Ok my mother and I are debating this topic:

Is it really cheaper to raise your own meat(pig and cow)? We have chickens and they cost more to feed then the eggs they give us. So my husband and I are thinking of raising some animals and want top know if it is worth it?

-- sonneyacres (jtgt12@ntelos.net), December 18, 2001

Answers

Response to The true cost

There have been some interesting discussions about this in the past! My feeling is that there is a frugal way, and an expensive way to do everything. By seeking out the frugal ways you can raise your own animals for much less than you can buy the meat or eggs. Also the added benefit of knowing how the animal is raised and what it is fed certainly must be kept in mind.

-- Melissa (me@home.net), December 18, 2001.

Response to The true cost

I think the butchering takes up the largest amount of money .When you factor in the prime cuts of meat I think its cheaper.

-- Patty {NY State} (fodfarms@hotmail.com), December 18, 2001.

Response to The true cost

I think its cheaper for grazing animals,, but chcicken,, and amybe pigs arent as cheap as store bought,,when you can get them for 29 cents a pound. BUT,, knowing how they lived,, what they ate is a really added benefit. BUT ,,if you figure the cost of organic chickens, fre ranged,, those are real expensive,,so it would be cheaper to raise your own. There are ways to cut down the cost of raising them also

-- stan (sopal@net-port.com), December 18, 2001.

Response to The true cost

I live in a area where no crops are grown so I have to buy all of my feed in 50lb bags.We raise our rabbits,pigs and chickens for fun as well as getting better quality meats.In our opinion to raise better quality meat we have to put in better quality feed.We probably break even on the cost but get better quality meat and the enjoyment of raising it.If you pay someone to butcher it may be difficult to save any money.If you feed them scraps it is cheaper but the quality is not there.The factory farms are gross but that is probably as cheap as it gets but the animals suffer. regards Tradesman

-- Tradesman (Tradesman@noaddr.com), December 18, 2001.

Response to The true cost

Every time we raise an animal for our home use I try to keep really good records on what our actual costs are.

The pigs we raised last year cost us 1.04 lb. that was for our feed costs, the price of the pigs and having the local butcher, butcher- hang-cut-wrap. We even had ham and bacon made. I can beat that in the store prices around here.

The Jersey meat cost us 1.35 lb. Calfs are free or 5.00 around our area and we grow our own hay so hay was averaged at 1.10 per bale. We grain when they are small and 60 days prior to butchering. I can buy cut and wrapped jersey from a friend @ 1.25 lb. so we didn't raise our own this year. Cheaper to let someome else do the work in this instance.

The best meat comes from animals that you know arn't full of antibotics and who knows what else. I would pay more then the prices in the store for quality meat anytime.

Your chickens should be paying for themselves in eggs or meat if your doing everything right. For every dozen eggs we get it costs us about .90 anad that is buying a good lay pellet to suppliment their diet. Can't get fresh eggs for that.

-- miller (smillers@snowcrest.net), December 18, 2001.

Response to The true cost

Maybe this won't make to much sence but I'll try to explain it the best that I can.

I find that by raising animals I am better off money wise and here is why. When I do not have to be home to take care of animals I am eating out almost everyday. I am out shopping, buying things I don't need.

Until I decided to get animals I cooked maybe 2 meals a year at home, any other food I ate I went out to eat. I was always out shopping for furniture which I had plenty of, clothes to add to those I bought the year before which still had the price tags on them. I have a lot of things that I haven't paid any attention to since I bought them. However, I find that having animals gives me a reason to stay home. I now have something at home that keeps me interested. I have cooked so many meals at home since having livestock that the dish washer is starting to get a (major) workout. I now am 1 week away from being caught up on bills. I find that if I do go out I tend to be careful about how long I am gone which equals less money spent.

My animals cost roughly $20-$30 per week(on the weeks when I need to get everything I need for feed) which to me is very good considering I was in the habit of spending that just going out to eat once. If you times that by seven days you see the savings. Some weeks I may only be spending $5 towards the animals.

