How keep a minimum number of chickens when buying from hacheries???

Order from My Pet Chicken. They have a minimum quantity of 3 standards, 5 bantams, and 4 mixed sizes. They have all of the breeds you listed and they will sex chicks. They have answered all my questions, and I have an order placed for May. They are a great hatchery and really care about the customers!
By the way, chicken math got me! I was supposed to get 4 and I ended up placing an order of 7!
Edited by shadow rabbit10 - 4/7/12 at 6:09pm

I think Ideal Poultry lets you order as few as 1 of any breed ...they have an order minimum of $25 & shipping is very reasonable.  They're out of a lot of chicks right now but will have more in May - July.  I have never ordered from them - we just got our first chicks a week ago from Tractor Supply.  But I want a few other breeds & will most likely try them.  They have good feedback here on the forum

Meyer Hatchery is very easy to work with and will let you order as little as 3 I believe.

 

There are some hatcheries that will let you order only a few. In addition to those mentioned, look at Cackle. They used to but I haven't checked for a while. One thing to watch for is that some will add packing peanuts to your order. These are almost always roosters and are added to help keep the other chicks warm during shipping. You need to specifically talk to them about packing peanuts to make sure you don't get any.

A way around this is to split an order with someone. You might post on your State thread in the "Where am I? Where are you?" section on this forum and see if you can find anyone willing to split an order with you. Again you will have to talk to the specific hatchery, but some are willing to mark certain chicks so you know which are which. Usually they use food coloring on the head.

Another option is to talk to your local feed store that has "chick days" and see if they are willing to order for you. You have to be careful here too. Some will not place an order for you, some will order but have them shipped direct to your house but the normal minimums apply. That's what my local TSC does and it does not help. But if you talk to the person that does the actual chick order, they may be willing to work with you. You never know until you ask.

Another possible way is to order the 15, then sell the extras on Craigslist. You may wind up practically giving them away, but you can usually find someone to take them. Remember when you sell or give them away, you lose control over them.

Good luck!

My plan was to order six chicks from a hatchery, three Wellsumers and three EEs, pick one of each to keep and sell the rest once they were coop ready to recoup my expenses. I had problems with getting my Wellies in a reasonable time, and ended up cancelling my order.

Lucky for me, my local feed supply store was willing to order Wellies for me. I had casually spoken to a manager weeks earlier about Wellies, and right when I cancelled my order, surprise surprise, the supply store got in a shipment of 50 Wellies. They had never bothered to order them before, and were surprised at how quickly they sold out, and have been trying to order then again ever since. Turns out a lot of customers want Wellsumers!

Tall to your feed store, they are usually more than willing to order whichever breeds you want, even the less common ones.

We ordered our five pullets last summer from Meyer Hatchery: http://www.meyerhatchery.com/

Their minimum was 3, but we had decided to start with 5 and ended up with five different breeds.  Now that we added a cockerel, we've got 6 chickens and 6 different breeds (because we like them all and can't decide!).

I ordered my four chickens from chickensforbackyards.com  (they were shipped from Cackle Hatchery) and I couldn't have been more pleased. I recieved the chicks the day after they were shipped and they were well packed for the weather. They are now 6 weeks old and doing great!

My mother gave me a gift certificate to Ideal for Christmas ($50). I got 2 each of 6 different breeds and spent all but 7¢ of my $50. Yes- there is no minimum number of chicks you have to buy, just spend $25. I think you could easily spend that much on 7 babies. They sexed all of my pullets correctly, and I didn't loose a single one. Their customer service was excellent. When I ordered (beginning of Feb, I got my chicks 2 weeks later) all of the breeds I wanted were sold out until May or June as well, but I clicked the notify me tab near the bottom of the page and they called me back the very same day and took my order. I got everything I wanted. The only thing I didn't like about my dealings with Ideal were the 16 packing peanuts-everyone a roo- they sent with my order. But, I did order in Feb so I did expect them. Maybe you wont need the peanuts since its much warmer now. Good luck!