Is raising free-range chickens profitable this year? With cost and profit analysis
As people pursue green and healthy food, things raised in a natural, free-range way are more acceptable to everyone. In 2019, pork prices directly drove up the prices of other meats, and many farmers want to raise free-range chickens in 2020. Sois raising free-range chickens profitable this year? With cost and profit analysis.
1. Is raising free-range chickens profitable this year?
Compared with broiler chickens introduced from abroad and laying hens introduced and bred in our country, free-range chickens have the advantages of rich nutrition and unique flavor. Developing the free-range chicken farming industry will play a certain role in improving people's dietary structure and raising people's living standards. Many people saw these business opportunities and entered the local agricultural chicken meat industry one after another. But some succeeded and some failed. Either way, there is certainly some risk in starting a business, and the market prospects for free-range chicken farming are still very broad, so it is still profitable. Some people may fail because of feeding and management problems. For example, in the traditional household farming method, the whole process uses coarse grains for feeding, once a year. Such free-range chickens really are of good quality. However, this kind of farming method not only has a high mortality rate, but also has high investment costs and low farming efficiency. If you do not have a high-end customer base, free-range chickens at 30 yuan per kilogram, how many families can afford them? This is also why many people are not optimistic about local free-range chicken sales. In short, it can be profitable, and it is related to later feeding, sales and so on.
2. Analysis of free-range chicken farming costs and profits
The breed of free-range chicken you raise, the ratio of males to females, the farming model, the age at marketing, the level of management and so on determine your farming costs. Generally speaking, taking a common breed of roosters with a 90% survival rate, marketed at 130 days, with an average weight at marketing of 6.5 jin as an example, the farming cost, including brooding and heating, feed (including coarse grains), epidemic prevention and medicine and other costs, is about 70 yuan. Depending on the level of farming technology, the cost may vary by less than ten yuan.
The profit from free-range chickens is affected by many factors. First is the breed of free-range chicken; different regions have certain preferences when consuming free-range chickens. For example, some places like blue-legged ones, and some places like yellow-legged ones. The breed of free-range chicken you choose is directly related to how easy or difficult later sales will be, and thus affects farming efficiency.
In addition, farming technology and management level are also directly related to cost and profit. Feed must not be uniform; you can neither feed the chickens entirely complete feed or concentrated feed, nor feed them entirely corn or bran. Feeding complete feed may cause the chickens to grow too fast and be sold before reaching the growth cycle, greatly reducing flavor and nutrition. Feeding entirely corn or bran means the chickens' nutrition cannot keep up, which can cause the flock to peck at each other and cause deaths, and the chickens will be thin with poor feather color and no market appeal. It is best to mix the feed yourself. According to the breed of chicken, add chicken feed suitable for the growth of free-range chickens, and add some green grass grown in the hills as a supplement. This can both control the chickens' growth cycle and improve their nutritional value, while also saving costs.
If environmental conditions are not well controlled, the chickens are prone to getting sick, which will increase medicine costs. If the mortality rate in the later stage of farming is high, with 1000 chickens leaving only 600 at marketing, then the cost per chicken will increase. If farming technology is not up to standard, chickens marketed at the same age will be lighter in weight and poor in appearance, and they will not fetch a good price.