How to calculate cost per kit?

[alforddm]

I've been mulling this over for a while and I'm trying to figure out how to calculate cost per kit. I can't figure out a good way to do this without actually weighing the feed.

Problems are that my kits per period of time isn't constant. After my bucks returned to production after this summer I had a huge surge in kits, but now I've paced my breedings a bit better. I suppose I could go back to when the first kits were born in November (I do keep feed purchase records) and divide by the number of kits I have but some of the kits are still in the nest box.

I know there are cost estimators out there but they are generally for NWZ rabbits. Since I have meat mutts, I'm afraid my feed conversion will not be as efficient so that I would actually be underestimating my costs.

How to the rest of you do this?

 

[SoDak Thriver]

Accounting! Something I know a little about. :lol:

In a system where production is sporadic, averaging over time is your only real option. 2016 is still young enough to begin if you have feed cost records (or estimates). Pick a cut off date, total all your kits (kits in the box are like checks written in 2015 that don't clear until 2016; they still count) for the year and then do the division.

The only way to do this on a shorter timeline, say monthly, is if you have regular production. Averaging over time applies all your fixed costs (expenses that do not change based on number of kits) to the full load of kits for the time period specified. It also applies ALL your feed costs to the kits. Feeding your breed stock is part of the cost of producing kits. Averaging the cost for kit is easy. Trying to weigh feed out for individual kits and keep track of it will either become so labor intensive that you give up, or so all-consuming that nice young men in their clean white coats come to wrap you up in wet sheets and take you away in their rubber truck. <br /><br /> -- Sat Feb 27, 2016 9:15 am -- <br /><br /> The most important thing with an accounting system is to use the absolute simplest system that will do the job. The number one mistake I see among clients is that they start out with a system that's going to track EVERYTHING, but then realize they are spending too much of their business time accounting. It's much easier to start with a cost averaging system, and then modify it later to track more specific data. It's way more difficult to simplify a complex system than to apply greater specificity to a simple system.

 

[MamaSheepdog]

Trying to weigh feed out for individual kits and keep track of it will either become so labor intensive that you give up, or so all-consuming that nice young men in their clean white coats come to wrap you up in wet sheets and take you away in their rubber truck.

:rotfl: Hahahahahahahahahhhhh!!!

 

[MaggieJ]

Not quite the same thing, but one year I added up all my feed costs and divided by the pounds of table-ready meat I got that year. $1.50 per pound. Ouch!

That was on pellets. When I switched to natural feeding, my cost per pound dropped to about $0.75. Of course for seven months of the year, much of their feed was gathered for free and I could buy square bales of alfalfa hay for $3 each.

 

[alforddm]

Accounting! Something I know a little about. :lol:

In a system where production is sporadic, averaging over time is your only real option. 2016 is still young enough to begin if you have feed cost records (or estimates). Pick a cut off date, total all your kits (kits in the box are like checks written in 2015 that don't clear until 2016; they still count) for the year and then do the division.

The only way to do this on a shorter timeline, say monthly, is if you have regular production. Averaging over time applies all your fixed costs (expenses that do not change based on number of kits) to the full load of kits for the time period specified. It also applies ALL your feed costs to the kits. Feeding your breed stock is part of the cost of producing kits. Averaging the cost for kit is easy. Trying to weigh feed out for individual kits and keep track of it will either become so labor intensive that you give up, or so all-consuming that nice young men in their clean white coats come to wrap you up in wet sheets and take you away in their rubber truck.

-- Sat Feb 27, 2016 9:15 am --

The most important thing with an accounting system is to use the absolute simplest system that will do the job. The number one mistake I see among clients is that they start out with a system that's going to track EVERYTHING, but then realize they are spending too much of their business time accounting. It's much easier to start with a cost averaging system, and then modify it later to track more specific data. It's way more difficult to simplify a complex system than to apply greater specificity to a simple system.

Thanks for this. I had about decided this was the only way to do it but had hoped that there was a way I could get an earlier estimate. :lol: It would be pretty easy to just go back to when I got my first kits after the summer and keep track of everything from there. Just not very fast.

Yeah, I definitely didn't want to start weighing feed :rofl:

 

[imajpm]

I tested a few does and litters a while back and then I got tired of it lol. I just gave my test doe and litter a separate food storage bin and pretty much went off "bags" of feed per litter. Rest of the rabbitry consumed feed from the community bin. Not terribly accurate but good enough to determine I wasn't pricing myself into the red lol.