Best place/way to buy chicks

[The Sniper]

We’ve never gotten directly from a hatchery.

We did and a lots were dead in the mail, about 45% maybe, but that was a mass order of 120 Freedom Rangers who were doomed to the pot anyway, but they were all males and $2.50 apiece and they were immediately decimated by owls and coons

 

[Anon112]

If a cheap price is what matters the most for you, then go for it.
To me, price matters zero. I only buy from private breeders that I meet at bird exhibitions. I drive up to 200 miles to go to their location and buy fertile eggs. I never buy chicks or larger birds anyway because I'm too lazy to do all the quarantine shenanigans.

I don't have an unlimited chicken budget (if only!), but I agree that quality is important and worth paying for.

I'm very fortunate that there is a family-run farm about an hour away from me that sells very good quality chickens. I've been very happy with the birds (everything from chicks to pullets). The only issue is that they can sell out at times, so they aren't always the best go-to if you need 4 chicks within the week.

And now that I have a crew of healthy chickens, I've just this summer let two hens hatch chicks, which is a combination of free, interesting, and stressful.

 

[BoundlessLove]

Our closest TSC marks their chicks down to $1-$2 each.
But, again that is pet quality from HH.
Your best bet is to have a good broody hen/s. They are gold!
That way you don’t have to put up any money and she can raise the chicks and you don’t have to do anything except take good care of her.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

Our closest TSC marks their chicks down to $1-$2 each.
But, again that is pet quality from HH.
Your best bet is to have a good broody hen/s. They are gold!
That way you don’t have to put up any money and she can raise the chicks and you don’t have to do anything except take good care of her.

I'm hoping to do exactly that! But ... I only ordered one Ameraucana cockerel from Cackle. He's better be a keeper! I feel a little stupid now. Why didn't I just order a dozen Am pullets? Instead I got some Am and some BA. i want to raise Ams to sell. Oh, but it won't be hard, I guess. If I want Ams I'll just hatch blue eggs. If I want OEs, I'll hatch brown eggs. Right?

 

[BoundlessLove]

For some reason I can’t reply to your post or tag you, BigBlueHen.

I’ve read that the BCM, when crossed with a blue egg layer, produce OEs that lay the true olive color.
I have two OEs now that produce light bluish green eggs. Bummer!
Edit to add: These OEs are two years old and are from TSC.
This spring I hatched some CLs from a breeder.
So hoping I can raise my own CLs and possibly OEs.

 

[FrostRanger]

I agree that other hatcheries tend to have better quality birds than hoover, when I ordered my birds from Meyer, I noticed immediately that even in the brooder they tamed faster and were better foragers. Not to say the birds I got from tractor supply were bad (they weren't) but the ones from Meyer were just noticeably better

I also prefer ordering directly from a hatchery because I can have them vaccinated for mareks disease. Haven't ran into issues with it fortunately but I personally prefer to vaccinate. I'll probably have a broody raise more chicks for me in 2ish years even though I think the girls want that to be sooner (I had to break Basil last month and I think Juniper might be trying to go broody)

 

[Altairsky]

Are you buying specialty birds or just laying hens for production

I only buy low production fancy birds.
I'm not willing to deal with peritonitis and salpingitis every 2 years.