Free Range Chicken Farm

[doyle369]

This is what my mate wants to set up.

He has got a loan from the bank, £20,000

At the moment he is looking for land.


When I asked him what exactly do you want to do, he replied.

Im settin up a free range chicken farm and farm shop gonna get about 500 chickens to start with a few ducks and maybe a few quails. Its all gonna be new sheds and a new log cabin for the farm shop. If i work hard at it mate the profit should be good

So any tips/advice you can give me that I can pass on?

Thanks

 

[KidsBeeHappy]

Free range Organic chicken market is in chaos at the moment. One of the side effects of the credit crunch is that people have decided that they can live with their morals and eat barn chickens/eggs if they're a bit cheaper. Free range is doing little better. Our local free range chicken farmer has reduced his stock numbers by around 60%

 

[aaamusements]

We cut out the middle man and got our own hens!
Expensive eggs at the moment, but well worth it - I would recommend it to anyone.

 

[Rolypig]

Its easy to say that any farming enterprise is a no-hoper. There are two main truths about farming;
1) for owner occupiers, they are actually 'spending the farm' by just living on the annual increase in the capital value of their holding. In recent years, property values have really made this OK, and even now it just about works. (ie they increase their borrowing each year by the amount that the property is increasing by)
2) for those tenant farmers and heavily-borrowed owner occupiers, these are waiting for next year to be better. It usually works out at having one good year in twenty.
The whole primary production of food 'business' now has so many outside factors affecting it, currency exchange, world harvest gluts or shortages, political niceties, utterly made-up environmental restrictions and costly 'licences', food scares, big buyer bullying abuse, interest rate uncertainties and even good old good or bad luck in timing of production cycles! This is before weather and disease take their toll, catching you out in, sometimes, catastrophic ways.
Don't be carried along by consultants who need you to keep going, suppliers who need you to keep going or the sponsored press who run endless 'stories' of 'farmers' who are doing well. It is all a mirage, be warned. It is you who has to pay the interest, fuel bills, insurance, vet, disposal of dead stock, disposal of waste...the list is endless. Don't even think about buying machinery...this particular endless sink for money is now even more harmful because of the terrible Euro exchange rate, ie the shiny metal and spare parts nearly always come from the continent, now at 30% more cost than before.
If your mate has another source of income, he will need it!

 

[PromoAde]

500 chickens is a huge amount, £20,000 will be used up very quickly. Also, define 'Free Range'?
Because the definition of free range is 'not caged', that's all. Chickens that are rammed together in a barn, crawling over each other all day, can still say Free Range on the box!

 

[4little1s]

Hi there,

There is a free range chicken place near us which we go there for eggs and the odd chicken. They seem to be doing OK but have noticed reecently that they have started to offer other stuff like organic veg etc.

Good luck to your mate

 

[Deleted member 58162]

Its worth considering what the insurance costs could be.

Have a look at our website choosemybroker.co.uk and request a call from a couple of brokers to discuss your requirements.

Thanks

The Marketing Team
marketing[at]choosemybroker.co.uk

 

[Techy]

Don't really know much about this, but my business partner's parent has a battery farm (land owned) and also needs to work full-time

The problems they face is...
- Being specified what feed to buy / from where / what price
- Being told what price to sell chickens / eggs for
- Having to cover the expense of all 'loses'

If I were to invest £20k in a new business, it would be in the most long-term prfitable / secure sector

Having said this £20k start-up costs are not a great deal when you consider any of the following...
- Premises
- Insurances
- Costs
- Staff
- Vehicles

 

500 hens really is not a lot for Free Range, if it is intended to be your main income.

I used to keep 400 free range hens at home ffs, on an old farmyard I had lived for a while.

Lets take some very rough figures (my experience is quite some time ago):

Hens lay in yr 1 approx 1 egg every 2 days... so 250 eggs per day
Yrs 2 this maybe increases to 2 eggs every 3 days...... so 333 eggs per day.

Now count this up at approx £1.40 per dozen...... prices will fluctuate dramatically, according to whether you are supplying from farm shop or directly into small shops etc.

250 eggs per day = (250/12 * 1.40) = £29.17 per day
333 eggs per day = (333/12 * 1.40) = £38.85 per day

Count off the cost of your boxes, labelling, cleaning of eggs, plus stamping the dates onto them, never mind the cleaning of drinkers, sheds, nestboxes, etc.

It would take a shocking amount of hens in my eyes to make this a viable business.

The other thing is, hens lay eggs only for a few years, then their laying pattern becomes so lax that they need to be sold off and new blood bought in (you actually need to buy in a certain number each year, so as to keep the 1yo, 2yo, 3yo numbers at set levels etc.)

