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Cuddly, adorable, and quirky, your flock of backyard chickens are more than just pets; they’re family. Seeing your chickens run around in your backyard, happy as can be, is what makes raising them worth it. Of course, a little extra money on the side doesn’t hurt either.
From fresh eggs to day-old chicks, there are multiple ways to make money from backyard chickens. Here we provide a quick guide to help you make a profit from your backyard flock:
What you need to make a profit
Finding products to sell from your backyard flock is relatively easy. After all, you will have an ample supply of eggs, chicks, meat, and more. But making a profit is a bit more complicated than simply selling your products. You need to sell enough to make up for your expenses and more. How much you make will depend on the following:
(Amount sold) – (Expenses) = Total Profit/Loss
If the amount you sold is greater than your expenses, then you’ve made a profit. However, if your expenses are more than the amount sold, then you’ve incurred a loss. Calculating how much you’ve sold is easy enough, but you need to calculate how much you spent on your backyard flock to understand if you’ve truly turned a profit. In general, raising backyard chickens costs about $69/month for a flock of five hens, but this number will fluctuate depending on the flock.
Rules and Regulations
Depending on where you live, certain rules and regulations in place will affect how you sell your chicken products. Some states, for instance, require you to be licensed to sell chicks, chickens, hatch eggs, and more. You will want to check with your state’s Department of Agriculture to see what rules and regulations are in place in your specific locality.
Ways to Make a Profit
Now that you know how much money you need to make a profit off of your backyard flock, it’s time to find ways of doing so. Thankfully, there are multiple ways you can make money off of your backyard chickens. Here are just some of the many ways you can do so:
Selling Fresh Eggs
Perhaps the most common way to make money from your backyard flock is by selling your eggs. Eggs typically range from $3.50 to $5.00, but how much you sell them for will depend once again on your expenses. You’ll want to calculate your feed cost, and from there, you can set your price.
Selling Hatch Eggs
In addition to fresh eggs, you can also sell hatch eggs. These can go from $45-80 a dozen. However, hatch eggs are more difficult to produce than fresh eggs. You’ll want to find popular, high-quality bird breeds to produce the eggs.
Chicks
Everyone loves newborn chicks! While you may feel the temptation to keep those chicks yourself, you can also sell them to other aspiring backyard chicken raisers. Chicks can range from $3-15 for a straight run, depending on the breed. Higher quality breeds and more popular breeds will go for more than poorer quality and less popular breeds.
Adult Birds
Just as you can sell chicks, you can also sell adult birds. While there isn’t much demand for roosters, there is always plenty of demand for hens. Beginner chicken owners prefer grown hens over chicks as they’re much easier to raise and care for. Once again, the price for an adult bird will vary depending on the popularity and quality of the breed. However, you’ll get more for an adult chicken than a chick, so this may be the way to go if you want to get more bang for your buck.
Have more questions on raising backyard chickens? Contact Chickens for Backyards today!
