Have you ever considered raising your own chickens for meat? If so, you’ve landed in the right place. Let’s talk about the benefits of raising your own meat, associated costs, best time of year, and whether or not it might be worth it for you.

We’re on our third batch of meat chickens, and still learning. We decided to take a chance with raising our own chickens for meat after purchasing this property and deciding to start small. We were curious if raising meat birds would be more cost effective or comparable to that in the grocery store. Having young children, we also wanted to foster an understanding of where food comes from and build a relationship with our food.

Raising chickens for meat on your homestead can be beneficial for many reasons. Namely, raising your own meat can be sustainable (especially if you raise your own chickens from hatchling. We don’t do this, but it’s definitely doable). Providing meat for your family on your property allows you to rely a little less on the grocery store for at least one source of meat. Additionally, being less reliant on the grocery store for your chicken allows you to be more in tune with the process behind getting your chicken from farm to table. In doing so, if you’re like us and have small children, this also allows you to show your children so much – the meaning of life, what it means to raise your own food, and respect for animals and the land.

Your first year raising chickens for meat, you can pretty much assume that it will not be cost effective as there are quite a few things you’ll have to invest in, start-up costs if you will. Obviously, you’ll need to buy chicks, chicken feed, feeders and waterers. But in addition to your obvious costs, you’ll need a place to brood the chicks while they feather out. Afterward, you’ll need a coop, or chicken tractor. For the brooder and the coop / tractor, you can find plans and build your own or you can buy something pre-made. Either will be an initial expense but should last for years to come. Do research and decide which is best for you, buying something pre-made or DIY’ing something. Lastly, you’ll want to think of processing day. These items will be investments that you shouldn’t have to repurchase but up front will make the experience feel more expensive – especially if you only want to try it out for a season and don’t plan to continue in the future. If this is the case, find someone you know who raise their own meat chickens and see if you can borrow or rent their processing equipment while you decide if you think you’ll want to continue in the future. Items you’ll need for processing day include (but are not limited to) a kill cone structure, boning knife, poultry sticker, propane burner, large stock pot, plucker, poultry shrink bags, a large cooler (sanitized), plenty of ice, and access to water and electricity. In the past we’ve processed behind our house and run an extension cord from the basement for power. This year, we hope to be able to process under the lean-to of our barn.

There are definitely better times of year for raising and processing chickens than others. Things you want to take into consideration when deciding when to order, get and process meat chickens is first they ship at 1-2 days old and are extremely fragile. They will need babying until they are feathered out, so you’ll to be able to keep them warm and protected from the elements for the first couple of weeks. We don’t like to start our meat birds any earlier than early March. Our first batch, we brooded in a homemade brooder in our basement heated by a heat plate. They were content, but boy were they stinky! Our first time, so we didn’t know any better, but after that we vowed to never do that again. Now, we’ve turned an entire stall into a brooding room in our barn, and this works much better for us. Once the chicks are completely feathered out, usually around 4 weeks, we transfer them to our chicken tractor. You don’t want to start your chicks so early that even after feathering out, you’re having to worry about their warmth in the case of a frost. On the converse, you don’t want to start chicks so late that come processing day, you’re combating the heat and flies. We find that if we get chicks sometime in March, we’re able to process sometime in May or June. Grow-out time can vary depending on the meatbird breed you select. In the past, we used Cornish crosses which worked out great as they are ready to be processed at 8 weeks – several weeks before other breeds which means less feed costs. However, as a hybrid, you would have to always source your birds from a hatchery as you cannot breed Cornish crosses to sustain your homestead. There are other breeds of meatbirds, like the red rangers we’re trying now, that take longer to grow out (on average 12 weeks) that you can also breed to raise your own. You can also get meatbirds in midsummer and aim to process midfall. We have not tried this yet, but hope to this summer!

So if you’re still on the fence about raising your own meatbirds, ask yourself why you might want to raise your own meat. How important is it to you? If it’s something you feel strongly about trying, what’s holding you back?