I did find at the time I had them (we supplied 3 small shops, plus sold from home), that they sold easily and were popular (our house & fields were at a busy drive-past for tourism, and the hens were everywhere during the summer when traffic was at its highest).

Ducks are actually better, they lay like crazy lol, and their eggs cost more.

Anyways..... my advice is to seriously look at the figures before getting into this business (and the advice already given rings true too, and I haven't even allowed for it).

One thing that strikes me as strange ..... how did he get a £20k bank loan to start this without some serious plan in place?

In fact, the whole lot looks strange.... £20k will not buy land, plus all the buildings he needs........ this ain't been thought through at all

 

[Zeno]

How did your friend get a £20k bank loan for this?

Is his bank manager trying to get fired?

 

[bridges]

If he's determined, have a look at Jimmy Dohertys arming Heroes, I thought it was a fantastic programme, looking at many different types of farming, and how people had survived through the years by being inventive and thinking outside the box.

Not sure if it's now a book, or hopefully on DVD to actually see these farms, some of them are fantastic! It was on BBC2 last year.

Also, you could look at some egg company profiles/stories etc, we always have happy eggs, this is their website:

http://www.thehappyegg.co.uk/

Not sure if it'll be any help, but we always pick them, after that whole campaign about barn eggs, I cant go back to them, would rather go without eggs for a week or 2 than support companies that treat their chickens so badly. I realise free range isn't always that free but it's a step in the right direction at least!

 

[Birgitte]

I too have my own chickens, which does cut out the middle man, so cant really advise on this, apart from the eggs you get from happy hens are the best. Will never go back to buying battery hen eggs.

All the best for your friend :,)

 

[aaamusements]

I too have my own chickens, which does cut out the middle man, so cant really advise on this, apart from the eggs you get from happy hens are the best. Will never go back to buying battery hen eggs.

All the best for your friend :,)

Absolutely agree.
Mind you when you see some of the things that ours will eat it does make you wonder...
Slugs and snails, mice, they have even killed (and tried to eat but not succeeded) FROGS AND TOADS!

 

[Birgitte]

Frogs and Toads!!! Never seen mine eating stuff like that, but yes they do eat loads of insects and grubs etc. They also love all the scraps from the kitchen, no waste at my house!!

 

[Subbynet]

(Completely OT here, but I see that we have some other chicken owners so sorry for the high-jacking! But seeing as your talking about cost! lol)

What they don't tell you is how much it costs to keep your own chickens, and I only started the weekend before last. Our garden is already "pretty secure" (so I thought), 6ft fencing with probably another 1ft of trellis around the top. We bought a coop for about £400, which came with a couple of meters of run area. The chickens themselves weren't expensive, we got 6 for £78 I think it was, and chuck in £50-60 for feeders, food and bedding...

Anyways, the first night we had a fox attack, and this £400 coop has proven useless to the jaws of a fox (or badger - maybe both!), the result was 5 dead chickens left all over my garden and one shaking like a leaf in next doors garden - how it survived I don't know! (You should have seen my neighbors laughing while I - muggins here - had to chase said chicken around their garden!)

So Sunday it was straight to B&Q, I bought a shed for £100, a load of wood and a roll of welded mesh from Screwfix...I ended up spending about £250! I've decked out the shed and hopefully its got more secure bits to hide in, and I've made a much more secure run for them.

We also finacially suffer because of a badger, who has decided his nightly wonder will go right through my garden regardless of any obstruction - which really is most nights and to which we have to replace two fence panels. The problem got so bad we made "badger doors" to just let him though...

So because of the chickens and the fox issue, we closed the doors on the badger - and as you'd guess - first night, and its broken though the fence.... Just the one panel needing replacing this time though! (Another £50 )

The other problem was the holes made by the badger would allow easy access for a fox - who are now my prime enemy #1!

Monday came and I was googling like mad for electric netting and wire because hopefully it will put an end to my badger problem and keep the fox out, and this cost me about another £250.

All the while I had a single lonely chicken, so Thursday it was back to the farm - to a surprised farmer wondering what we were doing back so quickly.. I explained what happened and to my surprise he allowed us to have another 5 hens... (£60)

The hens are now all free ranging around my garden, and so far so good - no attacks and happy hens, but after the fox attack I'm paranoid as hell and find myself checking on them as much as possible, even with all the extra protection in place.

So far this egg has cost me over £1000, and I only have 6 chickens. You could do it cheaper, but if you have ideal visions of happy chickens wondering around your garden and veg patch you really need to plan ahead, and my advice would be expect it to cost more than you think.

But to the OP,the maths don't add up for keeping 400 on £20,000!

 

[bridges]

God bless you, so much for 'the good life' haha

Good luck with your chickens, might be worth giving 'The Fantastic Mr Fox' a read, getting the inside story, so to speak!