I do get more from my animals than food. I get entertainment too. I love to sit and watch them.

I feel that when you have animals you tend to become thirfty due to the fact that animals have to be taken care of and it is up to you to make sure that you have feed on hand so that your animals are fed morning and night. Fresh water has to also be given morning and night and if the water freezes it will have to be refilled more often. Non- livestock people complain to me that this is to much of a hassel. Who wants to get up and take care of animals before going to work and who wants to get out of work to head right back home to take care of animals. I for one would rather take care of the animals at home (which are my concern) than my co-workers at work (who are not my concern).

So, yes to me it is cheaper for me to raise animals than not too. My father always said that when you have animals no matter where you are or how much fun you're having you better make sure that you're home to feed the animals when it comes feeding time.So, I spend less money because I am home more often to take care of the animals. Also fresh eggs have store bought eggs beat.

-- george (bngcrview@aol.com), December 18, 2001.

Response to The true cost

Hi,

Stan - where can you get chicken for $.29 cents a pound? Chicken in grocery store here in GA - .99 cents per pound for whole fryer, pork - now that's a whole nuther story - minimum, on sale price for pork roast - $2.39 per pound, pork chops - $2.89 and up depending on whether you get "lean" or "thin sliced". Bacon - $2.50 per pound. Chicken breasts - $2.99 per pound.

My point - I think it depends somewhat on where you live as to whether you save money buying (I am not even going down the "you know what you're eating road") a grocery store bird or pork chop vs. raising your own. Feed here is relatively inexpensive compared to what pork and beef (T-bone steak - $6.99 a lb.) chuck roasts - $2.89, and plain ole hamburger - $1.89 per pound) costs. But if you have to feed the cow or pig all it's feed, purchased from the feed store, you may end up paying more than what the grocery store charges.

I think those that have alternative means to raise animal food, purchase their animal food directly from a farmer, or get inventive and get day old bread, veggies past their prime, etc. will have the greatest savings. Anytime you have to pay the middleman, be it grocery store or feed store, you're just not going to save as much as you would think.

We have raised beef (it ended up costing us $1.62 per pound after cost of calf, feed, wormers, fly spray, hay, and slaughterhouse costs). Pork cost us slightly more (piggies cost more, got less meat, and slaughterhouse was closed down when it was time to slaughter so had to keep piggies a while longer - thereby costing more in feed) I think we ended up at about $2.00 per pound.

The calf was slaughtered at a weight of 1100 lbs - we ended up with about 550 lbs of edible meat. We did not keep the hide, nor the tallow or some of the innerds. We slaughtered the pen mate ourselves and got approximately 375 pounds of meat out of 950 lbs of calf. Never again will we do that - it took three people two days to cut, wrap and package, that meat. It was absolutely freezing cold and we ended up saving the slaughter fee of $22 and .20 per pound cut and wrap fee. Personally, now we know how to do that, but we would never do it again.

Yes you can save money, but you will have to factor in your time to raise the animal, cost of feed, cost to slaughter, and keep very accurate records of all your outlay for expenses to see if you broke even. We write down every expense - no matter how minor, and then add it all up. If you have 500 in expenses and 500 in meat - it has cost you $1.00 per pound. That is the only way I know of to get an accurate tally of what the expenses were. Of course, we did not include our TIME, which all farmers know, is worth something. Good luck and even if you don't save money - AT LEAST YOU WILL KNOW WHAT YOUR ANIMAL ATE>>> :>)

-- Cindy (colawson@mindspring.com), December 18, 2001.

