"How do I get some of these birds you ask ??? they are out there all over the place, you just have to look beyond your hatchery nose. Shoot !!! go down the road or out to the country for a Sunday drive and see flocks raised by people who don't even know Hatcheries exsist, that's where"
Al and others,
I think maybe y'all underestimate a little bit the difficulties us non-OTs face in trying to get into chickens or any small-ag enterprise or hobby these days. I'm 32, and though I am only 2 generations removed from my strawberry and tobacco farming ancestors, I was raised by a generation who scorned anything farming related. I grew up in a very rural area, where the prevailing mentality was to get out of there ASAP and never look back. Only the poor and uneducated were interested in farm stuff, people told me. Now, after pursuing academia and hating it, I'm back in my hometown, on the same 10 acres of land, and having an unbelievably hard time getting good information about how to raise animals and a garden. There are a lot of people my age that I know who want to learn these things--I was even at a party the other night where I heard a group of 20-something girls talking about canning (which is of course a little silly since they don't raise any food to put in the jars, but that's beside the point). There are farmers at my church, but they are the kind with 600 acres who only raise corn or cattle and nothing else. Then there are the small yuppie farms who show up at the farmer's market, which all have chickens but only hatchery stock. I try to talk to the old guys selling turnip greens out of the backs of their trucks, but it turns out they get their eggs from the store. And the feed store? Staffed almost completely by kids from the local high school. I did business with one lady with a backyard flock, and she knowingly sold me 6 chickens with CRD, then moved a few weeks later.
So here we are, no money and no information. No wonder we get sidetracked by what the internet offers!
Now I get it, a lot of people have a lot of superficial trendy interests and will never put in the effort to get better at any of them, but if someone's read 1200 pages of an OTs thread because there aren't any OTs living down the road willing to give them the time of day, they're probably at least trying. I ask where to get real DP birds that don't cost the $100 I saw on a breeder's website because I have literally combed the tri-county area with no luck.
So don't get frustrated with us. I bet there are a lot of others like me who feel like they are living in a time and place bankrupt of common sense, work ethic, and an appreciation for things that last. We can't learn in a vacuum!
I hope this doesn't sound disrespectful--I don't mean that at all!! I appreciate everything y'all say on here and I bet the questions newbies ask are frustrating as all get out. I guess I just wanted y'all to know that we're not always being stupid, we are just kind of floundering out here on our own.