B x

 

[papverpoppies]

Whatever price eggs are selling for in the supermarkets at the moment (expensive)!! no way reflects what the actual farmers get!

The free range chicken/egg market at the moment is 'expensive' and you need far more than 500 hens to make any sort of living from it.

The cost of feed alone has gone through the roof.

To give you an example I have a 'huge' free range farmer (well over 10000) birds (and yes they are free range).

Some of his eggs go straight to a food company - of which the company collects them. He gets 60p a dozen.

He then does all of the local markets where he sells his eggs for £1.00 for 2 dozen - there is very little profit.

Then every two years all these birds are rounded up (DEFRA) regulations and slaughtered) so he has to start all over again with young chicks - which do not start to lay for another 5/6 weeks!

If you visit most local markets, etc etc someone somewhere is selling free range eggs.

To try and supply a business with so few hens would almost be impossible.

I am surprised that your friend has managed to get a loan for so much money - on the assumption that this is a money making business.

Land to rent is not cheap, certainly not cheap to buy, planning regulations to build and site the sheds (as well as all the regulations about keeping poultry and selling eggs).

Anything to do with keeping animals and selling the produce is not rosy at the moment (unless you can find a niche market) and have the facilities in place without having to borrow to fund the venture.

Not chickens - but many farmers are getting 10p a litre for their milk at present (do the sums) - the supermarkets are the winners not the producers nor the customers.

Poppy

 

[doyle369]

Ok..

Thanks for the replys

basically he wants to start a business with 20k

The chicken thing seems like a no goer

Any other ideas?

He likes cars, thats all.. dont mean it has to be something to do with cars

 

[Vending Siting Services]

Is your friend still looking for land? If so, hows about honey??

We have just gone into honey production, on a small scale I might add - we are currently doing a pilot, if it works we shall grow much bigger. We have bee hives and so far have been able to sell all the honey we have produced, it's very hands on and rewarding and also very educational.

Just an idea.

Regards.

Barbara

 

[doyle369]

Is your friend still looking for land? If so, hows about honey??

We have just gone into honey production, on a small scale I might add - we are currently doing a pilot, if it works we shall grow much bigger. We have bee hives and so far have been able to sell all the honey we have produced, it's very hands on and rewarding and also very educational.

Just an idea.

Regards.

Barbara

Devon, around the Exeter area

 

[UKSBD]

Is your friend still looking for land? If so, hows about honey??

We have just gone into honey production, on a small scale I might add - we are currently doing a pilot, if it works we shall grow much bigger. We have bee hives and so far have been able to sell all the honey we have produced, it's very hands on and rewarding and also very educational.

Just an idea.

Regards.

Barbara

There are a lot of dodgy people around at the moment selling bees,
be careful you don't get stung.

 

[DaveSUK]

500 Chickens is quite a lot, Obviously he'll be breading them and I have just checked its suppose to be 1 cockrell to 15 hens to bread and because you cant keep 2 cockrell together that at least 34 sheds, or coops to keep the cockrells from killing each other so 20k isnt going to go far I think he would be struggling to set off with 500 chickens with £20,000 even if he already had the land.

I am sure you have to register with DEFRA and Food Standards Agency and because they're government bodies they will probably want paying

 

[avantime]

Shame I didn't read this thread earlier. My workshop is in an old chicken shed. The farmer is getting out of egg production because chickens now have to be given bigger cages - to upgrade would heve cost the farmer £1/2 mil!!! Over the last 9 months the chickens have been going to make curry.

Last week the last 6000 left. Locals bought some and at 50p each the farmer was happy enough. Once the birds are used to runnning arond they soon look fit and well.

The main trouble now with cheap egg production is that it will move to the Far East and Eastern Europe where legislation is ignored! Birdflu anyone?

 

[doyle369]

Well my mate still wants to go ahead with it.

He just needs the land. Hard finding it

 

[papverpoppies]

Well my mate still wants to go ahead with it.

He just needs the land. Hard finding it

Why does he not just go and burn the £20.000 on the fire?

Or buy £20.000 worth of eggs (not all at once) and then sell them!

Believe me, the people who know what they are doing cannot make it pay, 'your mate' is yoking if he thinks 500 birds will make him a living!

I take it there is a mate?

How's your Gran, did she get a holiday?

Poppy

 

[doyle369]

Why does he not just go and burn the £20.000 on the fire?

Or buy £20.000 worth of eggs (not all at once) and then sell them!

Believe me, the people who know what they are doing cannot make it pay, 'your mate' is yoking if he thinks 500 birds will make him a living!

I take it there is a mate?

How's your Gran, did she get a holiday?

Poppy

Thanks for the advice

&

she died