chicks from feed store

Where are you located? There are often BYC members about who would be happy to provide a few chicks!

 

We got ours from TSC and they werent vaccinated. They are now 17 weeks old, very healthy and happy. I never used medicated feed and just kept them and the brooder very clean. Clean water, food, checked butts every day.

 

I get all my chicks from a feed store! Not medicated. I don't feed them medicated feed either! Perfect chicks! They lay great when their older too.

 

I would guess that most feed stores do get vaccinated chicks, though I've never asked. I know that the TSC closest to me puts electrolytes and vits in the water and I believe they give them a course of antibiotics as well. I don't really buy chicks there though, cause they're usually in rough shape. There are independent feed/pet stores that I trust a lot more and that's where I've gotten them. Honestly, I've had chicks from those stores and from breeders and have done well. Feed store chicks have been the first to lay and, oddly enough, much friendlier than the breeder chicks IMHO. Guess I'm the oddball. I'm not really too big a fan of the chicks I got from a breeder. They're just not as productive or friendly, at least in my case.

 

The TSC here has them shipped from a hatchery and picks them up at the post office.

 

All but *counting in my head* four of my many chickens have been feed store purchases. (Oh, and my first GrandChick hatched from one of Rebecca's eggs by broody Buffy, plus the five little incubator hatchlings who broke out of their shells this past Saturday. But they're not "the flock" yet.) So that's 20 surviving feed store chickens and 2 ducklings.

I bought two laying hens from a BYC member and love 'em. I bought two "pullet" bantam cochin chicks about 5 weeks old from a breeder and one was a roo which my own dog killed, and the pullet - which I LOVED very much, she was gorgeous and friendly - died about a week or two ago shortly after she started laying..... from being eggbound.

I think from now on I'll be going the incubating eggs route. Of course, I could be seduced by feed store chicks again, very easily. Or I'm sure I wouldn't mind getting chicks or chickens from another BYC member. I just don't think I'll be scouting CraigsList or making long drives out to farms to pick up non-hatchery chicks from breeders.

I've been VERY happy with my feed store purchases.

 

Bought 3 batches of chicks this spring...first from TSC then 2 batches from another feed store. All 22 have grown into healthy pullets with the oldest from TSC all laying as of today. All of the chicks had just arrived at the stores as day old chicks from hatcheries, none spent more than a few hours in the store before my DH picked them up.