California-Southern

[polarbearpilot]

HI ! I am in Perris, CA (Lake Mathews) to be more precise. Anyone here close to me ? I have been trying to sell chickens on craigslist and for the past 6 months have not had any interest. Before that I was doing great, I would make more than enough for my birds to be paying their own way and not have money coming out of pocket to take care of them. I am trying to figure out what is going on, has anyone else in the area been experiencing the same lack of interest in their birds? Due to this lack of interest my husband is making me downsize I have lots of different birds, so it is not just one breed that I am selling all the time, but I am so confused as to why the steep drop-off of customers. Thanks in advance to anyone willing to reply.

Are you a member of the YAHOO SOCALPOULTRY group? If you are, you can post there and let people know you're looking to sell. Good luck.

 

[malndobe]

HI ! I am in Perris, CA (Lake Mathews) to be more precise. Anyone here close to me ? I have been trying to sell chickens on craigslist and for the past 6 months have not had any interest. Before that I was doing great, I would make more than enough for my birds to be paying their own way and not have money coming out of pocket to take care of them. I am trying to figure out what is going on, has anyone else in the area been experiencing the same lack of interest in their birds? Due to this lack of interest my husband is making me downsize I have lots of different birds, so it is not just one breed that I am selling all the time, but I am so confused as to why the steep drop-off of customers. Thanks in advance to anyone willing to reply.

I think it's the time of year. I had a bunch of 6-9 month old girls for sale in Feb and they went immediately. I noticed at the time that ads were only up for a week for pretty much anything that was listed for sale. The only reason I happened to have them at that time was I had purchased a bunch of chicks the pervious fall, and had to buy a lot more than I wanted for the hatchery to fill the order. Now I see the same ads week after week, sometimes with the prices dropping other times not, it doesn't seem to make a difference. We decided to do a flock reduction about a month ago, listed a number of chickens from 5-10 months old of various breeds, for a fair price, and did not get a single inquiry. These were birds I had hatched over the winter or in the spring. Ones that I could have sold in Feb or March for even more money, and they would have gone immediately. Instead predators took care of my excess chickens :-(

I think as Spring rolls around people have gotten their coops set up (if new to chickens) and everyone wants to get started with a new flock or additions to the current one. But as we get into spring/summer people can A) purchase chicks at the feed stores B) have already purchased their adults if that's what they wanted. So the market drops off.

 

[ozexpat]

I think that's a great assessment.

Having point of lay birds in Feb is the best time to make money.

Chicks are best until April when the hatcheries start shipping.

 

[aboverubiesmom]

I am on a great Facebook group, California Poultry People, but it's not a buy/sell group. People who are active members posting & interacting can buy, sell, swap but the moderator kicks people off who appear just to be there to sell. He pointed out there are a lot of facebook groups for that purpose. Use the For Sale/Trade in Norco CA FB group as long as you are willing to deliver to Norco. I think FB & craigslist are great but you have to keep reposting until the right people see your ad.

Trish
www.thehappyhealthychicken.com

 

[Sylvester017]

HI ! I am in Perris, CA (Lake Mathews) to be more precise. Anyone here close to me ? I have been trying to sell chickens on craigslist and for the past 6 months have not had any interest. Before that I was doing great, I would make more than enough for my birds to be paying their own way and not have money coming out of pocket to take care of them. I am trying to figure out what is going on, has anyone else in the area been experiencing the same lack of interest in their birds? Due to this lack of interest my husband is making me downsize I have lots of different birds, so it is not just one breed that I am selling all the time, but I am so confused as to why the steep drop-off of customers. Thanks in advance to anyone willing to reply.

Earlier in this thread someone mentioned chicken cholera (or something or other malady?) was going around so the Hemet and surrounding areas may be skittish about getting birds from the area. Just saying. Or maybe because this is the height of chicken season and people have all the stock they need for the moment. More and more people are chickeneering these days and raising their own birds and I've noticed even the rare breeds are going for rock-bottom prices that I've never seen before.

 

[nljohnson]

Hi everyone! I'm new to BYC and from Burbank! I just found this section of the boards and wanted to say hello. I'm looking forward to gleaning advice from my local peeps!

