Starting a poultry farm?

[franklin]

When looking at agricultural investment, I am inclined to start with a fairly standard shaped building with a flat concrete floor and go from there.

 

[Clive]

When looking at agricultural investment, I am inclined to start with a fairly standard shaped building with a flat concrete floor and go from there.

#wiseman !

 

[Daniel]

why not just build grain stores ? couple of million would return you at least 20% and shed can be used for other stuff in the future

are chickens really better than 20% ?

No chance.

But how many tons can a £2 million grainstore hold and are you actually going to be able to fill it?

 

[Clive]

No chance.

But how many tons can a £2 million grainstore hold and are you actually going to be able to fill it?

you could build som big flat floor stores fr that kind of budget - 25 or 30kt maybe

and there is plenty of demand, in some areas people even pay you to build it so the can rent it even ;-) !!

Big flat stores are easy to change of use into B1 use as well

 

[Bossfarmer]

you could build som big flat floor stores fr that kind of budget - 25 or 30kt maybe

and there is plenty of demand, in some areas people even pay you to build it so the can rent it even ;-) !!

Big flat stores are easy to change of use into B1 use as well

are you talking about building a shed to rent to the likes of harbro or to store your own wheat during poor price years?

 

[Clive]

are you talking about building a shed to rent to the likes of harbro or to store your own wheat during poor price years?

rent to whoever, any merchant or even individual farms

 

[wellingtonfarmer]

@Clive, weren't you looking at introducing poultry to the farm or was it other livestock?

 

[Clive]

@Clive, weren't you looking at introducing poultry to the farm or was it other livestock?

Yes I would like to but it’s hard to make the numbers stack up

Fear poultry is getting over done, pigs means massive scale and is becoming a niche meat (increasing Muslim population etc) Dairy is big investment and seems boom or bust

Money better invested elsewhere is the only logical conclusion usualy

 

[Hampton]

Yes I would like to but it’s hard to make the numbers stack up

Fear poultry is getting over done, pigs means massive scale and is becoming a niche meat (increasing Muslim population etc) Dairy is big investment and seems boom or bust

Money better invested elsewhere is the only logical conclusion usualy

It does seem to be the case that unless you already have the sheds (or are in a high risk CSF area) then the cost of the infrastructure complete ruins the profit potential of many of the livestock projects.

 

[franklin]

There is scant profit in many enterprises on day one. You just take a punt on what you think will be doing better in five years or so.

 

[warksfarmer]

why not just build grain stores ? couple of million would return you at least 20% and shed can be used for other stuff in the future

are chickens really better than 20% ?

Nobody was looking for grain storage at the time as we asked around. Plus it’s more hassle than eggs as you’ve got hundreds of trucks wanting loading at silly times. 32,000 chickens is no more than 2 hrs per day job bar clean downs or restocking/destocking.

Also with eggs going down the used equipment pass your looking at a 3 yr pay back.

 

[APJ]

Nobody was looking for grain storage at the time as we asked around. Plus it’s more hassle than eggs as you’ve got hundreds of trucks wanting loading at silly times. 32,000 chickens is no more than 2 hrs per day job bar clean downs or restocking/destocking.

Also with eggs going down the used equipment pass your looking at a 3 yr pay back.

Love this notion that 2hrs per day is enough, hear it so often, if your doing the job properly you need more time than that at it.

 

[warksfarmer]

Love this notion that 2hrs per day is enough, hear it so often, if your doing the job properly you need more time than that at it.

2hrs per day management. Obviously there’s somebody else packing eggs etc.

 

[APJ]

2hrs per day management. Obviously there’s somebody else packing eggs etc.

Just hear folks saying 32k will take 2hrs and that’s it,

it will take 1hr easily if not more on each walk through the shed,

3hrs to pack the eggs depending on automation and then time for the important paperwork to be done,
then there’s the shed/system maintenance,

two muck outs of the belts per week roughly an hr or two each time.

So it soon comes a full time job.

 

[warksfarmer]

Just hear folks saying 32k will take 2hrs and that’s it,

it will take 1hr easily if not more on each walk through the shed,

3hrs to pack the eggs depending on automation and then time for the important paperwork to be done,
then there’s the shed/system maintenance,

two muck outs of the belts per week roughly an hr or two each time.

So it soon comes a full time job.

1 full time working 7hrs x 5 days and every other weekend plus me covering is what we costed. Visited a number of units before putting a proper plan to paper.

 

[Andyt880]

Egg sales at the time were 7p/egg so 280 per year is £20/bird. Note the reduced laying days of 280 instead of 320 due to the environment not being brand new sheds. 2 sheds would be 32,000 birds so about £640k/year income before any costs or dead birds etc.
There was cost savings to be had by milling your own wheat and buying in the add ins instead of buying in a fully milled feed.
I found a 2 shed setup for sale at the time for £50k but we’d have to dismantle transport and erect. This included feed bins, conveyors etc. I had a very loose price of £100k to dismantle and put back up again, but we guessed by the time we’d concreted, done elec and water we’d be around £500k set up doing it second hand.

