Income from small animals ?

[BobbyB]

I called a lady that had some rabbit cages listed on Craigslist a few days ago. And she was a talker.

The cages were exactly what I was looking for at a good price but her story is why I am posting this.

She told me over the phone , then she told Karla when she went to get the cages the same thing. That for 3 years, she raised and sold rabbits, both live and processed. She has a 2500 egg incubator and she did custom hatching, as well as hatching chicks from her own eggs as well as eggs she bought and sold day old chicks. She raised and sold pullets that wre ready to start laying, a few at a time to individuals and to a guy that has a business selling poultry who she wholesaled to.

Now the thing that caught my attention, but I have a hard time buying totally into is, she claims this was her sole income and she was claiming $67K on her taxes. Claimed $67K. But didnt say what her expenses amounted to.

To her her tell it, she tried to schedule her hatch dates for chicks for sale so they would be ready on weekends and most always sold out by Sunday afternoon.

I know what pullets sell for so I believe her on that as well as the guy buying 100 at a time to resell.

She sold rabbits for show projects, to people that wanted to just raise their own and butchered some although she said that end of the business was not much of a money maker.

She did say that the best money in rabbits was raising and selling Lionheads first and lops, preferably mini lop, second.

I have no illusions of making that kind of money. I know the feed bills would be substantial. as well as time and shelter costs.

But what I am curious about, do any of you do anything like this ? If so, how are you doing with the business? Are sales steady?

I raise a lot of chickens and have recently started selling some near laying age pullets. And we plan to raise and sell more in the next year.

We have Californian rabbits that we raise a few from for personal consumption. Karla has contacted a few people that raise the Lionheads and they seem to always be sold out, so I guess the market is there for them.

We are not newbies at raising this stuff, but we are at selling in quantity and I guess that is why I am asking for others experiences here.

[SFM in KY]

I raise rabbits ... tried a couple of years getting into the 'pet rabbit' business but discovered we were simply too far from an urban area for it to work well. I think if we were closer to a larger city ... Lexington, Louisville ... it might work, particularly if I could have picked up some pet shop clients, but it simply wasn't practical from where we are. I've scaled back again now and don't keep the smaller pet types, just enough of the bigger rabbits for our own table use now.

Show rabbits are an option but you do have to show at least some, locally, to have the buyers for that market and again, you have to be close enough to shows to make it worth while.

[sidepasser]

I sold chicks for years and always made a profit on them even factoring in the use of an incubator (electric) and feed, vaccinations. Every week that a chick remained, the price increased by .25 for that chick. Back when I did it, chicks were priced at an even dollar each for day old chicks of purebred breeding.

I kept several breeds and kept them separated so the chicks were always purebred. I did not raise chickens to the age of slaughter, no money in it for ME, after feeding them that long. I did make money on layers.

I never raised rabbits for sale, but did raise them to eat. I occasionally would sell a few to neighbors, but never tried to make it my business.

the other bird that I sold and always made a profit on was turkeys. I raised Bourbon Reds, Royal Palms and old fashioned "wild" turkeys. I always sold out and had orders waiting for those. I got where I could hatch them out, and if I could get them up to two weeks old, they were easy from there on out. I couldn't hardly give away the broad breasted birds, they are better managed I think on a commercial farm (too many problems for me to want to deal with as far as being able to breed, having leg/foot problems, etc).

It took a bit of doing to learn how to get turkeys to successfully hatch over 90 percent of the time. I sold these birds in trios, one tom and two hens or would sell toms individually. I did not sell hens individually as what happens is everyone wants the hens and no one wants the toms lol..I got $15.00 a trio.

I counted my labor and tried to keep things efficient too. If you just "dabble" in these endeavors, it seems to be more of a hobby and also a big use of your time.

[Jennifer L.]

Well, she's filling, supposedly, an incubator that holds 2500 eggs. If you fill it from you own hens, that means you probably have maybe 150 hens if you are hatching weekly, so you are selling 800 chicks every week at $3 each, so $2400 times four is $9,600 a month if you sell every chick. So in five months she would sell about $50,000. But I can't see being able to sell locally that many chicks per week, the market would be saturated. She may have a larger area that she deals with, though, and just have that perfect niche market.

