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Breeding chickens to obtain tasty and healthy eggs, as well as dietary meat has been traditional for every village yard in Russia from time immemorial. After all, chickens are very unpretentious creatures, capable of finding their own food from early spring to late autumn. The sight of any Russian village with chickens swarming in the manure or in the grass is very traditional. With the advent of industrial poultry farms in cities, the problem of supplying chicken eggs and various chicken products has also been completely resolved. But the quality of these products leaves much to be desired. Therefore, fresh, natural eggs from the village have always been and will be in demand, as well as chicken meat, which were not grown using special antibiotics and growth accelerators.
For this reason, more and more people are thinking that raising chickens, as a business, can bring considerable benefit to themselves and those around them. But business differs from other occupations in that it must bring real benefits to its owner, and the more, the better. Is it possible to set up a chicken breeding business and how profitable it can be? These issues will be covered in detail in the article.
First of all, you need to decide on a specific direction. Business is a serious matter, and it is best not to be scattered over everything, but to choose one direction to begin with. Applicable to chickens, there can be three of them:
- Breeding laying hens for eggs;
- Breeding broiler chickens for meat;
- Breeding ornamental or purebred chickens for hatching eggs and selling chickens.
There is also such an idea as the incubation of eggs, but it is a very special line of business and will not be considered within the framework of this article.
Breeding laying hens
If you decide to start raising laying hens for eggs, as a serious business, then, first of all, you will need a plot of land with a house and buildings. Renting land and building a good chicken coop Are the most financially expensive activities, and are unlikely to pay off soon. Therefore, it would be better to think about such a business for those who already have a house on their land and, preferably, some buildings on it that can be converted into a dwelling for chickens. In this case, you can combine business with pleasure, that is, having a constant income from the business, at the same time regularly receive natural chicken products for yourself and your family, in the form of eggs and meat.
The choice of breed and conditions of detention
If you decide to arrange the breeding of laying hens as a business, you first of all need to choose a suitable breed of chickens. The choice should be between representatives of egg breeds.
It is necessary to understand the chicken coop in a little more detail, since it depends on its capacity how many chickens you decide to start your business with. Experts advise not to buy thousands of heads at once, but to try your hand at a small number of chickens, for example, about a hundred. If you like the business, and everything will work out, then you can expand the business to almost an industrial scale.
But this is possible subject to the availability of an additional area for walking chickens, fenced off from predators.It should adjoin directly to the dwelling of the chickens and the chickens should have a free access hole from the hen house so that it is easy to go for walks during the day. Thus, to breed a hundred chickens for eggs, it is necessary that the area of the barn is 25 square meters. Some people use cages for laying hens, but if this is quite acceptable for growing boilers, then walks are necessary for laying hens to feel good and high egg production. In addition, the eggs of chickens that walk a lot in the air will differ in composition from those that sit in cages all the time. After all, this is how chickens are raised in poultry farms. In addition, cells must either be purchased or made on their own. And this is an additional waste of finance and time.
The chicken coop must be insulated from the inside so that the chickens have the opportunity to lay all year round. The most comfortable temperature regime for them is from -2 ° С to + 25 ° С.
It is also necessary to equip the chicken coop with feeders and drinkers. But to save money, they are quite easily constructed independently from scrap materials: wood, plastic bottles, pipes, etc.
Chickens also need adequate lighting for good egg production. It is best to consider a combination of natural light with artificial. Then you can save a lot on the latter. Chickens need at least 12-13 hour daylight hours.
The chicken room must be provided with good ventilation. To protect against rodents, the ventilation openings must be covered with reliable grilles. Regular disinfection and cleaning in the hen house (once a week) will help keep chickens from a variety of infections. To simplify these procedures, it is advisable to whitewash the walls and ceiling with lime.
Inside the hen house at a height of 0.5 meters, perches need to be installed, at the rate of 10-15 cm per chicken. It is also necessary to arrange nests in which the chickens will lay. You can use ready-made plastic or wooden boxes. For 4-5 chickens, an average of one nesting place is needed.
Laying hens business plan
Before starting any business, you must have a detailed scheme of action. This is especially important for beginners. Below is a detailed business plan for raising laying hens, which you can view completely free of charge.
So, it was decided that, for the first time, land and a house for chickens were available.
