>>19019776 p/b

> ….farms that will sell you the chicken but you have to process it yourself. He said people won't do that so the small chicken farms only sell eggs.

Don't forget backyard chicken farmers. Hens lay fewer and fewer eggs per year as they get older, so the cost of feed to egg increases. Those are slaughtered by some of the backyard chicken farmers also.

Raised in the country, had to help raise/butcher our own free range chickens. Butchering not my favorite job, but it doesn't take long once you get the knack. Plucking feathers is what takes the time. Time is money. Commercial farms have those automated pluckers.

My nearly 100 y.o. mom, raised on a farm, told me that chicken was expensive when she was a kid, rarely eaten. Not much meat, and time consuming to pluck. Until the chicken breeding contests started and they started breeding the larger faster growing genetic traits into chickens.

My neighbor raises chickens and sells off her excess eggs. But she refuses to butcher. She actually goes to the grocery store to buy chicken. She sells off the older hens for $25 (cost of feed). Amazingly she sells them. And these are not the giant chickens with the big thick breasts (Cornish x Rock) people are used to seeing the grocery stores now. The breed she raises has hardly any meat.

In some towns/cities, you are allowed to raise hens in your back yard. No roosters, though (too noisy), which means no chicks hatching. Some towns have qty limits. That's problem if you're mail ordering chicks, min. delivery. But if you find a backyard chicken person selling eggs that has a rooster on the property…. you can buy fertilized eggs and raise them in an incubator.

You might even talk someone living in a rural area into letting you purchase 25 of the big chickens/roosters and asked them to raise them in a separate area for a small fee ($1 a day?). Purchase their feed. Takes about 2 - 2.5 months to raise the giant ones to slaughter size About 225 - 250 pounds of dressed meat. Obviously, you need a deep freezer, or learn how to home can chicken, which doesn't require refrigeration. If you don't like the really big breasted chicken & thighs, the larger breeds take about 5 months to get to butcher size. More food.

The giant breasted birds? 1 person math. 2 breasts=4 servings. 2 thighs= 2 servings. 2 legs=1-2 servings. 2 wings - 1 serving (maybe leftovers) 8 servings per bird. 200-250 meals. Chicken twice a week? Over 100 weeks - i.e. 2+ years. Don't use freezer ziplocks to store for that long. Use vac packs.

Need help slaughtering all that chicken…… I'd recommend the person bringing some teens or friends to act as chicken pluckers!! Earn some free chicken for their help. Alone, I can do 3 chickens an hour, start to finish, the old fashioned way (just a really good sharp knife that doesn't flex under pressure). But it took an hour per bird before I got the hang of it.

And all the chicken left stuck to the carcass? Soup pot, boil it off, turn it into dog/cat food…. or chicken soup, or shredded chicken for green chili chicken enchiladas, or whatever. Don't like the giblets. Cats and dogs sit patiently.

Point is. If you head out to rural area to buy "farm fresh eggs"…. from a backyard chicken type. Maybe, they'll raise chickens for you. PIck them up 4-6 at a time, and slaughter them at home. (Don't pluck inside the house.)

Ha…. I wonder if there are any schools who would do a "field trip" day to learn to slaughter chickens. Hands on. Or 4-H. Or boyscouts.