Bottom line is, either she has the perfect market, or she actually said "six to seven K" and you heard it as "67K". She probably never sits down, either---sounds like she hustles pretty hard.

[7thswan]

We have a man close to us that incubates and sells chick and chickens. He sells feed also. He does quite well at it. Thru out the spring,summer and fall, anytime I go there,he has probably a thousand chicks of every breed,even what many consider rare. I bought my French Black Copper Marans(chicks) from him. He says that people always want day olds over the ones that are weeks old,even if they are the same price. (Not me ofcourse, I'll gladly take the saveings on feed and mortality). He also buys chickens from other people and resells them. He has nice chicken runs, where he keeps his breeding stock, and a pole barn with brooders set up,nice and clean. He advertises on craigslist.

[BobbyB]

No, she said 67K. I repeated it back to her and she confirmed it. Then she told Karla the same thing the next day. She said she made a lot doing custom hatching. She also said she batched her eggs to get hatches every weekend because said she put them in plastic swimming pools by breed to make it easy for customers to see them and get what they wanted.

[geo in mi]

She might be just "crowing"....

geo

[Molly Mckee]

Years ago my DB and I raised rabbits and sold most of them to a local university. I don't know if colleges still buy them but one of my DB's lived in the house until six years ago and they still got calls every once in a while from the U asking if we had any. It was a steady market, they paid pet prices, Dad had us convinced they took good care of the bunnies and they were basically pets for the lab people.

[tamatik]

I knew a young girl who sold eggs. chicks and rabbits and mice. she said the mice were the most efficient, money maker.. pet stores.

[CAjerseychick]

Well I almost fell over when I saw a pair of RIR pullets going for $18 EACH at the feedstore last week! Wow.... I know where to go if we have some extras this summer....(or maybe its cause they were ready to go mid winter?)...

[mmoetc]

Did she tell you how many years of claiming $20K or less it took before she got to that bigger number? Everybody's ready to tell you about the great years and the super deals they made but few will tell you the reality of the struggling to get there or the time they lost big.

[BobbyB]

Originally Posted by geo in mi

She might be just "crowing"....

geo

Yeah, but tyhere is an even chance she may be telling the truth or just stretchung the truth a bit.

I figured it was worth asking about and checking into.

I would never expect to make $67K, but just a few K over expenses would help do things we want around here.

[BobbyB]

Originally Posted by mmoetc

Did she tell you how many years of claiming $20K or less it took before she got to that bigger number? Everybody's ready to tell you about the great years and the super deals they made but few will tell you the reality of the struggling to get there or the time they lost big.

I simply asked if any here had done any of this or is doing something similar now.

She did tell us she did it about 5 years. I dont remember what happened to cause her to start.

She did say it was a while in building, bit the last 2 years were pretty good.

She is about as far East of San Antonio as I am West. 30 minutes. being the 7th largest city in the US, plus the thousands of people that live just surrounding the city limits does provide a pretty decent market base. Then you have New Braunfels, San Marcus and all the rest that leads into Austin that is almost as many people together and less than 2 hours away from me, less than an hour from her.

Karla wants to try it small scale and see if it grows. She stays home and would like to supplement our income a little. We have enough critters now we seldom go anywhere and when we do, we have a couple of people that come tend to the place.

But please, any more experiences, personal or second hand, keep them coming.

[Allen W]

We hatched and sold guineas for about three years when grass hoppers were bad, made some extra Christmas cash. Never could do any good here with baby chicks. When they quit selling I had an auction I could get rid of them at, but not profitably.

[Oakshire_Farm]

I have a big (450egg) incubator. I try to keep it full all the time! I can sell my barred rock pullets for $25 each and I have NEVER had a problem finding a buyer for them. I incubate every egg my barred rocks lay! I have a few white leg hors for our eating eggs. I also buy hatching eggs from a few different people for $10/doz, when the chicks are 5-8 weeks old and I am able to sex them I cull off the roosters and I can get $15 for sexed chicks as well!

