06/06/2026
We have been told, your chicken is expensive… here is a good breakdown of why it’s priced the way it is..
We also feed a certified organic feed, so our feed cost is approximately double compared to what conventional feed costs.
🐓 I’d like to take a moment to break down and try to explain a frequently asked question the best I can…..
Why is your chicken so expensive? 💬
I know, it is compared to the supermarket.. but if you better understand what goes in to it all - it may make more sense.
🐣 Buy the chick. Chicks are purchased and shipped from commercial hatcheries and shipped through the postal service. Sometimes the chick alone costs more than what you pay for a whole cooked rotisserie chicken at the store.
💡For the first 3 weeks they require supplemental heat. That’s running multiple 250 watt heat bulbs 24/7. There are always a few losses. We have to absorb the cost of those lost birds because after the first 48 hours the hatchery doesn’t reimburse us for them.
💦 Constant access to food and water with clean bedding which requires at least 2x daily tending.
🧹 cleaning brooders 3-4x per week and purchasing shavings to help keep them clean, healthy and warm
🌝at around 4 weeks they are moved outdoors to chicken tractors. Those tractors are dragged each day by hand to a new clean area with fresh grass.
🪣 2x daily water changing and feeding . A broiler will consume 13-16lbs of feed from start to finish.
🚚 the feed we purchase is top quality Green mountain feeds - a line of non gmo broiler crumble in bulk. That requires a lot of up front cost and bulk storage to keep it on hand
🐓at around 7-8 weeks old we process the chickens here at the farm. That requires, in many cases, a full day for Kate and I.
🔪 Processing/ butchering and bagging requires a commercial plucker, scalder, knives, a commercial ice machine, cooler, processing tables, propane, poultry bags, and labels. All that is very expensive and takes constant maintenance.
🍗breaking down birds into breast, wings, drums, thighs, etc, packaging, weighing and labeling takes nearly as much time as processing.
📟purchasing commercial vacuum sealer and meat grinder, packaging, labels and a state licensed and certified scale is also very expensive in the thousands of dollars.
💰 💪💡⏳ This whole process takes a lot of money, work, electricity, time, infrastructure, and feed. I hope by trying to break down and explain the process a little it can be better understood why farms such as us can’t compete with the supermarkets super low cost of poor quality factory farmed poultry. Those that try don’t generally do it for very long and lose money. Local farms don’t get rich doing this - but do it to making a living and be able to offer fresh, humanly raised and quality meat for folks to enjoy. Of course, it’s also because we love doing what we do too. Once you try it - you can taste the difference. 🍽️
💚CWF is in to our 10th year here and it wouldn’t be at all possible without the continued support from you, our valued customers and friends for all these years. We take a lot of care and pride in what we do as all other small farms do and hope it shows.
🧑🌾 👩🌾
Thank you 🙏