Response to The true cost

When we buy our meat chicks and pigs in the spring, I keep a journal of all costs. Everything gets written down...from the actual purchase price of the animals to the cost of grain and bedding! Homegrown pork is always cheaper for us. To raise two pigs at home the price per pound is +/- $.69/lb. We do the butchering and packaging ourselves. Store-bought pork ranges from $.99 to $3.00. Now chicken...well store-bought is usually cheaper ('bout $.49/lb.) and homegrown is $1.00 or so...same for turkey. But you can't beat the flavor!! And we prefer skinless poultry. With our dairy goats we just about break even. As for beef, we buy that locally, by the side. We've raised beef in the past, but find that the hassle of containment, length of time to raise them, etc ...well, just isn't worth it for us. We buy only pasture-raised beef that last October costs us $1.82/lb. (slaughtered, cut and wrapped). We can buy most beef cuts cheaper at the local supermarket, BUT I've seen the inside of a slaughterhouse and the back rooms of the supermarket!! 'Nuff said!!!

I never factor in my time, but I enjoy taking care of them, they have a good life and we know what we're eating -)!

-- Marcia (HrMr@webtv.net), December 18, 2001.

Response to The true cost

We raise sheep, make money on them and buy our beef from a neighbor. I'd rather raise the sheep than a cow on sheep pasture, mineral etc.. We do raise our own pigs and chickens but I doubt there's any savings. We simply enjoy do the job and to hang with the cost of a couple of pigs and 50 birds. It ensures a full freezer every year. I'm not worried about our slaughter houses in Ontario. The two we use sparkle.

-- Ross (amulet@istar.ca), December 18, 2001.

Response to The true cost

We have raised pigs in the past and found them to be profitable since you get the piglet in the Spring and butcher it in the fall you are not feeding it for that long a time. We also would get pallets of bakery products from the day old bread stores, which would help in the feeding. A few weeks before butchering we would put them on cracked corn also. There was a cost to having them butchered but it wasn't too bad. But I am talking about 8 yrs ago. We also had chickens in the past and would sell some eggs to pay for the feed. But, when they weren't laying too much in the winter we had to feed them and water them.

Renie

-- Irene Burt (renienorm@aol.com), December 18, 2001.

Response to The true cost

The big thing for us is, we know our animals (pigs, rabbits, turkeys, guineas, ducks and chickens) have been fed good food. They've been allowed to free range (except for the rabbits, and I bring the grass and weeds to them!). And they're NEVER given any kind of growth hormones. They're given antibiotics only when they're showing signs of sickness, and only then as a last resort - never just as a precaution like so many places do. They get the best quality feed available, and good pasture to munch on. They're healthy, happy critters! I want the best for my family, and I know the best way to get it is to grow it myself! :-)

-- Cheryl in KS (cherylmccoy@rocketmail.com), December 18, 2001.

Response to The true cost

We end up getting our meat for free. We raise goats in the spring and summer, when they can eat the grass down and we don't have to feed them much supplemental. Then we sell the goats at the livestock auction in the fall (for about 3x purchase price in 5 months) and get pigs for the fall/winter.

See, around here, high quality spring piglets cost about $125 each, because the demand is so high due to 4H clubs and such. In the fall, no one wants to raise them over the winter, so we get four of them for $25 each, or $100. We tell our friends that we have them and make a deal with them that for $150 we will raise a pig for them and in February when it's time to slaughter, they will pay the $100 slaughter fee. This is a deal for them because purchasing a pig raised over the summer is about $250 not including slaughter. We use the money from the first three pigs to pay for the feed for them all, and to pay for ours to be slaughtered. We will end up making a little money on the deal, and since it's not too much more trouble taking care of four pigs than it is taking care of one, our time is less of a factor. We feed our pigs show quality food and it really makes a difference in the quality of the meat, but we will also supplement the feed from time to time with scraps, etc. One time we got a whole trailerload of pumpkins for free right after halloween, and the pigs ate those for almost a month, along with their regular feed.

We also bartered a year's worth of chicken eggs one time for a pig, but still had to pay for the slaughter. In that case it did cost us money when you figure the cost of the chicken feed, although ours really don't eat much since we allow them to range all day long. They feed on ticks and bugs and grass, and occasionally dog food when someone leaves the door to the screen porch open.

Good luck,

-- chuck in md (woah@mission4me.com), December 18, 2001.

