06/06/2026
Let’s talk about what it actually costs to raise a chicken. Basic math. Bulk pricing. No fluff.
One Cornish cross meat chick: $4
Feed — a 4-pound bird eats about 14 pounds of feed to get there. Buying grain in 1,000-pound totes runs roughly $0.36/lb. So 14 lbs × $0.36 = $5.04 in feed.
Non-USDA processing: $7 per bird
Label sticker: $0.10
Add it up: $4 + $5.04 + $7 + $0.10 = $16.14 per bird in hard costs alone.
On a 4-pound bird, that’s $4.04 per pound before anything else gets counted.
Here’s what’s NOT in that number:
The drive to the post office to pick the chicks up
Labor to feed and water them every day
The infrastructure to house them
The equipment to move the pen if it’s mobile
Marketing
Storage
Mortality (because some don’t make it, and you still paid for them)
Your time. All of it.
So when you see a whole chicken at the store for $1.99/lb, how is that even possible? One word: scale.
Big operations buy chicks by the hundred thousand, feed by the rail car, and process millions of birds a year. Every input gets cheaper when you move that much volume. A chick that costs me $4 costs them a fraction of that. A processing line that charges me $7 per bird charges them pennies because the machine is paid for and running 24/7. That’s not a knock on them — that’s just how scale works. It works in every industry.
A small farm can’t compete on price with that. We’re not trying to. We’re a different product at a different volume. When you buy a chicken from us, you’re paying for honest math, no shortcuts, a bird raised on grass and sunshine, and somebody who actually knew that animal.
The grocery store gets you cheap. We get you closer to the food. Both have a place. Just know what you’re paying for.
That’s the real cost of food.
