To price a whole pastured chicken you add up its full cost first: the chicks, feed and processing by the batch, your time at an hourly rate, the shrink bag and label, and a share of overhead like rent and power. That's what one bird costs you. Then set the price so that, after card and selling fees, it leaves the margin you want: price = full cost ÷ (1 − margin − fee rate). For a 4.5-pound pastured broiler that costs $20.00 to make, a 35% margin after 3% fees means $32.26, rounded up to $32.50. Feed is the biggest cost, about 14 pounds a bird over eight weeks, and birds lost along the way raise the cost of the rest. Wholesale to restaurants is a different price, set so it still covers the full cost with something left. In the example below, an Iowa farm prices its pastured birds for customers and a restaurant.
The short version
- Full cost = chicks, feed and processing a bird + your time + bag and label + overhead.
- Price = full cost ÷ (1 − margin − fee rate).
- Count your time at a real hourly rate, even if you don't pay yourself yet.
- Count feed by the batch; it's most of the cost.
- Add the birds lost to predators or weather to the cost of the ones you sell.
- Check what wholesale leaves after full cost before saying yes.
- TaroStack keeps each batch of birds as a lot, from chicks to freezer. More below.
What goes into a bird's cost
| Part | How to count it |
|---|---|
| Chicks, feed and processing | The batch's cost ÷ birds a batch |
| Your time | Hands-on minutes for the batch ÷ birds × your hourly rate |
| Bag and label | Per bird |
| Overhead | Rent, power, tools, spread over the birds you make |
| Fees | Card and market fees as a share of the price |
What a poultry farm looks like over a year is in chicken business plan, and eggs in how to price eggs.
An example: a 4.5-pound bird
Prairie Creek Poultry, a made-up pastured poultry farm near Ames, Iowa, raises 100 broilers a batch on pasture in moveable pens:
| A batch of 100 | Amount | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Chicks | 100 | $350.00 |
| Feed | 1400 lb | $560.00 |
| Processing | 100 | $450.00 |
| Bedding and water | $60.00 | |
| A batch | $1,420.00 |
| A bird | Cost |
|---|---|
| Chicks, feed and processing, $1,420.00 ÷ 100 | $14.20 |
| Time, 1200 minutes for the batch at $20 an hour ÷ 100 | $4.00 |
| Bag and label | $0.60 |
| Overhead | $1.20 |
| Full cost | $20.00 |
At a 35% margin after 3% card fees, the price is $20.00 ÷ 0.62 = $32.26, so $32.50. At $32.50 a bird, about $7.20 a pound, each leaves $11.52. It had been asking $30, which leaves $9.10, and moved to $32.50. A restaurant asked for birds at $26.00, which leaves $5.22 each, and takes 20 a batch. Five birds in a hundred lost to a hawk would put about 75 cents more on each of the other 95. Quail, raised the same way, is in quail farm business plan.
Get the calculator
Download the chicken price calculator. One sheet: type the batch's costs, amounts and costs, the birds it makes, the hands-on minutes, the bag and overhead, your hourly rate, card fees and the margin you want; the full cost, the price for your margin rounded up, and what a wholesale price and a test price leave fill in. It's an ordinary Excel file with no macros, and it works in Google Sheets, LibreOffice and Numbers.
Where this stops working
The calculator prices a batch on paper. A summer batch that eats more feed in the heat, a hawk that takes a few, and processing fees that rise change what each bird really cost.
How TaroStack does it
TaroStack keeps each batch of birds as a lot, from chicks to the freezer.
Feed and chicks received. Feed by the bag and chicks by the box are received with their supplier, price and lot.
Batches as lots. Each batch of birds is a lot with its processing date and how many came back from the processor.
Freezer counts. Whole birds in the freezer are counted on a phone, and the oldest go out first.
| The job | Spreadsheet | In TaroStack |
|---|---|---|
| Birds left from each batch | Counted in the freezer | Stock by lot |
| What a batch cost in feed | Receipts in a folder | Received feed by lot |
| Which birds to sell first | A guess | First-expired-first-out |
Lots, receiving and counts are on every plan, from $49 a month. The first 30 days are free, with no credit card. If you'd like a hand setting up, ask, and we'll do it with you.