Organic Chicken Farming

The Market for Organic Chicken

If you're thinking about getting into organic chicken farming, you should know that the production of organic meats is the fastest growing segment of the organic market. Sales of organic meat and seafood increased 67.4 percent in 2005 to $114 million, according to a report by Natural Food Merchandiser. There's no doubt the market has only grown since then.

More than 21 percent of shoppers in 2005 said they had purchased some kind of organic meat. More than 73 percent of shoppers for purchased natural or organic meat bought chicken. The consumption of all kinds of poultry is growing, while the market for red meat is shrinking.

At the same time, only 1 percent of all laying hens in the United States were certified organic in 2005, illustrating that there is a huge amount of room for growth in this market.

Benefits of Organic Chicken Farming

Organic chicken farming is seen as more lucrative than other forms of organic meat production because the animals take up less space and grow to salable size relatively quickly. Because organic chicken is raised without antibiotics (hormones are illegal in any kinds of chickens raised in the United States) you can save money on drugs but will have to pay more attention to the health of your flock.

Organic chickens have to be fed organic feed, which means that it has been produced without chemical additions on land that has not had such chemicals applied for at least three years. Organic feed is more expensive than conventional feed, but organic chickens can also be sold for a much higher price than conventionally raised chickens.

That is probably the biggest benefit available to organic chicken farmers: the price premium. The price for whole fryers in early February 2008 ranged from $1.96 to $2.45 a pound for organic, while organic boneless, skinless chicken breasts were going for between $5.75 and $7.16 a pound. You can check weekly organic poultry and egg prices at Market News.

By comparison, skinless boneless chicken breasts from conventionally grown chickens were running about $1.41 a pound at the same time, and whole chickens were going for less than a dollar a pound.

Caring for Your Animals

Another big consideration for organic chicken farming is exactly how the chickens are housed and cared for. While the federal government doesn't have any specific guidelines for the amount of space that organic chickens should have, they are required to have "access" to the outdoors.

Different growers interpret this regulation in different ways, which accounts for the different claims you might see on labels such as cage free, free range, cruelty free and other lingo. None of these terms have legal definitions, so it's really up to the consumer to do his or her homework and find out what a particular term means.

Any farm that is certified organic meets at least the minimum standards of the government for feeding organic food (which in the case of poultry means it has to start organic feed no later than the second day of life), not using antibiotics and giving the animals enough access to the outdoors to qualify as sufficient in the eyes of the law.

Beyond that, it's up to consumers to decide which company takes the best care of its animals. As an organic farmer, it makes sense for you to be as open as possible about your practices. The organic methods you use are what will allow you to make such a great living raising chickens.