Day-Old Chick Price Calculator
Find your cost per sellable chick from breeder flock, incubation, labor, packaging, and losses, then a target price for your margin.
Free · no account · works on mobile · embeddable
Best for breeders and small hatcheries selling day-old chicks. Updated .
Monthly production and costs
Cost and price per chick
Sellable chicks = eggs set × hatch of set × (1 − loss). Cost per chick = (breeder + incubation + labor + packaging) ÷ sellable chicks. Target price = cost ÷ (1 − margin). Breed rarity, sexing, and NPIP status move the market price above this floor.
About the day-old chick price calculator
Chick prices are often copied from a hatchery catalog and have nothing to do with what the chicks cost to produce. This calculator builds the monthly cost of producing chicks, the breeder flock's feed and care, incubation, labor, and packaging, and divides it by the chicks you can actually sell after hatch rate and early losses. The result is a cost per sellable chick and a target price at your margin, plus profit at the price you plan to charge.
Cost per sellable chick
Chicks hatched per month is eggs set × hatch of set. Sellable chicks removes the percentage that die, are culled, or are unsellable in the first days. The monthly cost adds the breeder flock's cost (feed, bedding, health, and an allowance for replacing breeders), incubation costs (electricity, supplies, equipment wear), labor hours at your rate, and packaging per chick. Dividing by sellable chicks, not chicks hatched, is what keeps losses from silently eating the margin.
Why the breeder flock belongs in the chick price
A breeding pen exists to make hatching eggs. Its feed and care are a cost of the chicks even if some eggs are also sold for eating. If a share of the pen's eggs is sold as hatching eggs or table eggs, reduce the breeder cost by the revenue those eggs bring in, or allocate only the share of the flock cost that goes to eggs you set.
Price is more than cost
Rare breeds, sexed chicks, NPIP status, shipping capability, and local availability all change what the market will pay. Use the cost-based target as the floor and the availability calculator to make sure the number of chicks you promise is one you can hatch.
Worked example
A breeder pen costs $350 a month and supplies 400 eggs set. At a 75% hatch of set, 300 chicks hatch; at a 5% early loss, 285 are sellable. Incubation costs $40, 20 hours of labor at $20 is $400, and packaging is $0.15 per chick ($42.75), for a monthly cost of $832.75, or $2.92 per sellable chick. A 40% target margin gives a $4.87 target price. Selling at $6.00 earns $3.08 per chick, a 51.3% margin, about $877 a month.
Sources
- Penn State Extension, Enterprise budgeting for small poultry flocks. Separates variable costs (feed, bedding, packaging, labor, including unpaid labor) from ownership costs (buildings, equipment) in a poultry enterprise budget. Accessed Sep 4, 2026.
- Mississippi State University Extension, The only good broiler breeder egg is a fertilized egg. Why hatch of set is the rate to plan production on. Accessed Sep 4, 2026.
This calculator gives planning estimates from the numbers you enter. It is not accounting, tax, veterinary, or legal advice. Replace the defaults with your own farm records whenever you have them.
Frequently asked questions
How much does it cost to produce a day-old chick?
For a small breeder it commonly lands between $2 and $5 per sellable chick once breeder feed, incubation, labor, and losses are counted. Rare breeds with small pens and low hatch rates cost more. The calculator shows your number.
How much should I charge for day-old chicks?
At least your cost per sellable chick divided by one minus your margin, then adjusted for breed rarity, sexing, and what similar chicks sell for locally. Straight-run barnyard mixes and sexed rare-breed pullets sit at opposite ends of the range.
Should I include my own labor?
Yes. Collecting, storing, setting, candling, hatching, sorting, packing, and messaging customers are real hours. Leaving them out is why hobby chick prices look impossibly low.
Why divide by sellable chicks instead of chicks hatched?
Because you cannot sell the ones that die or are culled, but you paid to produce them. Dividing by sellable chicks spreads the whole cost over the chicks that actually earn revenue.
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