In 1999, there were 173 broiler growers in Chatham County, producing over 34 million broiler chickens with a market weight of almost 222 million pounds. The value of these chickens was nearly 80 million dollars at the farm level. Contract farmers were paid over 10 million dollars to raise these birds.

Twenty hatching egg farms produced almost four million dozen hatching eggs worth 4.7 million dollars. Farmers were paid over 1.4 million dollars to produce these eggs. In addition, 100,000 dozen eggs for human consumption, and over 200,000 spent fowl for the cannery and pet food industries were produced.

Nearly 115,000 turkeys were produced in Chatham County in 1999. These birds weighed about 1.7 million pounds and were worth 725,000 dollars at the farm level. Chatham County poultry produced over 40,000 tons of litter which is used to fertilize at least 8,000 acres of crops and pasture land capable of supporting almost 4,000 cow/calf units for the beef industry.

Three feed mills support the poultry industry by producing about one million tons of feed per year. Twenty-five million bushels of corn and 240 thousand tons of soy bean meal are purchased (a small amount locally) to make this feed. About 100 people work in feed manufacturing and delivery and are paid over 3.3 million dollars per year.

Chatham county's three hatcheries employ 118 people who are paid about 2.8 million dollars in wages. Processing plants in Pittsboro, and two in Siler City, process 392 million pounds of saleable chicken each year. These processing plants employ nearly 1800 workers, who are paid about 40 million dollars.

After years of decreasing water usage in poultry processing, water usage has recently increased due to required processing changes to lower chances of microbial contamination. Municipalities collect about 1.8 million dollars per year in water and sewage fees from the poultry companies to pay for this water.

Company owned poultry facilities in the county paid over 205 thousand dollars in property taxes in 1999. In addition to this, the county received revenue from personal property taxes on company owned vehicles.