I also raise rabbits, I breed them and raise them up for a reptile feed company. They send me a email with the weights that they have orders for. I go and pick out the rabbits I have in those weight ranges. I have a CO2 gas box, that I quickly kill them, then bag them with a weight tag on them. She picks them up and I get paid. Make good money doing that!

[BobbyB]

Originally Posted by Oakshire_Farm

I have a big (450egg) incubator. I try to keep it full all the time! I can sell my barred rock pullets for $25 each and I have NEVER had a problem finding a buyer for them. I incubate every egg my barred rocks lay! I have a few white leg hors for our eating eggs. I also buy hatching eggs from a few different people for $10/doz, when the chicks are 5-8 weeks old and I am able to sex them I cull off the roosters and I can get $15 for sexed chicks as well!

I also raise rabbits, I breed them and raise them up for a reptile feed company. They send me a email with the weights that they have orders for. I go and pick out the rabbits I have in those weight ranges. I have a CO2 gas box, that I quickly kill them, then bag them with a weight tag on them. She picks them up and I get paid. Make good money doing that!

I have seen anywhere from $18 to $30. $20 to $25 seems the norm.

I just sold 15 Barred rocks to a buddy for $10 each that will start laying in March. I didnt charge any more because we grew up together and he has given me a couple of Black Mouth Cur pups in the past couple of years. he was happy with them.

I have 10 left and I plan to do the same thing. Hatch their eggs and sell chicks and or older pullets. .

[farmerted]

whether or not she sells them as chicks or as pullets, say she makes $1 on each egg on average. 67,000 / 365= 183.5. She would have to sell almost two hundred eggs, or chicks a day every day, even if she average $2, that would be 100 a day. Just doesn't seem like there is enough time in the day. If she sold all of them as $15 pullets, that is like 12 a day every day, still doesn't seem possible.

[olafhardtB]

Some sell the manure. Chicken manure is mixed with other stuff and cattle seem to love it so I am told. I have read that rabbit manure requires no composting before use as fertilizer. Either one could be charged to an anerobic digester to produce fuel gass. Geese have been rented out in flocks to eat grass. Flocks of ducks have been used for insect control (truly an organic solution). I have contemplated renting out a flock of runner ducks to help people suffering with the huge infestations of grasshoppers we have been having. Of course the talking is easy, the doing is probably tough.

[sidepasser]

I lived about an hour and 20 minutes from Atlanta and 45 minutes from Columbus, GA.

I sold by advertising in the GA. Farmers and Consumers Market Bulletin and by advertising on Craigslist, putting up fliers in all the surrounding feedstores. My fliers listed breeds, pictures and contact information. Many times I would have someone send me the $ to hatch out a 100 of one breed, either all pullets or straight run. I had repeat customers and I sold wholesale as well to people I knew were going to resell. Wholesale prices are less, but you have a guaranteed order - like selling to a feed store.

But you must deliver quality chicks, nothing even remotely "off" or lethargic, etc.

I did pretty well at it, but no where near 67,000 a year. I might well could have built up the business to that point, but then I would have needed help and I had children at home as well.

Another outlet if you have really good stock is to sell to 4H kids for shows. It gets your name out and provides a "showcase" for your birds.

Good luck, be prepared to have some disappointing days, but also you will meet a lot of very, very nice folks. Chicken folks seem to love talking about their birds and are very proud of them, even if they are just "eating" birds..lol..

Oh and if you plan to do things with an incubator and will be dependent upon it, get a generator or backup system. You would hate to lose a whole hatch because the power went out. I also had silkies that hatched out babies for me..those are some great backups, most will sit on a golf ball..lol.

I did very good with dual purpose breeds for sales for those wanting a hen that could lay as well as produce some roos for eating..

also did well with the rarer bantams. I stayed away from the "fad" breeds, too expensive to get started and fads come and go quickly.

[1sttimemom]

Well, yrs ago I bred mini rex bunnies other small rabbits and sold to pet stores. Not on a huge scale but I think you could make $$ if you lived in a populated area. We are in the boonies here and there are no pet shops. I also think you can make $ on the chicks. I bet she works hard for that income and feed would be high.