Homegrown meat cost calculator
What does it really cost per pound or kilogram to raise a pig, a steer, a lamb or meat chickens?
Showing for United States
Cost per take-home pound or kilogram
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- Total cost
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- Saved against the store (negative means the store is cheaper)
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- The same meat at your store price
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- Take-home weight
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- Processing
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Count everything from the day you got the animal or chicks: feed, bedding, vet bills, transport to the processor. Your own time is not included.
Hanging weight is the carcass weight the processor bills on. If you weighed the packaged meat you brought home, enter that instead of a yield.
Weights and prices per weight use the same unit: pounds with a price per pound, or kilograms with a price per kilogram.
This calculator works out money only. Rules for processing and selling meat depend on where you are; your processor or local authority can tell you which apply.
Cost per take-home pound or kilogram
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- Cost per bird raised
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- Total cost
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- Saved against the store (negative means the store is cheaper)
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- The same meat at your store price
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- Birds raised
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- Take-home weight
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Count everything from the day you got the animal or chicks: feed, bedding, vet bills, transport to the processor. Your own time is not included.
Chicks that die still cost what you paid for them; only the birds you raise are processed and weighed.
Weights and prices per weight use the same unit: pounds with a price per pound, or kilograms with a price per kilogram.
This calculator works out money only. Rules for processing and selling meat depend on where you are; your processor or local authority can tell you which apply.
Enter your numbers to see the result.
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Get started with TallyTill for freeUse this calculator in an AI chat
You can ask Claude, ChatGPT or another AI app to work this out for you, and this calculator opens right inside the chat. You connect TallyTill to your AI app once. It is free, and there is no account and no sign-in.
AI apps call add-ons like this connectors, apps or MCP servers. They all mean the same thing: a way for the AI to use a tool someone else made.
1. Copy this address
2. Add it to your AI app
Claude (claude.ai and the Claude desktop app)
- Open Customize, then Connectors.
- Press + Add, then Add custom connector.
- Name it TallyTill calculators, paste the address and press Continue.
- Under Authentication choose No sign in, then press Add.
- In a new chat, press + at the bottom left, choose Connectors and switch TallyTill calculators on.
On Claude's free plan you can add one custom connector.
ChatGPT
- In Settings, turn on Developer mode. OpenAI moves this switch from time to time; it is usually with the settings for apps and connectors.
- Add a new connector (ChatGPT may call it an app), paste the address and choose No authentication.
- In a new chat, choose TallyTill from the tools menu, or type @ and pick it.
Not every ChatGPT plan lets you add your own connector. If you cannot find the option, your plan may not include it.
Using another AI app? Look in its settings for MCP, add the address as a remote server, and choose no sign-in.
3. Ask your question
Say "use TallyTill", so the AI uses the calculator instead of doing the sum itself. For example:
"Use TallyTill: What does it really cost per pound or kilogram to raise a pig, a steer, a lamb or meat chickens?"
What you will see
- The calculator opens in the chat with the numbers you gave already filled in. Change any number and the answer updates.
- If a number is missing, the box is highlighted, or the AI asks you for it in plain words.
- The answer links back to this page, so you can check the working.
- The first time, your AI app asks if it may use TallyTill. Choose Allow.
The calculators take numbers only. They never ask for your name, your email or a password.
How this is worked out
For one animal, the cost is what you paid for it, the feed, other costs and processing (a flat charge plus a rate per hanging pound or kilogram). The meat you took home is what you weighed, or the hanging weight times your take-home yield. The cost per pound or kilogram is the cost divided by the meat you took home. For meat chickens, every chick you bought counts, processing is per bird you raised, and the meat is the birds you raised times their average dressed weight. The store comparison is your store price times the meat you took home, less your cost.
A worked example
Example numbers only; use your own. A pig bought for 120.00 ate 380.00 of feed and cost 45.00 more in other costs. The processor charged 75.00 plus 0.85 a hanging pound on 200 lb, 245.00 in all. That is 790.00. At a 70 percent yield you took home 140 lb, so the meat cost 5.64 a pound; at 6.50 a pound in the store it would have cost 910.00. Fifty chicks at 1.80, with 3 lost, 260.00 of feed, 4.50 a bird to process and 40.00 of other costs come to 601.50, or 2.84 a pound at 4.5 lb a bird.
Nothing you type here is saved.