Chook Me!

Poultry question (poultry as in ducks and chickens)?

i am wanting to start a small poultry business. here are the questions i would like answered. 1. how much will it cost (i already have a shed, coops, and incubators and chickens and ducks) 2. how can i advertise it 3. is wisconsin a good state for a poultry business(lots of farms here) 4. what should i charge 5. how many pairs of each breed should i get 6. should i keep the orders in wisconsin or other states to 7. if i should sell to ppl in other states how do i ship the birds there thanks for your help

Public Comments

1. I'll try and answer to the best of my knowledge since no one else has attempted: 1) Since you already have most of the materials, I would say all you need is food for the feed. I'm pretty sure you also need a license to do this legally, but I'm not sure, sorry. I know for selling eggs you need a license. 2) You can advertise on Craig's List, Amazon, Ebay, etc. You could also make your own flyers and print them out and put them up in pet shops or feed stores if they let you. If you're really serious about this you can even pay to have an ad put in newspapers or phone books. 3) I'm assuming every state is good, or at least the majority of them. Since Wisconsin's a farming state, I'm guessing it'll be good. 4) What you charge depends on what you're selling. If it's eggs, I would go 50 cents to 1 dollar higher then the store price. If you're going to sell chickens I would sell (depending on the breed) $2-3 per pullet, $1-2 per cockerel, $5 per hen, and $2-3 per rooster. Most people will want the females, and tend to not want the males. Most of the time when a hen hatches a clutch of eggs the majority is male. So, there's plenty of them around. 5) Depends on how big. I would get at least two to four of each. 6) Start in your own state, then expand. 7) There's boxes you can get from hatcheries with holes in them to ship the chicks. Murray McMurray Hatchery sells them on their website. Hope this helps!
2. Check if your community has a local "farmers market". We can sell eggs and chickens here without a license so that's not a problem for us. Monitor your feed usage carefully (you should free range them to cut down feed expense)...you can easily lose money if you don't pay attention to feed and disease control. Start small locally, and then see how it goes from there. Shipping birds is not that complicated lots of places do it,...but you get a little higher mortality rate. As far as how many to get? That depends on what sells and why? Are you selling show birds? Meat birds? Layers? All things you'll have to decide. If selling to the public, you must be really aware of parasites, and illness,.....the last thing you want to do is spread ill or contaminated birds to people....that'd kill your business in a hurry.