, pekins and barbu d'uccle bantams as fancy birds, and quite prolific layers too. You get good money for them too. If you cross your silkie cock to a light sussex hen you get "gold tops" or "clockers" which make excellant broodies and they sell very very well to the "in crowd".

If you have a hen on a few chicks, sort through the chicks for ones you want to rear, and either pop under a broody and foster on, or artificially rear them, but a hen and 6 chicks easily hits £35 - 40 at auction.

Just some thoughts to help you plan out your poultry business

We also do christmas turkeys, buy in around 150 poults in late July, dres sout ready for christmas. selling at £3.50 per pound and couriering them all over the UK, we made nearly £3500 this year on turkeys alone! go for a bronze or commercial white or mixture of both. that way the bronze will get to around 15lb for christmas, and the commercials can either be harvested earlier and frozen ready for the customers, or can be taken to heavier weights if you need to joint them up and sell as crowns.

I probably have seen you there at the market, small world . Like you have seen some incredible prices paid for birds at this market, i remember, i think it was the very first auction south and stubbs held, a rhode island red hen and 8 chicks made £77 could not believe it!!
we have always done christmas poultry but on a smaller scale than you, with wheat prices as they are i was wondering if people will pay the extra costs we do for the feed for there bird at christmas.
maisy

[meekle]

yes, probably have seen you, and i will be there again this thursday all being equal.

as for the turkey side of things, we tend to work out what we need for the growing on of the birds and buy in a pallet of it at the start as you sometimes get a better deal. I know Lisa at Farmgate in Stoke offered us 20kg layers pellets at just over £5 per bag if we collected from Stoke, or she could deliver at that price if we took a pallet (50 bags).

Where you are its almost worth getting a pallet of layers (you can mix product as well if needs be) and keeping what you need and sell on the rest at markets or to fellow poultry keepers for a quid mark up or similar. With layers pellets around here selling for £7.50 per bag, we get a tonne delivery each month - not from farmgate, but from the local feed merchant as we get other stuff from him that farmgate dont do and the difference in price isnt too much to worry about here.

if you can muster up a tonne delivery - you could always go to Marriages Feeds as well as they are very handy in as much as they do a premedicated layers pellet with wormer built in> that way you dont have to weigh out and measure the does, just feed it straight for a week. You dont have to have a tonne of medicated feed either, just make up a tonne of feed (it can be pig, poultry, horse whatever) Their sow rolls are very good and they do a good price on straights such as barley and wheat.

What poultry do you raise for christmas? we tend to only go for turkeys, buy in 150 - 200 poults. around September/october we will put a few boxes of 6 turkey growers in the auctions and generally sell them at around £10-15 per chick. that goes a long way to covering our costs of buying them in as if you go to someone like Cyril Bason for your chicks, you will pay around £3 each for them on that kind of scale - you will need to obviously discuss rates with the breeder at the time. Last year we speculated with some "commercial" norfolk blacks. i wont bother this year with them as they were far too slow growing and not that hardy. we lost a good few in the snow and icy weather and just about broke even on those, the bronze and whites made the money.

[maisy123]

yes, probably have seen you, and i will be there again this thursday all being equal.

as for the turkey side of things, we tend to work out what we need for the growing on of the birds and buy in a pallet of it at the start as you sometimes get a better deal. I know Lisa at Farmgate in Stoke offered us 20kg layers pellets at just over £5 per bag if we collected from Stoke, or she could deliver at that price if we took a pallet (50 bags).

Where you are its almost worth getting a pallet of layers (you can mix product as well if needs be) and keeping what you need and sell on the rest at markets or to fellow poultry keepers for a quid mark up or similar. With layers pellets around here selling for £7.50 per bag, we get a tonne delivery each month - not from farmgate, but from the local feed merchant as we get other stuff from him that farmgate dont do and the difference in price isnt too much to worry about here.

if you can muster up a tonne delivery - you could always go to Marriages Feeds as well as they are very handy in as much as they do a premedicated layers pellet with wormer built in> that way you dont have to weigh out and measure the does, just feed it straight for a week. You dont have to have a tonne of medicated feed either, just make up a tonne of feed (it can be pig, poultry, horse whatever) Their sow rolls are very good and they do a good price on straights such as barley and wheat.

What poultry do you raise for christmas? we tend to only go for turkeys, buy in 150 - 200 poults. around September/october we will put a few boxes of 6 turkey growers in the auctions and generally sell them at around £10-15 per chick. that goes a long way to covering our costs of buying them in as if you go to someone like Cyril Bason for your chicks, you will pay around £3 each for them on that kind of scale - you will need to obviously discuss rates with the breeder at the time. Last year we speculated with some "commercial" norfolk blacks. i wont bother this year with them as they were far too slow growing and not that hardy. we lost a good few in the snow and icy weather and just
about broke even on those, the bronze and whites made the money.

Quite agree with the black turkeys, tried some one year,slow growing and the meat to bone ratio was poor in my opinion, we had some 25 white birds last september lost one but the rest all dressed out between 15 to 22 pounds all hen birds to.
Like the idea of buying a tonne of food in at a time that makes a lot of sense,margins are all important.
Last year besides the turkeys we did 25 cobbs and 12 geese but i was glad when it was over with that cold weather last December.