There are three options for raising chickens for eggs:
- Purchase of day old chicks and rearing them independently before laying;
- Buying monthly chickens and raising them on their own until the first eggs appear;
- Purchase of 3-4 month old young chickens.
Average chickens of egg breed begin to rush at 4-5 months. If you plan to recoup your investment as quickly as possible, then the latter option will suit you best. But these chickens are not so cheap either. Maybe it would be more profitable to buy day old chicks and tinker with raising them in order to save money? It is only necessary to take into account that the real survival rate of day-old chicks is, at best, 70-80%.
Below is a table showing all three options for keeping and feeding laying hens up to 5 months. Prices for feed and poultry are taken as average for Russia for 2017.
| Day-old chicks | Monthly chicks | 3-4 month old chicks | |
| The cost of buying one chicken | 50 rbl | 100 rbl | 300 rbl |
| How much feed does it consume per day | 50 g | 100 g | 120 g |
| Cost of 1 kg of compound feed | 20 rbl | 18 rbl | 18 rbl |
| Cost of keeping (feeding) one chicken per month | 30 rbl | 54 rbl | 65 rbl |
| Survival by 5 months | 70-80% | 95% | 100% |
| Feed costs up to 5 months | 30 rubles + 216 rubles = 246 rubles | 54x4 = 216 rubles | 65 rbl |
| Total cost to 5 months | 50 + 246 = 296 rubles | 100 + 216 = 316 rubles | 300 + 65 = 365 rubles |
In total, the savings are small, but due to the lower survival rate of day-old chicks, the cost of all three options is approximately the same. Obviously, in order not to bother with raising small chickens, it is better to immediately buy 3-4 month old birds, which, depending on the breed and condition, can be added within a month.
Subject to the purchase of hundreds of chickens, the initial investment will amount to 36,500 rubles.
In the future, about 65 rubles will be spent on feeding one chicken per month. Of course, in the summer, this amount may decrease due to a large amount of pasture, but it is better to make calculations based on the maximum costs than to be disappointed later. It will take about 6,500 rubles a month to feed a hundred chickens.
Within a year after they hatch, laying hens of a good breed are capable of laying each up to 300 eggs. This figure is based on a moulting period that lasts from one to two months each year, during which chickens do not lay. The average cost of one egg is currently about 7 rubles.
Thus, if we proceed from the fact that each layer produces about 25 eggs per month, then the average income from one chicken per month will be 175 rubles. Income from one hundred chickens per month will amount to 17,500 rubles. And in a year it will turn out to be 210,000 rubles.
If we subtract from 17,500 rubles the cost of feeding per month, we get 11 thousand rubles. One thousand rubles is deducted for various additional expenses.
In total, it turns out a net profit per month from a hundred chickens - 10 thousand rubles.
It turns out about 120 thousand rubles per year. If we calculate the profitability of this business, based on the formula for profitability of production, then we can get the following - the purchase costs are added to the maintenance costs. It turns out 36500 + 6500x12 = 114,500 rubles. In total, in a year all costs were paid off and even a small plus turned out, that is, the profitability of this business was about 54%.
Broiler breeding
When setting up a business that involves breeding broiler chickens for meat, there are some peculiarities. First of all, this business has a much faster payback, because boilers are only grown for two months, after which they are slaughtered to obtain meat products. On the other hand, on average, broiler chickens are more whimsical to housing conditions than laying hens, and mortality among chickens in the first days of life can reach 40-50%.
Usually day-old broilers are bought. The cost of one chicken is approximately 50 rubles. For two months of feeding, one broiler eats about 6.5 kg of special compound feed. If you save on feed and feed the broiler with grain and herbs, then there will be no point in growing at all. The broiler will not have gained its required weight by two months. A good broiler should weigh about 3 kg by two months, so that the net weight of meat from it will be about 2 kg.
Considering the average cost of compound feed for broilers, it is necessary to spend about 160 rubles for feeding one chicken in two months.
The cost of 1 kg of meat is about 250 rubles. This means that you can get about 500 rubles from the sale of one broiler. At the same time, having invested in it, 210 rubles. In total, you can get about 290 rubles of net profit from one broiler chicken. It turns out that with the purchase of hundreds of broiler chickens, it is possible to receive from them 29,000 rubles of net profit in two months.
