Business for raising broilers on a farm

About business

As a business, broiler breeding is one of the most profitable branches of livestock farming, since the period of raising chickens lasts about 70 days, while cattle must be raised for at least 1-2 years. Large farms specializing in poultry usually develop in the following directions:

• Incubation and rearing of chicks
• Breeding new breeds of birds
• Creation of compound feeds
• Sale of meat and by-products

Moreover, benefits can be obtained even with very small deposits. The easiest way to do this is to raise day-old chicks from eggs. This will already bring benefits, because a day-old chick costs three times more than an egg (25 rubles and 8 rubles, respectively). When you have accumulated a certain starting capital in this way, you can arrange everything for raising broilers.

Is it profitable to raise broiler chickens, profitability

It is worth understanding that the resulting net profit does not take into account start-up costs, so in the first 2 months the entrepreneur will not even recoup the funds spent on building a chicken coop.

In the future, with an established scheme, regular income will be 100 thousand or more rubles. Payback varies within 4-6 months, which depends on the speed of sales and the pricing policy of buyers.

Profitability – net income/total profit multiplied by 100%.

108 900/198 900*100 = 55%.

Based on all the calculations and indicators, the direct benefits of broiler breeding and the rate of return on business become visible.

Owning a poultry breeding business is much more profitable than a similar business raising animals. Chickens are unpretentious in food, grow quickly, and meat is always in demand because it has a low price and has dietary properties. In just a few months, raising broilers for sale can be turned into a serious enterprise with a high cash turnover.

Advantages and disadvantages

Although broiler breeding as a business is a fairly promising niche, this type of business has both advantages and disadvantages. The most important advantages are the rapid growth of chickens, as well as the ability to use a small room. For 1 sq.m. area can accommodate as many as 20 birds.

Of course, there are certain risks:

• Infection of birds with various infections
• Insufficient weight gain due to the use of low-quality feed
• Falling demand for chicken meat

To avoid troubles, you should purchase eggs only from trusted suppliers, having discussed all the nuances in advance and drawn up contracts. Chickens should be purchased only from well-established hatcheries.

Broiler breeding: how to find buyers?

• When breeding broilers, you also need to think about this in advance. The more advantages you have, the more buyers you can attract. Therefore, if possible, organize delivery methods and offer for sale broiler carcasses that are as prepared for cooking as possible.
• You can start by advertising in local newspapers and on television. This way you can attract restaurant business enterprises, possibly meat processing plants located nearby, and also resellers. Your products may also be of interest to those who live nearby and want to periodically buy fresh poultry meat, thus becoming your regular customers. You can sell the products yourself, or by hiring a salesperson.
• to sell broilers in the form of stew , except to acquaintances. Stores will not accept products that have not passed GOST certification and all sorts of approvals. Therefore, if you decide to purchase an autoclave for preparing stew, count on low power, mainly for yourself.

Sale

Broiler farming

Depending on the purpose for which you raise chickens (for slaughter for meat or for direct sale), raising broiler chickens as a business will have its differences.

Raised for meat

In this case, you should purchase chickens at one month of age. They are placed in a chicken coop where the temperature is maintained at 30⁰C, and the lighting system operates according to the following scheme: two hours on and two hours off.

As for feeding, it is better to give preference to feed with the following composition: half corn, the rest is milk powder, wheat, meal, fish and grass meal, minerals, yeast, feed fat.

In order for birds to gain weight faster, their mobility should be limited. If all the conditions are met correctly, then within 70 days you will receive a healthy bird that has gained weight.

Raising chicks for direct sale

Chickens for direct sale are raised either naturally (under a brood hen) or using an incubator. The first option, although more natural, is also more complex. The main difficulty is determining the right moment. Place 10-20 eggs under the brood hen, fence and feed the bird regularly. This method has one serious drawback: the hen can simply throw the eggs, and all efforts will go down the drain.

Growing in an incubator is simpler and more promising. About a hundred eggs can be placed in a small apparatus, and about 9-10 thousand in large industrial ones. Although most devices have an automatic turning function, you should not rely too much on technology in this matter. You should also take care in advance to find a backup source of electricity or a water heating system in case the central electricity is turned off for some reason.

