This is how chicken farmers make money

How high is the income that entrepreneurs earn with an idea chickens can achieve? And how much does an employee earn? Poultry farming? These are the questions that concern the editorial team at Bird News for quite some time. To shed light on this, we started a study together with market researchers from agricultural experts, in which 213 people participated.

Almost 80 percent of the participants in our study were (co-)owners or owners of poultry businesses. The other 20 percent were employees of Poultry farms. Below we take a closer look at the results of our study.

Earnings in poultry farming: This is how high the income is

Regarding the income structure of owners or (co-)owners of poultry businesses: For half of the owners or (co-)owners who participated in our survey, their annual income is from Poultry farming more than 50,000 euros. At least 10 percent of those surveyed even earn more than 200,000 euros in income.

When we looked at the employment results, the first thing we noticed was that there were workers in the poultry industry – as well as workers in the poultry industry. agriculture in general – earn well below the national average. The total salary of our partners was around a quarter between 2,000 and 3,000 euros and between 3,000 and 4,000 euros. Almost all participants reported a total monthly salary of more than 4,000 euros.

Some money for hard work in the chicken house

This means that “our” participants largely reflect what is shown in the records of the Federal Statistical Office (You are ready) read: Agriculture, hunting and related activities are at the bottom of the income scale with 2695 euros. Even in the restaurant business people earn more. According to current Destatis figures from April 2023, the average monthly income is 4,323 euros.

We accepted the problem and entered the data into the Destatis large salary calculator for a 40-year-old poultry farmer with completed vocational training in a permanent position and five years of service with a company size of 10 to 49 employees . The Destatis system estimated a total monthly salary for women of 2,676 euros and for men of 2,926 euros. If you ask for the result for the main animal farmer in poultry farming (with the same information otherwise), you will get 2,968 euros for women and 3,245 euros for men. Earnings increase with increasing responsibility and higher education qualifications. A poultry farm manager with a master’s degree earns 4,504 euros (women) and 4,924 euros (men). So good training pays off. But in general, we find that workers in the poultry industry receive (very) little money for a lot of physically demanding work.

How poultry companies pay their workers – fixed wage and minimum wage

So it’s no surprise that 48 percent of employees are dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with their pay. Only 12 percent of those surveyed said they were very satisfied with their salary, while 18 percent said they were satisfied.

When asked about the type of payment and length of employment, the market researchers came up with the following result: The majority of the surveyed employees receive a fixed monthly salary. Less than a third receive an hourly wage Of those workers who receive an hourly wage, more than a third receive minimum wage. Long-term employment relationships: 68 percent of employees have been with the company for more than 5 years (40 percent for more than 10 years).

When it comes to satisfaction with their income, owners or co-owners of poultry businesses have the same picture as employees of poultry businesses: 43 percent are dissatisfied with their income.