The Annoyance of Selling Birds: Cheap People

[DarkWingDuck]

For some reason, I just happened to think about some of the cheap people I've come across while selling poultry. I once had a guy come to my house and express interest in my "Easter egg chickens." When I said I'd sell him some for $5 each he was like "I could buy a "big chicken from the supermarket for that"!

Another time I was selling buff orpingtons for $5 and had some woman whistle like I just stated some sort of insanely high price. On another occasion, I was selling buff orpginton and australorp chicks for $1 each; some guy actually yelled "I never pay more than fifty cents for chicks"! Who else runs into this sort of thing a lot?

 

[Shared Acres]

It happens with any business.

I do wedding photography and my base package for 4 hours with an album of images is about $1,400. A lady walked in and told me that someone else quoted her $500 for 4 hours for video and photos. I politely told her I couldn't do it for that and that sometimes you get what you pay for.

 

[kees]

There are all kinds of strange people in this world. There was a woman who wanted to buy one of my birds and said that she would pay any price just to get one. "Anything up to $10 dollars", she said. I was flabbergasted. Then I stated that she could purchase some really nice birds from www.eggbid.com She gave me her card, which stated that she was a realtor. I threw it away in the garbage and never called her. Some people have chutzpah.

Suzy

 

[Cara]

A few weeks ago my father in law told me that some friends of his from the Cattlegrowers' Assoc were after some laying hens. I told him I had 3 or 4 I could sell, but I wanted to keep all the others, or I would be happy to hatch them a batch of chicks for free if they wanted more. He was amazed that I was wanting to sell the hens, as he had offered to give them away! They wanted 10, thank the Lord I didn't agree to that. Who offers someone else's livestock to a stranger for free, and who on earth would ask that of someone they didn't know?! I rarely sell a laying hen because (as you're all aware) nobody is willing to pay their actual worth. But give ten away... I was speechless!

 

[kees]

You could have offered to trade your hens for one of their cows! That would have brought them to their senses!

Suzy

 

[Griffox]

I'm selling point of lay hens for $10. After doing the math, I realized that I'm barely going to break even after a looooong winter of shoveling 2 bags of feed/week down these hungry hippos.

So, anytime someone questions my pricing, I tell them that. I know I won't be raising layers next year. It's not worth the trouble.

 

[lilchick]

What I find alot is people will not pay even 10.00 for a full grown hen but will spent 3.00 to 4.00 on st. run chicks and think they are getting a bargain!

 

[ScoobyRoo]

I agree, it happens in any business. We charge a 4 hour minimum for our machine time. Need to cover the cost of fuel, time and insurance.

 

[Cara]

Quote:
I was tempted to offer my father in law's calf crop for this year to a friend of mine.

 

[Sunny Side Up]

If that's what chickens are going for in your area, then I wouldn't bother trying to sell them for so little. Let other folks buy chicks from a hatchery or feed store & raise them for themselves. I myself wouldn't buy grown chickens from someone else, but I think it's worth more than $10 to raise, feed & protect pullet chicks up to point of lay.

What's really insane is that folks will balk at paying more than $10 for a young bird who will make them breakfast for several years or more, in addition to being as amusing & consoling as a pet, and a beautiful animal to look at. Yet they'll pay 100s, even 1000s for a little lap dog who won't lay anything you'd want to eat.