Poultry is a low-cost farm enterprise with a short turn-around that holds potential to be a profitable business venture. Many beginning farmers are choosing to start with poultry, but may have questions including: what it takes to raise them; if they should process themselves or send them out to a certified processor; how to add value to a whole chicken; and is raising chickens something that can be profitable for me?

This workshop will provide farmers the tools to answer these questions. The workshop is being hosted at Sunny Cove farm, a farm that raises small batches of organic pasture-raised broilers, and processes them on-farm under the 1,000 bird exemption.

The program will be from 5pm - 7:30 pm on Thursday, June 6, 2024, and will cover the following:

Farmer Meghan introduces the farm and how she raises broilers

Review of financial considerations for broiler enterprises, and what it takes to make a profit

Tour of Meghan's processing set-up, including a discussion about food safety

Hands-on further processing demonstration (taking a carcass into cuts allowed under the 1,000 bird exemption)

All who are interested in raising or are currently raising poultry for meat are welcome to register for this free event.  Pre-registrations are required to ensure we have enough broilers for the cut-up demonstration and print-outs for all. you can register via this page or by contacting Kelly at 585-268-7644 ext 10 or klb288@cornell.edu. 

Please bring your questions. We're looking forward to seeing you there! 

These programs are provided free of charge thanks to work supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, U.S. Department of Agriculture, through the Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education program under subaward number LNE22-435.