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Introduction
SARE-funded researchers at Wisconsin’s CIAS studied five
farms that raise poultry on pasture and found that the systems,
while highly variable, yielded a significant profit for growers
who fold poultry into diversified farms. Employing a pastured poultry
model and moving pens containing 75 chickens once each day brought
the farmers, on average, a net return of $2.43 per bird. Researchers
found a wide range, however – varying from -$2.82 to $7.05
– depending on feed costs, experience and whether producers
strove for profit as a primary goal.
“People are making it work best at lower numbers,”
around 1,000 birds a season, Stevenson said, but cautioned that
the learning curve is about five years for a grower to become experienced.
“By then, people know what they’re doing, their pastures
are in shape, and they have figured out their equipment needs.”
Most pastured poultry farmers sell all of the birds they raise
even before processing them. Murial Barrett, a poultry producer
who raises 10,000 birds a year on pasture in Nebraska, receives
about $1.50 a pound for her pastured birds, 61 cents more than grocery
store prices.
“It all gets down to the customer,” said Paul Swanson,
a Nebraska extension educator specializing in sustainable agriculture
who sees growing interest in pastured poultry. “To sell your
product, you need a customer and a growing number of people who
are interested in better-tasting, higher-quality chickens and don’t
like the current system.”
In north central Ohio, Molly Bartlett, who along with her husband
operates a Community Supported Agriculture project near Cleveland,
charges $2.75 per pound for 800 to 1,000 broilers each season. “We’ve
been doing it long enough, and we do so few, we never have a problem
selling all we have,” Bartlett said.
CIAS researchers recommend a 1,000-bird supplemental enterprise.
At that size, an experienced producer will net about $3,000. Given
the dearth of small processors and the need to process on farm,
it’s realistic to handle 1,000 birds a year, Stevenson said.
Most farmers who have worked with Swanson on poultry enterprises
already had crop farms, and many of them had beef cattle, too. They
diversified to improve profits. “Chickens are a size that
people don’t hesitate to purchase directly, as a opposed to
a quarter or half of beef,” Swanson said. “It’s
an opportunity for farmers to try something without a very large
investment.”
Many direct-market producers find that poultry is a real lure
that brings customers onto the farm, and many of them will buy more
than just chicken or turkey when they are there.
Laura Rogers raises 300 to 400 chickens every year in Woodbine,
Ky. While her husband works off the farm, she is a significant contributor
to the family’s income. She finds she has no trouble selling
chickens for $6 and $7 to her neighbors and others in her rural
community; her main problem comes in reserving enough birds for
her family of four.
“I put them in a field that runs along the side of the road,”
said Rogers, who has received two SARE farmer grants, “so
the neighbors drive by and see them so they know when they’re
getting big enough. Sometimes I have to tell them that some of the
birds they see are sold so we can get some.”
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Annual Gross and Net Returns per
Bird from Pastured Poultry, Four Farms
|
| |
Farm A
|
Farm B
|
Farm C
|
Farm D
|
| |
1997
|
1998
|
1997
|
1998
|
1997
|
1998
|
1997
|
1998
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| Gross Returns |
$6.70
|
$8.47
|
$6.38
|
$3.80
|
$12.00
|
$5.61
|
$9.36
|
$7.05
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| Net Return |
$3.81
|
$3.64
|
-$0.05
|
-$2.82
|
$2.39
|
$1.33
|
$7.05
|
$4.08
|
| # Birds Sold |
2,898
|
2,100
|
633
|
420
|
1,100
|
2,174
|
700
|
986
|
Center for Integrated Agricultural
Systems
University of Wisconsin
click here
to see the entire study |
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