@warksfarmer it is interesting to hear some real life figures. I am considering going into chickens or pigs in the future. Do you have any figures for how much feed the chickens will consume in a laying cycle? Also how much were the birds initialy costing at the time? Was this a free range set up you were considering?

 

[Daniel]

@warksfarmer it is interesting to hear some real life figures. I am considering going into chickens or pigs in the future. Do you have any figures for how much feed the chickens will consume in a laying cycle? Also how much were the birds initialy costing at the time? Was this a free range set up you were considering?

Isn't everyone in Northern Ireland going into laying hens?

 

[Andyt880]

Isn't everyone in Northern Ireland going into laying hens?

I havn’t seen many new laying houses here for a while, There has been a lot of chicken fattening houses put up around here this past few years. I can think of atleast 17 broiler fattening houses within 12 or 13 miles of me. Most of those would have been new set ups or new houses built in place of old wooden broiler houses.

 

[warksfarmer]

@warksfarmer it is interesting to hear some real life figures. I am considering going into chickens or pigs in the future. Do you have any figures for how much feed the chickens will consume in a laying cycle? Also how much were the birds initialy costing at the time? Was this a free range set up you were considering?

The average figure from a number of people actually doing it was 3.5-4kg/month and the bird price at the time was £3.90. Just looking are some scribbles I made at the time the bought in feed price on a contract was £235/tonne where as doing it yourself with wheat sold to yourself at £150/tonne came in at about £200/tonne although I am sure you could scrutinise any home made mix to make the bought in stuff better from a birds point of view.

Basically its far cheaper to not be on a contract but you do need a long term buyer of your eggs in place which was the hardest thing. The contract companies would buy your eggs even if not in contract but it was under the going market price. Also don't underestimate the clean down after each flock. You have about a week to do it if you want to keep the number of flocks per year up to maximise egg sales. I felt a lot of people were not doing the clean down properly and using the farms pressure washer and staff. Having been involved with poultry before as mentioned one thing we learnt the hard way was poor hygiene can ruin a flock. I think it would be better to use an outside cleaning poultry cleaning company but this came at a cost of course and then you double up behind them. Some people were doing dry cleans which was really surprising as we'd never dream of doing that when we had poultry before. We were lead to believe dry cleans were fine but .........

The muck is a good freebie as well. 32,000 birds would give you about 900 tonnes per year. A few analysis's we saw showed it had around 10kg per tonne of N, P and K although I think the N may be a bit less in reality.

If you want to do something with much less risk and and investment think about turkeys on a straw based system. Your at around £9/kg selling price for christmas birds and around £7/kg for all round catering trade. Existing farm buildings can be altered to suit this and a used auto/feed system won't be big money. We knocked this on the head may years ago as the slaughtering/dressing became a difficult job, but you can outsource this now more easily.

 

[Andyt880]

The average figure from a number of people actually doing it was 3.5-4kg/month and the bird price at the time was £3.90. Just looking are some scribbles I made at the time the bought in feed price on a contract was £235/tonne where as doing it yourself with wheat sold to yourself at £150/tonne came in at about £200/tonne although I am sure you could scrutinise any home made mix to make the bought in stuff better from a birds point of view.

Basically its far cheaper to not be on a contract but you do need a long term buyer of your eggs in place which was the hardest thing. The contract companies would buy your eggs even if not in contract but it was under the going market price. Also don't underestimate the clean down after each flock. You have about a week to do it if you want to keep the number of flocks per year up to maximise egg sales. I felt a lot of people were not doing the clean down properly and using the farms pressure washer and staff. Having been involved with poultry before as mentioned one thing we learnt the hard way was poor hygiene can ruin a flock. I think it would be better to use an outside cleaning poultry cleaning company but this came at a cost of course and then you double up behind them. Some people were doing dry cleans which was really surprising as we'd never dream of doing that when we had poultry before. We were lead to believe dry cleans were fine but .........

The muck is a good freebie as well. 32,000 birds would give you about 900 tonnes per year. A few analysis's we saw showed it had around 10kg per tonne of N, P and K although I think the N may be a bit less in reality.

If you want to do something with much less risk and and investment think about turkeys on a straw based system. Your at around £9/kg selling price for christmas birds and around £7/kg for all round catering trade. Existing farm buildings can be altered to suit this and a used auto/feed system won't be big money. We knocked this on the head may years ago as the slaughtering/dressing became a difficult job, but you can outsource this now more easily.

Thanks for the reply @warksfarmer. All very useful information and food for thought.