Breeding broilers in the country

• In the summer, you can try raising broilers at your own dacha. For this, many people use two cardboard boxes connected together, in one of which a heating lamp is installed for the chickens, and in the second - a feeder with a drinker.
• In the first seven days after purchase, babies are fed boiled eggs, millet porridge without salt, cottage cheese and starter feed. You can give finely chopped greens. It is better to drink sweetish water and skim milk.
• Upon reaching two weeks of age, add egg shells, after calcining them, and whey. It is also advisable to add chalk, fish meal, and nutritional yeast.
• Then the chickens are transferred to cages or to a chicken coop, for which any outbuilding with a wooden floor can be adapted at the dacha, filling it with sawdust and ash or chopped straw, hay and even peat.
• The diet and required temperature indicators are the same as in other methods of breeding broilers. You can add crops grown at your summer cottage to the feed: zucchini, pumpkin, potatoes, carrots, raw or boiled, grated.
• It is important to ensure that the food does not turn sour, and if this happens, it should be thrown away immediately and the feeder should be disinfected with potassium permanganate.
• After one and a half to two months, you can start selling, since the weight of the bird will no longer increase significantly and you will waste money on feed. In addition, if your summer house is used year-round, you can leave some of the birds to hatch eggs and get subsequent generations without spending a lot of money.

At the dacha
And one more tip: you can sell not only meat, but also entrails (liver, stomachs, hearts), paws and heads, sell feathers and even droppings, which produce excellent organic fertilizer, which is very much in demand in dacha conditions.

Business registration

Beginning livestock breeders often register their business as individual entrepreneurs. This is a very good solution for those cases where there are no plans to create a large enterprise offering its products on an industrial scale to large supermarket chains, large butcher shops and large enterprises in general.

For individual entrepreneurs, a simpler taxation system is provided, which is a definite advantage. A more complex option is an LLC - this method provides more opportunities, but also requires large financial and time investments.

The next step will be to obtain all the necessary certificates and permits: from the SES, Rospotrebnadzor, fire inspectorate, veterinary quality control organization, social funds, etc.

Start-up capital and profitability

As an example, let's take an average farm with a thousand heads, working using the floor method and raising broilers for slaughter.

You can sell chicken meat on the market at a wholesale price of 150 rubles per kilo. For a thousand heads, the income will be 150 thousand. All that remains is to subtract monthly expenses: taxes, salaries, rent, etc. The net profit from the project is 50 thousand rubles.

With a profit of 50 thousand every two months and business expansion, profitability will come in 10-14 months.

What you can do right now:

• Watch the video on the topic (provided above)
• Download a detailed poultry farm business plan right now

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Site and premises

The conditions for keeping broilers on farms are regulated by order of the Ministry of Agriculture of the Russian Federation (04/03/2006). It specifies the following requirements for a business plan for broiler breeding:

• The room should be made of materials that are easy to clean.
• There should be a straw mat on the floor. As an option - from sawdust or shavings.
• The farm must have good ventilation.
• Walking areas must be fenced.
• There must be water drains on the site.
• Feeders should be accessible to birds, 4-5 cm in length for young birds and 6-8 cm for large birds.
• The length of the drinkers should be at least 1-3 cm per bird.

To save effort and time, as well as from the point of view of maintaining optimal conditions, lighting and heating systems should be automatic. The optimal coating for walls is a lime solution. This will protect the broilers from infections.

Broilers must be kept either in cages or directly on the floor. If you prefer the first option, then you should calculate 12-16 birds per 1 sq.m. The thickness of the bedding made from sawdust or shavings must be at least 10 cm. For each new batch of boilers, a new bedding is taken.

It is better to automate the feeding and water supply process. For chicks, it is better to purchase tray-type feeders and vacuum drinkers. For adult birds, automatic equipment is suitable.

If you decide to keep broilers in cages, you can either order them or make them yourself. The dimensions must be as follows: 1 m high, 0.4 m wide, there must be a tray located at an angle (0.2 m in front and 0.1 m in the back). For 1 sq.m. The cages can accommodate 20-25 birds.

It is imperative to monitor the gas concentration (norm - up to 15 mg/cub.m for ammonia, 5 mg/cub.m for hydrogen sulfide), noise level (norm - up to 90 dB) and air speed (norm 0.3-0.4 m/s) indoors!

