How to sell roosters
How We Raise and Sell Chickens On A Small Scale.
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yes
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i thought i'd take this week's video and
go a little deeper into the working part
of the smallholding we've established a
small income through raising and selling
broiler chickens for meat
we supply local markets and friends and
family at this stage
and right now it's time to feed and
water them
they're on a batch rotation where we get
a hundred day old chicks every two weeks
these birds are three weeks old and
ready to be moved out of the brooder tub
and into a new chicken house we've built
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this batch are a week old and will
remain in the brooder tub under warm
lights for another week or two
they eat a slightly different feed
called broiler starter it's crumbled
down so their tiny little bird faces can
eat it without choking
the third and final batch we have in
rotation are the oldest and biggest
birds at five weeks
these chickens are in movable tractors
out on grass so i need to take feed and
water out to them
my favorite part of this job is
nothing i suppose i enjoy driving my
land rover
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the idea here is to get the chickens
eating grass and bugs a much more
natural diet for them this gives the
meat much more flavor and is considered
to be more healthy
it's a ton more work though as in order
to give the chickens fresh grass every
day
they need to be moved every day clean
fresh grass
with loads of ventilation
these chicken tractors basically only
exist to keep the boats dry and warm
and safe from predators besides that
they live a pretty good chicken
existence
in each tractor there are two feeders
and two drinkers all suspended from the
structure
they are suspended for a couple of
reasons
one they hang level because of well
gravity and so nothing tips out or gets
knocked over or pooped in
and two the height of the feeders and
drinkers need to be adjusted as the
chickens grow allowing them to easily
access the food and water
otherwise they don't eat or drink and
eventually die from stupidity
anyway that's how you do that
not the best i've ever done it i mean i
didn't mean to like
squash your chicken a little bit there
but it was seemingly lethargic already
it wasn't moving forward with the rest
of the chickens and i think it was on
its way out already we'll see if it
survives and then i've got to go and
finish off
that little chicken thing chicken house
thing
that i put the roof on a week or two ago
that really needs to be finished today
because
the batch in the garage which i did
first this morning needed to go in there
like two days ago so the pressure's on a
little bit
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as you can see
this new chicken house has come a long
way since you saw it last
my dad put some hours in and closed the
sides with some old pallet wood we had
lying around
and because we're under a little
pressure to move the three-week old
chickens out of the brooded tub and into
this chicken house the responsibility of
completing it is on me not perfect but
nothing around here is
remember that leftover piece of
transparent roof sheet
yeah me neither but i found this and i
thought it could be a quick win to close
this side of the chicken house and still
allow some light to come through
but it doesn't seem to want to cooperate
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fiberglass everywhere
apparently talcum powder
um helps
the next issue to solve are the corners
on the outside where there's gaps around
poles and stuff i mean this place was
built without a spirit level and with
poles and kind of just
thumb sucking so i got to do the corners
on the outside of the building
then
i don't know
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oh my dad just got home
let's see what he says
okay well i got some approval
but there are a few changes to be made
before we can get some chickens in here
namely
these sections here are going to be
framed in with chicken mesh and the
chickens will go in these sections and
this section here which i've been
boarding up will hold the feed
containers and whatever all kind of
miscellaneous bits and bobs we are still
waiting for a huge big order of sawdust
to arrive which hasn't it was supposed
to be here today which is why i'm
rushing for this but
if it hasn't arrived the chickens gone
go in here tonight so there's no point
in me doing it right now i'll pick it up
again tomorrow and we just hope
that the sawdust arrives tomorrow and
those chickens can come in here and
chill out
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the sawdust arrived from the sawmill and
the race was now on to transfer the now
mucky birds into their new dry and warm
home the sawdust needs to be from
untreated timber otherwise the chickens
eat it and die from stupidity
again there's a natural disinfectant in
the sap of the spine sawdust so it's a
great hygienic bed for the chickens to
live on
once that was done the new coop was
ready to receive the chickens so i
crated them up 15 at a time and slowly
transferred them
we try really hard to give the birds a
great life and i think it shows as we've
had very good feedback from all of our
customers
and tell you one thing
you can be glad you don't have
smell-o-vision
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maybe in another video i can dive into
the cash flow of a business like this to
give you an idea on how much you can
expect to earn from an endeavor like
this
spoiler alert
it's not very much at all especially on
a small scale like this
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there you have it 99
sort of happy birds now i just need to
hang some feeders and one more
water container drinker and then i think
they're set then i'm going to get to
closing in this gap to prevent any
predators so
still loads to do
the last thing to do was to close in the
coop with timber frame and chicken wire
but on second thought i think
i think i'm gonna let the old man do it
he's a carpenter after all i'm not and i
don't have to
use the last available bits of material
experimenting basically so i'm gonna
leave it for him to do and i'll give him
a hand so i'll catch up with you
tomorrow and i'll give you a rundown on
what he did and show you around
i took the last available light to make
sure the birds out in the tractors had
enough food and water before calling it
a day
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so that's the sawdust order that came in
now this morning i've got like 10 more
bags to move in here but i wanted to
show you what my dad finished off last
night before the end of this video
pretty cool huh so he put in the stud
frame i suppose i could have done that
and he cut and measured and screwed fast
some galvanized chicken wire i suppose i
could have done that there you go
pretty good i reckon
now
they can be safe overnight which they
were last night and we can just close in
the other side exactly the same as this
and then we can get more birds in that
side and i think that's going to be a
better system for the winter here
chickens out in the in the field in the
chicken tractors it's probably not a
good system for the wintertime the
temperature is getting just too low and
we've lost about 10 of that batch in
here i think they're much warmer
much more settled and more chilled out
that's it for this video
i hope you enjoyed tagging along with
what goes into looking after these
chickens it is a full on process when
you have them in rotation and you're
doing batches of 100 or so at a time
once on a very small scale like this so
thanks again for watching i hope you
were encouraged to maybe keep some of
your own chickens it is a lot of work
and they do eat a lot of food but it's
kind of a cool process to see where your
food comes from
thanks for joining me on farming friday
and i'll see you again on the next one
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you