Facts and Figures

Hidden Haven where I am doing my internship this semester is a large hometead/small farm. Laura says her aim is to run it for profit, but she has only been at it a few years, and still learning and growing and definitely not making a profit yet. Currently the only income generating part of her farm is goat breeding (Nubians), operating a milk herd share (with 4 cows) and selling duck and chicken eggs.

Her herdshare has a $50 start up and a $28/month fee for maintaining and milking for the owner. She is looking to expand this portion of the farm, she currently has 4 cows, and tries to always keep two in milking, while breeding.

Duck eggs are sold for $5 a dozen and chicken for $4 a dozen. Currently Laura has about 50 egg layers and this week she added 75 new egg layers, which was quite the project to get them from the post office and get them set up, see my other post for more details. The goal is to raise these up to have more eggs to start selling at her local farmers market on Signal Mountain this Spring.

The new egg layers came from Cackle Hatchery in Missouri and are a mix of Maura, Brahma, Olive Eggers, Weismers and an assortment of pullets and rainbow, all are from heritage breeds. Cost for the 75 was $359.38

We will be monitoring their growth like the meat chickens over the duration of my internship here.

The Freedom Rangers we are raising for meat, are growing at a rapid rate, and seeing them week to week it is amazing how fast they grow. These chickens came from Freedom Ranger Hatchery in Reinholds, PA and cost $1.55 each, we are down to 60 chicks and they are being fed Chick starter grower at $14.49 for a 50lb bag and they are currently onto their third bag as of 2/14/19. These chicks are experiment for both Laura and high to go through the process and track the growth, cost and effort required to raise and butcher 60 chickens. The Freedom Rangers take 9-11 weeks to raise to full weight, which is longer than the more common Cornish meat chickens that are raised by smaller farmers in our area. We have set a date for 4/8/19 as slaughter date. By the end of the project we hope to have a cost per bird, and see if they are worth raising again for profit vs the cost and time needed to put into a longer raised bird.

The brooder box Laura made for the ducks and chicks cost about $60 to make, and is a great design, because once it is finished being used, it is collapsible and can be used again, as it will be for the 75 new egg layers we got in today.

Pine shavings are $6.49 a bag, and we have been going through half a bag the first couple weeks, now this week when we cleaned the brooder, we used a whole bag for the chickens and part of it for the new coop for the ducklings.

I am logging all the expenses, and will have a spreadsheet of the full cost of raising the meat layers, by the end of the semester. This will help Laura and I both see if the cost of what they are to be sold for is worth the financial and time output.

Freedom rangers at 23 days old