Pastured Poultry Profits

Easy and entertaining read that is super informative! Thank you, Joel Saladin, for sharing your family's journey as well as the scientific reasoning behind your successes.

Truly speaking from experience Joel writes a detailed book with practical explanations to make even the most city of folks able to make money with poultry. I personally bought the book to learn more about what pastured meat really is and what it takes to raise chickens humanely. My friend however borrowed my book, followed the advice, and about 60 days later our family and his were processing chickens. He pre-sold all of his first batch and it was a great way to make some side money for the family. Due to customer requests, he is starting another batch this week. This book really does work which is why I gave it 5 stars.However, the book touts making $25K in 6 months on 20 acres but when you read the book you soon learn that is with TWO people working (modeled as husband/wife team in the book) and working nearly EVERY DAY for 6 months so you might want to keep those profits in perspective. Also, even the book admits your will have to count as loss if a fox, coyote, or other animal gets in your pens. Additionally the model of Joels pens does NOT work if you ground is greatly sloped or rocky (just ask our friends in New York) but it gives a good launching point for creativity. Overall, raising your own brood if you have some space means YOU are in control of what you eat and the book is written in such a friendly, easy-going way it nearly guarantees success.With all the hormone and antibiotic injections and all other nastiness (like 30% of fluid in your store-bought chicken is chicken feces) that comes with comercial/large chicken farms as both mentioned in this book and published in reputable literature buying pastured poultry is worth the extra $$ for our family. It truly does taste different and we find we don't need as much on our plate to feel full. Overall this book was inspiring and made me appreciate the hard work of my local farmers/ranchers even more.

I read this book while preparing to move to a farm and find another source of income while building our business. This book has invaluable insights and information on selling farm directly to the customers. It’s well written and interesting. Actually I couldn’t put it down as I’m obsessed with developing a reasonable second and third income stream.

Salatin describes, in good detail, how to raise pastured broiler (meat) chickens for sale. While I learned a good deal about chickens, the book concentrates on describing the needs of one particular breed (Cornish Rock Cross) and one industry (meat chickens). There are three chapters at the end of the book about layer (egg) chickens, turkeys, and exotic birds, but the main focus is on raising, processing, and selling Cornish Rock Cross meat.With that limitation in mind, it's an excellent book. Salatin makes a great case for raising chickens on a small farm, with a small processing facility on the premises, as being superior in nearly every way to the large centralized processor and large farm that is more common. He gives details on processing the birds into meat, keeping them safe from predators, diseases, etc., and a host of entertaining and instructive anecdotes.If you're interested in raising chickens, it's a book that I'd highly recommend.

This book is essential for anyone considering poultry production as a business. Following this book will save time, stress, money and more. Nothing is smooth or perfect, but when using the experience the Salatin's have under their belt will greatly reduce the number of disasters. They took most of the oops's out of the equation.This book covers in detail everything from why you should go this route, to what the "big hats" do and why that isnt the route to go. He explains in so much detail that I feel after reading this book you can safely gauge whether this business would work for you.This book contains everything you need to begin today. It discusses the equipment, the government certification requirements, or more accurately what sort of operation doesn't have to deal with those restrictions. He discusses the chicken tractors, how to make them, how to not make them. Discusses seasonal processing, the actual nitty gritty about the processing and more, oh so much more.I learned a great deal from this book, I was so impressed that I have his Salad Bar Beef on order. I believe this book represents a turn key business. A person purchases the rights to open a fast food chain, you spend 1 mil to have the right to use a clown to advertise your hamburger's and get to tap the experience of everyone that has opened that type of company... this book is no different. The purchase price of the book is a great value when you consider this is experience talking, this shows all of the details, this shows everything including the day to day life and how to find customers.Sounds to me like the 1 million dollar turn key franchise. Except this is anything but a franchise, he points out family business and not empires are the way to go... and I have to agree with him. He shares this information because he would like to see a lot more operations like the one him and his family (and sometimes even customers) run. He notes that 100 operations in Virginia using the model he shares with us, would be about enough to support the state... yet he is the only one there (at the time of writing this book).He would like to see these everywhere... people eating healthier, animals that are healthier, people being connected to where their food comes from. I can not say enough good about this book, personally I would like to go work for the author and his family for a couple weeks to learn hands on. I think this is a wealth of information and I await eagerly my Salad Bar Beef book hoping it opens my eyes to a better way to raise my beefalo.