Response to The true cost

Give your chickens any discarded produce from your garden (leaves, over ripe vegi's you don't want, etc...). Go to local grocery stores & food processing plants (they make cole slaw, salad mixes, vegi mixes, etc...) and ask for any discards (vegi's, old bread, etc...). You can also plant a small patch of millet. You don't need to wait for it to get ripe, it's better to cut it in the milk stage (like for hay) & give it to them fresh. Their scratching it around will help it to dry as they eat what they want (so it makes feed & bedding). If you have an animal you want to (or are) milk, chickens will eat that too. This is only to supplement your regular feed.

Ruminants (animals with four stomachs) are cows, goats, & sheep. These animals are the most feed effecient animal. Some breeds of cows & sheep can live on grass (& hay) alone. Dorper (& white dorper), & Katahdin hair sheep were bred for this. Texas Longhorns, Scotch Highland, & Galloway cattle are also known for living on grass alone (very thrifty breeds). These breeds are slow to mature but the last two are well known for excelent meat. The meat is marbled like angus, but they don't have a layer of fat under their skin (to keep warm in winter) like most other cattle breeds as they grow a heavy layer of hair instead. A good sized pasture devided into four or more smaller pens, will provide all the grass a few cows can eat (based on rotational grazing & irrigated pasture) except for winter hay.

I can't tell you anything about hogs.

animalfarms

-- animalfarms (jawjlewis@netzero.net), December 18, 2001.

Grow your own feed, do your own butchering. Start with small animals, and work your way larger. Consider the price of the quality meat you are raising, the value of knowing your food source. Maybe spend a summer working with someone who slaughters and processes their own meat, take it as being paid to learn a valuable trade. As for getting the chicken for $0.29 a pound, we get it about every three months at our local mom and pop grocery store. You have to buy it in increments of about 10 pounds. CS has had a few good articles on raising meat cheaply, and there are plenty of good books that can help, too. We don't have our meat animals right now, but have raised them in the past, and I'll pay for homegrown at a higher cost, considering the stuff they feed to those commercial cattle.

-- Dawn (olsoncln@ecenet.com), December 19, 2001.

My experience is with chickens only, but I figured out that I am saving a little, or a least breaking even on the eggs vs. feed prices.

Example, I pay approxmately $50.00 (depending on grain prices) per month for 6 50# bags of Blue Seal layer mash, and a 50# of cracked corn. I get approximately 13 and a 1/3 dozen eggs per week, or 53 dozen a month, if I divide the eggs into the cost of feed, I'm paying about 94 cents a dozen to produce my eggs. I can sell them for $1.25 per dozen, or as I have for the last 3 weeks, I can give them to Catholic Charities to help the less fortunate for the holiday season. After the holidays I'll put out a sign and sell the eggs. I don't factor in my time, as I feel that the animals I have in my care are the reason I get out of bed in the morning, plus I enjoy doing it (most of the time-grin)

I'm not what anyone could consider a math genius, if I balance my checking account to within a buck I'm feeling pretty good about myself. Are my formulas correct? The bottom line is that I know exactly what is in my eggs, and they do taste better than store bought.

Stacy in NY

-- Stacy (KincoraFarm@aol.com), December 19, 2001.

We only raise chickens, both for meat and for eggs and I'm not awake enough to go through the numbers. But just from our experience, we have over 20 layers right now. What we make from selling eggs provides us with the money for feed plus plenty of eggs for our frig. Sometimes we even give a few dozen away.

When we do our meat birds in the spring/summer, we raise over 100 to 12-13 weeks of age, sell between 60 and 80 finished (frozen/weighed), and put the remainder in our freezer (this can be anywhere between 20 and 45 depending on how many we start with and what few we lose when they're young). What we sell pays for all their food & butchering. It also provides us with a lot of free meat and most of the time a few extra bucks for our pocket.

-- Lisa in WI (lehman16NOSPAM@vbe.com), December 19, 2001.

Interesting response George. Puts a whole new twist on the question.