[meekle]

well in that "cold" weather, it was -18 on the hill where we live. 1650ft above sea level and the standpipe to the turkey field froze around November and thawed in February! We had to hand carry the water up each day for them!

having said that - the saddle pigs where in their element. the extra rations and feeding of whole oats and maize really put the fat on them so they managed outside OK - infact they even rolled around in the snow!

you wouldnt have seen a commercial pink pig manage that!

cobbs are a nice little earner - but they grow too quickly for my personal taste. by all means we grow them on for the punters, but my favourite meat bird is a dorking x indian game or dorking x light sussex as you get the double breasted gene, but they do better free range.

I am trying out Marsh Daisy x Light Sussex this year as thats another traditional low maintenance crossing. The Marsh Daisy is a very frugal bird, and will (under proper free range management) get to 6lbs dressed in 5 months with very little in teh way of inputs as they prefer to forage for their own. buggers to catch mind you but a flavourful gamey chicken.

[maisy123]

well in that "cold" weather, it was -18 on the hill where we live. 1650ft above sea level and the standpipe to the turkey field froze around November and thawed in February! We had to hand carry the water up each day for them!

having said that - the saddle pigs where in their element. the extra rations and feeding of whole oats and maize really put the fat on them so they managed outside OK - infact they even rolled around in the snow!

you wouldnt have seen a commercial pink pig manage that!

cobbs are a nice little earner - but they grow too quickly for my personal taste. by all means we grow them on for the punters, but my favourite meat bird is a dorking x indian game or dorking x light sussex as you get the double breasted gene, but they do better free range.

I am trying out Marsh Daisy x Light Sussex this year as thats another traditional low maintenance crossing. The Marsh Daisy is a very frugal bird, and will (under proper free range management) get to 6lbs dressed in 5 months with very little in teh way of inputs as they prefer to forage for their own. buggers to catch mind you but a flavourful gamey chicken.

The big problem with cobbs is they go off there legs because of how big they get so quick, when we get them they are just off heat, we gradually introduce them to barley and have them running outside until they have got big frames and muscle then we start to finish them, the best bird last season was 14lb dressed which is exeptional i know but the rest came in around 11to 12 with very little leg problems as in the past, our customers seem to prefer these large cobbs to turkeys so will probably go down that route again, half the time customers want turkey wieghts of 8 to10 pounds and moan if its half a pound over. but when they say they want a large cockeral thats just what they get.
are you going to penkridge on thursday night...

[meekle]

Maisy

We hope to be at Penky thursday night. i will be setting off from here around 1:30pm so that i get there in time to have a good look around. You wont miss us, there will be myself, the two kids and my good lady who does all the bidding. Just ask the auctioneer, Mike Williams, where "pretty in pink" is and he will point out my wife. Thats his nickname for her and i am damned if i am stupid enough to argue as it would hurt!!

You should be ok, but i have recently run into hassle with the Trading Standards in Staffordshire as they wanted to see my Poultry Movement Licence, Poultry Transport Licence, and my poultry transport competancy certifictae when moving birds as its over 45 miles to home. As long as its for personal, non business related reasons then i dont need them, but i am armed with them now ready for tomorrow!

[maisy123]

Maisy

We hope to be at Penky thursday night. i will be setting off from here around 1:30pm so that i get there in time to have a good look around. You wont miss us, there will be myself, the two kids and my good lady who does all the bidding. Just ask the auctioneer, Mike Williams, where "pretty in pink" is and he will point out my wife. Thats his nickname for her and i am damned if i am stupid enough to argue as it would hurt!!

You should be ok, but i have recently run into hassle with the Trading Standards in Staffordshire as they wanted to see my Poultry Movement Licence, Poultry Transport Licence, and my poultry transport competancy certifictae when moving birds as its over 45 miles to home. As long as its for personal, non business related reasons then i dont need them, but i am armed with them now ready for tomorrow!

What a palava, all those forms, whats a matter with this country never ending Red Tape. I will ask him to point you out, be good to say hello properly. Don,t get driving the prices up we are after the odd Bargin. !!!

[meekle]

nah - only after a couple of things taht are hard to get round here. Give us a shout when you see us and we will get a brew!

[Flower]

Hi Meekle

I am trying to get info on turkey rearing and read the above with interest.

We have reared turkeys for a couple of christmases - only small numbers around 30 and killed/prepared ourselves.

We would like to increase the numbers each year and sell via farm gate - please can you confirm the correct rules and regs we need to follow and perhaps what website I need to look at - as don't wont to get on wrong side of council.

Vanessa

[Cornish Gems]

Hi Vanessa - Under Meekle's pic, the word, 'inactive' appears. We believe, therefore, that your best solution would be to send a pm as this website will then send an email to Meekle saying that there has been a message posted. But, of course, it may well be that the email address the site has is itself inactive/defunct/obsolete/etc etc

However, it may well be that someone else will post something about turkeys. We are sorry but turkeys have never appealed to us although we do like the breeds of chickens mentioned above.