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ssalcido1

ssalcido1

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Jan 28, 2016
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Hi all I live in New Mexico and excited to join the group. We are wanting to build our coop in the next few weeks and plan on getting chicks from our local tractor supply. I am excited about this new project and am only interested in egg production
 
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glad you have joined us.

I don't know if you get a real choice at TSC - but avoid straight runs - you will end up with 50% or more roos. You can get an idea from the local store what breeds they will offer, study up on those to try to select the gals.
 
Thank you for the warm welcome. I don't know yet I'm reading up on them to determine what I want. I do know I like RI reds and Americaunas I will also check the feed stores. My problem I can't order what most places online have as minimums. I only can have about 10 for now and minimums are 20 from what ice seen so far
 
ssalcido1 said:
Thank you for the warm welcome. I don't know yet I'm reading up on them to determine what I want. I do know I like RI reds and Americaunas I will also check the feed stores. My problem I can't order what most places online have as minimums. I only can have about 10 for now and minimums are 20 from what ice seen so far
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Do you have smaller independent feed/seed stores that get baby chicks? If yes, talk with them, they can tell you what breeds they will get, and may get sexed ones which lessens the risk of roos. Personally got my gals at 3 days old and thank goodness all 6 were females - from a small community pet/animal supply store. And most of them don't have a minimum.
 
Welcome to BYC. Glad you decided to join our flock. If high egg production is your main priority, I would recommend going with Sex Links which are the best brown egg layers in the chicken world, and which your tractor supply will almost certainly have for this very reason. I especially like the Black Sex Links (Black Stars) as they are very friendly and hardy, egg laying machines that will consistently churn out more than 300 large brown eggs per hen per year. They are especially persistent layers in cold winter weather. If you want a standard breed (Sex Links are hybrids), I would recommend Black Australorps which are extremely hardy, calm and gentle (good lap pets), and excellent layers of brown eggs. If you haven't done so already, definitely check out our Learning Center at https://www.backyardchickens.com/atype/1/Learning_Center. There is lots of useful information there. Please feel free to ask any questions you may have. We are here to help in any way we can. Whatever breeds you decide to get, good luck with your flock.
 
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Some feed stores will order a particular breed for you if it isn't one they were going to be getting. If your stores won't do that and hatchery minimums are a problem, you can maybe split an order with someone else. Also, once you have 20 posts, you can use the buy-sell-trade forum...maybe there will be something you could get from there.

Good luck!
 

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