-- Melissa (me@home.net), December 19, 2001.

I did some major shopping around for chicken feed, and I have found that the price varies widely by location. If I go out of the city to where the farmers buy their feed, it is MUCH cheaper! I am now getting layer pellet at $4.50 for 25 pounds. Also, I clean out the fridge once a week and serve leftovers, anything not eaten goes to the chickens, as does the heels of the bread, the food the little kids leave on their plates, etc. Since I only keep a few hens for our own eggs, the scraps actually make up a significant part of their diet! We get our eggs for WAY less than the store!

-- Terri (Hooperterri@prodigy.net), December 19, 2001.

Stacy...Yup, you're doing the math right! You always divide the total cost of feed/supplies, etc. by the quantity of the product produced...meat, eggs, milk, anything!

-- Marcia (HrMr@webtv.net), December 19, 2001.

George, I agree with Melissa. Debts were a major worry for you, weren't they, in an earlier post? And you're just about dug out from under in this short time-frame? Terrific.

Of course, the same could apply for someone who just has to get home to spend twenty minutes weeding and picking produce for the meal each evening. And if you're feeding the turnip tops and cauliflower leaves and potato peelings to the animals, so much the better.

For anyone, how much time do you spend watching the TV (even paying to do it - totally unproductive) when you could be spending the time watching livestock?

-- Don Armstrong (darmst@yahoo.com.au), December 19, 2001.

No one has yet mentioned the value of the manure that is produced. In my area a lot of farmers keep their manure and sell it as top soil so there isn't a lot of free manure to be had. If we buy it as top soil it is $25 a yard. I don't add the value of the manure when I keep my records but it is enough to make an almost profitable meat operation profitable

-- Bob Fade (fadefarm@aol.com), December 19, 2001.

Hi Don, yes you are right I was getting very nervous about debt. I have found that since getting animals I worry less and am less depressed from worry so I do a whole lot less of the misery spending thing.

I was thinking about this last night after I had posted and I remembered that when I was a kid on the farm my parents had to beg me to quit working in the barn or mending fence or fussing over the animals sometimes and go to town and do something. My brother likes to tell how I would have rather been home taking care of animals then out at a drinking party or shopping like the rest of people my age and how everyone felt sorry for me because they thought I would grow up to be like our uncle who was a farmer who would sit on his porch and wave to people passing by. He was even afraid that If I did end up on the front porch I would slip with the knife and poke out my eye just like Uncle Chum did.

I have always enjoyed being home if I had something to do to keep me home. I have not been out to much lately just to get food which use to be very rare in the house. Afterwork tonight I went and spent my $5 on a bale of hay. This will be all I will need to spend this week for the animals since I have enough of the other food and supplies I need for the animals to last for the next three weeks.

You are right about the gardens too.

I figure in the past month I have saved about 5 or 6 hundred dollars that I would have spent eating out everynight and sometimes 2 to 3 meals on Saturdays and Sundays and also the money I would have spent on other things had I been out shopping instead. My father has always said that it cost him less money in the long run to have livestock than not, since he also spent more time at home instead of as he calls it "tramping the streets."

There really is more than one way to save money with livestock.You just have to look at more than the receipt for the food that you feed the animals. If you are a person who stays home and eats meals at home and very rarely ever goes out shopping then you may think different but I think very few people live like that anymore and the reason is probably because they no longer have a reason to stay home.

-- george (bngcrview@aol.com), December 19, 2001.

another thing I thought of. Animals make a great excuse to leave a boring party or get out of something, I use the excuse "Oh, I'm sorry but I have to take care of the animals." Works everytime :-)

-- george (bngcrview@aol.com), December 19, 2001.

George if you run out of things to do at your place i have a HUGE hunny do list !!!!!!!!!!

-- Patty {NY State} (fodfarms@hotmail.com), December 19, 2001.

LOL Patty, sorry but I have to take care of the animals. :-)

-- george (bngcrview@aol.com), December 19, 2001.

