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The swap is mostly a "meat market" for the hispanic and the asian folk, but, if you really do not want them to go that way, just price them out of their range (anything over $10 will usually suffice) The ones after birds for meat will generally do a "3 dolla, I take all) kinda deal, when you rstarting price is at $10 or higher. I have gone there with Silkie roosters set at $30 each and have gotten it, so there are people who are looking for breeder birds. My husband sold 4 silkie pullets that were pet quality to a man who wanted different colors to breed for his flock. He was not into showing or anything, but wanted good broodies.
My husband sold about 30 birds in a half hour, if he would have had more he could have spent all day. Many people want layers, so if you get extras from hatcheries when you place your orders, you can always order extra on purpose planning to resell them. The going rate is about $12 for a pullet if it looks good. Much of what we notice is that people look for our vehicle, because our birds are always clean and healthy looking. I see far too many birds there that are bald backed pecked half to death and look terrible.
One year we bought 25 red meat birds from Ideal and we kept about half for ourselves, and brought the rest to the swap. If anyone ever plans on doing this, a little tip....do not purchase white meat birds, most of the people looking for butcher birds will not buy white, any other color but pure white....to some cultures a all white bird is bad luck. This is why we bought the red meat birds that year and we had been surrounded with people selling the whites, and they still had them long after all ours were sold.
I definitly agree. I saw far to many birds that looked like this for my comfort. I understand that this happens on occasion with a rooster or roosters that are overly enthusiastic with that particular bird, but to have every bird in the cage be that way? Thats just a bit much. I almost bought some of them just to help them with that problem!
Good to know on the red birds! I was planning on doing something like this next year and just hadn't thought about what we were getting yet. Thanks for that helpful tip!