Breeding broiler chickens in cages

• This type of broiler breeding has its advantages: the space required for breeding, electricity and feed are saved. Broilers are protected from the influence of the external environment, they are easy to care for, and in addition, it is in the cage that they quickly gain the required weight.
• A square meter of cage can accommodate about 25 birds, and given that the cages can be installed, up to 25 broilers can be placed, and taking into account the installation of such cages in several rows, the costs of lighting and heat are reduced. When keeping cages, automatic drinkers and removable trays are used, into which feed is poured - thus the feeding process does not bother the broilers.
• The bird cannot scatter the feed when it is in the feeder, thus there are savings in feed. Cleaning is also easier - it’s easier to clean droppings from a retractable tray than from the litter.
• Keeping them in a cage eliminates the risk of predation or avian disease that can come from contact with wild birds. The factor of adverse weather influences is also excluded.
• Of course, there are also disadvantages: a sick bird can infect everyone around it, since broilers are crowded in cages. For the same reasons, careful control over temperature and air humidity is necessary, since failure to comply with the necessary indicators increases the possibility of disease in the entire livestock.
• And rapid weight gain in birds kept in a cage does not prevent a decrease in the taste of meat compared to free-range birds.
• The cages themselves consist of steel bars on wooden or metal frames. The larger the livestock, the greater the need for a metal frame, which is easy to disinfect. Their optimal width for your own household is up to 70 cm, depth – up to 30 cm, height – up to 25 cm.

In a cage

• You can heat the room with gas, electricity or infrared emitters, which are the most acceptable in this type of household, since they do not require large amounts of electricity and do not require many permits, like gas heating.
• The temperature in the room gradually decreases from 34°C (when chickens are 1-5 days old) to 18-24°C (after reaching 12 days of age). The same principle is used in lighting: from around the clock for week-old chicks to 15-18 hours for older ones.

Equipment

Part of the success of your business depends on whether you can choose good equipment or not. If you are too poorly versed in this niche, we recommend delegating the process of selecting equipment to professionals.

Equipment for outdoor growing:

• Fan heater
• Grated floor and bedding

Cage growing equipment:

• Frame fan
• Heat emitter
• Cell batteries type INKI 90K-B

You will need the following set of equipment in any case, regardless of the type of cultivation you choose:

• Nipple drinkers
• Drip catcher for drinking bowls
• Canned drinking bowls, 5–6 l.
• Automatic feeders, 6 l.
• Feed bunker
• Heating lamps 100 W
• Room ventilation system

If you are going to raise chicks from eggs, then you will definitely need an incubator. As mentioned earlier, it is better to entrust the selection process to a professional, but if you decide to do this on your own, then be sure to pay attention to the following points:

• Is there an independent power source?
• Capacity
• Is there a ventilation system
• Method of turning eggs (there are mechanical and manual)

Stern

For chickens you need to buy special feed. It is needed in the first month of life of the chicks; crushed dandelion and nettle leaves, grated carrots and goat cheese should be added to the diet. From the second month you can switch to grains and bran, additives from potatoes and beets, carrots and pumpkins, and fresh herbs. Be sure to give your chickens vitamin supplements, eggshells, and small shells.

Feed costs depend on the number of birds. Calculations are based on the daily allowance for each breed. On average, with a mixed diet, a chicken eats about 35 kg of grain or feed per year. By drawing up a schedule for raising young animals and slaughtering, you can calculate the required amount of feed.

Staff

Breeding broilers at home as a business is aimed primarily at family-type peasant farms. The hardest work will naturally fall on the adults. So, one person is enough to fully care for a hundred birds. However, some assistance will be required in purchasing feed, cleaning the chicken coop and other utility work.

However, if it is possible to cope with a “family contract”, then there is no need to hire someone on the side. This means you won’t have to register as an employer or pay extra taxes. The services of veterinarians and invited specialists can be contracted as a specific service, and not a permanent job.