A good way to learn to process your own meat is to go deer hunting with some people that process the deer theirselves. Does not take a lot of expensive equipment, the grinder would be the most expensive, and I wish I had a hand operated one of those. Once you've processed some big game, its not as complicated as one might think.

-- fred (fred@mddc.com), December 19, 2001.

If you knew how those 29cents/lb chickens were raised and slaughtered, you would probably not choose to eat them. Read the book Fast Food Nation to get an overview. It is very readable and very interesting. We have ducks and I know that on a "feed in/number of eggs out" equation they wouldn't stand up to an accountant's scrutiny (I never manage to get around to butchering them until they're too old & tough -- the ducks, I mean!), but I figure they contribute most worthily with manure and slug/bug patrol. And sheer enjoyment of watching their silly antics. The whole point of homesteading is to get away from quantifying all things into $$. One should be frugal, of course, and not wasteful, but be sure to take into account all aspects of a project -- the qualitative aspects. You are really comparing apples and caviar when you compare factoryfarmed food to homeraised food. Compare, for instance, not the cost of factory raised old cold storage eggs to your homeraised eggs, but compare the cost of organic, free-range eggs to them. And if you could have a nutritional analysis of those insipid factory eggs, compared with your homeraised eggs, you would find that on a cost per nutritional value, you are way ahead. Same would hold for other farm projects like pork & beef, I should think.

-- snoozy (bunny@northsound.net), December 20, 2001.

Guess what I found in my Winn Dixie supermarket yesterday? Free range brown hen eggs. Guess what the price was? $2.49 per dozen. Regular brown eggs were $1.29 per dozen and the plain old white, large eggs were .99 cents (on sale).

So guess if the free range brown eggs were that expensive, we've been getting our eggs pretty cheap. I believe it costs us less than a buck and during the spring and summer, I sell five to six dozen a week for a 1.00 a dozen to help pay for the feed. We keep forty hens and two roosters.

-- Cindy (colawson@mindspring.com), December 21, 2001.

If you do your calculations the way the commercial operations have to do it - expense of land, structures, LABOR, feed, and so on and so on then very few of us here could produce food as cheaply as we could buy it. Since most here cannot achieve the economies of scale that large commercial operations can the expenses of land and labor alone would make our operations unprofitable.

Of course, most of us are producing our food on our homesteads - we live here not just work here - so we don't have to count the expenses of land for the most part. For most of us it'll be the same for our labor.

As soon as you move away from figuring expenses and profits the way a business would have to calculate them the entire question of calculating expenses becomes skewed which begins to give you questionable results.

Further complicating the equation is the matter of comparing apples to apples. Is the 29 cent a pound chicken that someone mentioned above the same as the chicken that you can raise?

If all you're looking at here is solely X number of pounds of chicken of the minimum quality that is required to pass Federal inspection for sale to the public then you will never be able to produce chicken as cheaply as the fellows who raise broilers 50,000 at a time. You simply can't achieve their economy of scale.

If you want to produce *good* chicken that you know what was fed to them, were not uneccesarily medicated, and with excellent flavor and texture the equation begins to change. Twentynine cent a pound chicken is not found in this category, you have to go to specialty suppliers and the price rises considerably often to better than $2.00 a pound. With an honest comparison between products such as that you might well be able to produce that chicken more cheaply than you can buy it.

If all that you are concerned with is soley dollars then you're better off with $0.29 chicken and 85 cents a dozen eggs, $1.25 pound ground beef and so on because no homesteader could compete against those kinds of prices but only the most inept, indifferent homesteader would produce food products of the quality that brings such prices. What we produce often cannot even be found for sale and when it can you can bet you'll pay considerably more for it than what the bargain bin at the grocery is charging.

Free range eggs in my local grocery go for about $2.30 a dozen which is twice what ordinary factory eggs go for. At those prices I am spending less per dozen to produce them myself and the equation will become even more favorable as I improve their grazing.

........Alan.

-- Alan Hagan (athagan@atlantic.net), December 21, 2001.