Chicken Profitability Calculator: Calculate Your Return from Meat Birds

Raising meat chickens is popular with smallholders as a way to produce high-quality chicken at lower cost than buying from a supermarket. But the numbers don't always add up the way people expect. Chick costs, feed, processing, and packaging costs all reduce the margin — and for table birds sold directly to customers, the price needs to cover all of these. The Chicken Profitability Calculator models the full enterprise economics.

Inputs cover the number of birds in a batch, chick purchase price, feed cost per kilogram, total feed consumed per bird, mortality rate, slaughter and processing cost, and packaging cost. Revenue is calculated from either a per-bird whole sale price or a cut breakdown.

Outputs include total batch costs, total revenue, net profit or loss, cost per bird produced, cost per kilogram of meat, and profit margin. A break-even sale price shows the minimum per-bird price needed to cover costs.

Feed conversion and mortality figures are based on AHDB Poultry broiler benchmarking data for UK commercial production. Ross 308 and Cobb 500 broilers are used as the reference breeds, which are the most widely kept meat breeds in both commercial and smallholder settings. Slower-growing breeds (such as Label Rouge types) will consume more feed and take longer to reach the same weight.

Enter your batch details and costs. Adjust the mortality rate upward if your flock has had health challenges, or downward if you have excellent biosecurity and management. Enter the price you receive for finished birds. Click Calculate to see profitability. If selling whole birds, compare your cost per kilogram against local butcher prices to assess competitiveness.