Of course, there are many special preparations and vitamins that help to breed broilers with practically no losses (up to 95%), but they make up considerable additional financial investments. In addition, much still depends on the quality of the broiler chickens themselves.For these reasons, many do not dare to get involved with the breeding of broiler chickens as a business, but they are happy to grow them for themselves.
Breeding thoroughbred chickens
Among the many ideas related to raising chickens, one type of business deserves attention, based on obtaining hatching eggs and chickens from purely purebred chickens, usually an ornamental direction. Of course, it makes sense to do this type of business near large cities, since decorative birds are usually bought mainly as a hobby or as pets. They usually have little to do with egg production or breeding for meat. However, there are exceptions. For instance, Pavlovsky chickens, despite their status as the most beautiful chickens in the world, they rush quite well and have the most delicate, delicious meat. And in the famous Chinese silk chickens, dark-colored meat has so many healing properties that it can even cure many diseases.
It is possible to consider, using the example of silk chickens, the possibility of setting up a business on their maintenance. The fact is that, despite their exotic appearance, these chickens do not require any special conditions of detention. They will be quite content with an ordinary chicken coop with the usual conditions for laying hens, which have been discussed above.
They are also unpretentious in feeding, and all calculations associated with laying hens can be used for silk Chinese hens.
In addition to their delicious and healing meat, silk chickens can also be used for shearing down. This procedure can be carried out once a month, getting up to 75 g of fine fluff from each chicken.
Silk chickens are also excellent brooders, so it is possible for the first time not to even use an incubator to hatch their chicks.
The main data for silk chickens are as follows:
- One silk hen is capable of laying about 100 eggs per year;
- The chicken begins to lay at an average of 5 months;
- The live weight of the chicken is about 1 kg, the cockerel weighs about 1.5 kg;
- For ten chickens, you must have one rooster;
- The average hatchability of chickens from eggs is about 85-90%;
- Of a dozen chickens, the ratio of chickens to roosters is approximately the same 5x5.
It should only be borne in mind that calculating the profitability of this business is much more complicated, since both adult birds and chickens, as well as hatching eggs, will be sold.
In addition, the most difficult part of this business will be finding reliable distribution channels, since the products are highly unconventional.
The table below shows the basic calculations for buying, keeping and making a profit from silk chickens when buying their hatching eggs, day old chicks and adult birds. It should be noted that when buying a hatching egg without the chickens themselves, an incubator will be needed.
| Buying a hatching egg | Buying day old chicks | Buying adult chickens | |
| Cost of one unit | 200 rbl | 300 rbl | 1500-2000 rub |
| Costs in a month for one unit | No - the appearance of day old chicks | 30 rbl | 54 rbl |
| Costs in a year | 246r + 324r = 570 rubles | 624 rbl | 648 rbl |
| Total costs in a year for 1 unit | 770 rbl | 924 rbl | 2148 rbl |
| Potential profit in a year | 40 eggs: RUB 30,000 + RUB 2,000 + RUB 3,000 + RUB 45,000 = RUB 80,000 | 50 eggs: RUB 45,000 + RUB 2,000 + RUB 3,000 + RUB 45,000 = RUB 95,000 | 100 eggs: RUB 75,000 + RUB 5,000 + 7,500 = RUB 87,500 |
The potential profit is that 50% of the eggs produced will be raised to adult poultry for sale, and half of the remaining eggs will be sold as hatching and hatching day old chicks.
Considering that hatchability from eggs is only 85-90%, and the survival rate of young animals is also approximately 90%, then the possible profit in a year is approximately the same in all three cases. But in the third case, the amount of the initial investment is quite large, especially when buying a large livestock, from 10 individuals. Obviously, this type of business is the most profitable, the problem is only in the issue of sales.
Let's summarize
In conclusion, I would like to note that breeding chickens is a fairly profitable business, although the larger the volume, the more difficult it is to comply with environmental standards for keeping chickens. Therefore, the best option would be to create a small mini-farm with a total number of birds of no more than a few hundred heads. With a larger number, the use of hired labor will be required, which will reduce the already low profitability of production. The most profitable business is the breeding of decorative and rare breeds of chickens, but the main obstacle is finding distribution channels for the products.