We don't have a flock yet, but my 9 year old daughter and I are learning about putting effort toward a goal and will be building an enclosed raised 20x16 garden with the coop and run being part of that structure. I was inspired by a link I found off www.gardenstogro.com and their lumber-free kits. Once we finish that, then we can get our girls!

Nancy

 

[calichicken]

Hi everyone! I'm new to BYC and from Burbank! I just found this section of the boards and wanted to say hello. I'm looking forward to gleaning advice from my local peeps!

We don't have a flock yet, but my 9 year old daughter and I are learning about putting effort toward a goal and will be building an enclosed raised 20x16 garden with the coop and run being part of that structure. I was inspired by a link I found off www.gardenstogro.com and their lumber-free kits. Once we finish that, then we can get our girls!

Nancy

What a fun project for you and your daughter to do together! And the payoff...you get some adorable chickens to enjoy

Good luck with your coop and post pictures as you go...fun to see!!!!

 

[Sylvester017]

Hi everyone! I'm new to BYC and from Burbank! I just found this section of the boards and wanted to say hello. I'm looking forward to gleaning advice from my local peeps!

We don't have a flock yet, but my 9 year old daughter and I are learning about putting effort toward a goal and will be building an enclosed raised 20x16 garden with the coop and run being part of that structure. I was inspired by a link I found off www.gardenstogro.com and their lumber-free kits. Once we finish that, then we can get our girls!

Nancy

Chickens can fly and jump pretty high so if you plan putting your chickens inside the raised garden area, they will fly into and decimate your garden beds. We have to rabbit fence around our raised beds to keep our girls out because they dig and scratch so deep as to disturb the roots of our veggies. The big LF tried to fly into the area a couple times but we gently guided them out of the area and they know now to respect the barrier and not go into the garden unless we "invite" them at the end of harvest. If one of the girls accidentally flies into the garden area she is so panicked because she knows she doesn't belong there and is so relieved when we usher her out again.

Chickens really dig deeply when dust-bathing or scratching in dirt so not a good idea to mix veggie gardens with free-range chickens unless you don't mind - they will decimate vegetation rather promptly. However, there is a lovely paper-back book "Free-Range Chicken Gardens" by Jessi Bloom that gives a lot of insight not only to safe plants for free-range chickens to be around and use as hiding places but also an insight into basic chicken behavior in gardens. I use it for reference even more than my basic "Storey's Guide to Raising Chickens."

So glad to see you doing your research before plunging into getting chickens - so many people do it half-a** backwards LOL!

 

[froggiesheins]

Chickens can fly and jump pretty high so if you plan putting your chickens inside the raised garden area, they will fly into and decimate your garden beds.  We have to rabbit fence around our raised beds to keep our girls out because they dig and scratch so deep as to disturb the roots of our veggies.  The big LF tried to fly into the area a couple times but we gently guided them out of the area and they know now to respect the barrier and not go into the garden unless we "invite" them at the end of harvest.  If one of the girls accidentally flies into the garden area she is so panicked because she knows she doesn't belong there and is so relieved when we usher her out again.
 

Chickens really dig deeply when dust-bathing or scratching in dirt so not a good idea to mix veggie gardens with free-range chickens unless you don't mind - they will decimate vegetation rather promptly.  However, there is a lovely paper-back book "Free-Range Chicken Gardens" by Jessi Bloom that gives a lot of insight not only to safe plants for free-range chickens to be around and use as hiding places but also an insight into basic chicken behavior in gardens.  I use it for reference even more than my basic "Storey's Guide to Raising Chickens."

So glad to see you doing your research before plunging into getting chickens - so many people do it half-a** backwards LOL!

To put it bluntly, chickens will destroy ALL vegetation on the first day! I thought cactus & succulants were safe.....ha ha ha..NOPE

 

[Sylvester017]

To put it bluntly, chickens will destroy ALL vegetation on the first day! I thought cactus & succulants were safe.....ha ha ha..NOPE

Some say bantams are safe in gardens or feather-footed fowl - Hey my feather-footed bantams dig as deep as my regular LF!! I have about 10 backyard holes dug to China thanks to the bantams. If I didn't let them free-range their coop would've collapsed on itself from all their digging in there!