Broiler breeding: bird care

• If your poultry house is not for a dozen birds, but for 20-50, then it is better to plan for at least one more person to participate in the work. Perhaps family members will help you, and if funds allow, it makes sense to invite an assistant to breed broilers. In addition to regularly feeding the birds, it is necessary to clean the premises at least regularly.
• For newly hatched chicks, it is necessary to maintain the temperature at least 30˚C, lowering it as the birds grow older. A chicken coop or cage is enough for them, so free range is unnecessary. Birds are also afraid of drafts, so make sure there are none when you set up the ventilation system. Don't forget to add fresh sawdust or straw to the floor.
• The survival rate of broilers is generally high. But examining the chickens by a veterinarian will not be superfluous. Moreover, before slaughtering a bird, you must be sure that it is healthy and all necessary veterinary examinations will be passed without problems.

Selection of eggs and chicks

For raising healthy, large chickens, hybrid breeds obtained as a result of crossing will be optimal. The most productive of them are Ross -308, Cobb-500, Smena-7.

To purchase chickens, contact only trusted suppliers. Take chicks at least 10 days old, with feathers lying evenly, without clouding of the eyes, and active. The wings should fit tightly to the body and not puff up.

As for the eggs, they should be approximately the same size, with uniform pigmentation, and even. You can also conduct an examination with an ovoscope. You should pay attention to:

• The presence of a dark spot - an embryo.
• The position of the yolk should be in the center. And only one.
• The air chamber should be no more than 1.5 cm in size.

A repeat examination with an ovoscope occurs after a week. Another one - 2-3 days before the chicks hatch. At the final stage, the air chamber occupies at least 75% of the egg, and there should be practically no protein.

You should not buy chicks at spontaneous markets - the risk of acquiring sick birds is very high.

Feeding

A business plan for breeding boiler chickens involves choosing a diet. Broiler nutrition plays a key role in generating further profits. The diet is divided into three main stages, namely:

• Pre-launch
• Starting
• Finishing

The first stage lasts 2 weeks, during this period the chickens are fed with a special mixture, gradually increasing the daily intake from 10 to 25 grams.

The starting period lasts until the end of the first month, at which time the portion is increased to 120 grams. Then, until the end of the second month, the daily portion is 130-150 grams of feed.

If you are planning to make raising broilers your business, then you should not experiment with feed - it is better to purchase ready-made feed, which contains everything necessary for healthy growth and active weight gain. The amount of feed should also be sufficient. Cutting portions can have a bad effect on the weight gain of birds.

Despite the fact that broilers are not very susceptible to all kinds of infections, it is necessary to adhere to hygiene measures: keep the bedding, drinkers, feeders clean, and periodically add fresh grass to the chickens’ diet. On a household scale this is easy.

Seasonal breeding

Seasonal chickens are raised for meat mainly for their own consumption.

But even on a relatively small plot, you can organize a business to raise a decent livestock. People who go to the country for the entire summer season, or live in the private sector, can gain 4-5 kg ​​in 2-2.5 months. live weight per broiler.

It takes no more than 50-60 days to grow a broiler to its maximum weight. Moreover, if you have a subsidiary farm, then there will be no problems with purchasing fodder.

Preparation for sale

Broiler breeding as a business requires a production cycle of about 70 days. When the birds have reached two months of age, they can be slaughtered. It is better to hire a third-party employee for this purpose. Before slaughter, birds are not given food for 10-12 hours. Catching should be done carefully so as not to cause injury or cause stress. You must proceed as follows:

• Stun and kill a bird
• Perform exsanguination
• Pluck and gut the carcass
• Singe and rinse
• Package and label products
• Freeze

Sales of products

Before you start your own business and figure out whether raising chickens is profitable or not, you must take care of sales channels. You can sell meat at city markets, various fairs, sell your products to meat shops, or trade directly from the farm. Each of these options has its own nuances.

As an additional income, you can consider selling eggs and day-old chicks. The main thing to remember is quality, a good reputation and competent advertising. This will help you find new customers and expand your audience.

Where to begin?

First of all, you need to decide how you will raise chickens and what kind of sales you will engage in.

There are 2 ways to run a home business using broilers:

1. Buying eggs and an incubator for them. A good method for those who want to engage in this type of income for a long time, because... incubators save your costs. But this method also has a disadvantage, that not all eggs can hatch.
2. Purchasing chickens. You buy broiler chickens and raise them without thinking about incubation. A fairly simple method that saves you time.

Let's consider how much profit you can get in each option, as well as how much money you need to spend on it.