Cost of eggs vs day old chicks

[Brassmaster]

Maybe this has been addressed somewhere else but I couldn't find it. Why do hatching eggs cost at least as much and most of the time much more, than day old chicks? This doesn't make sense to me. You have time and energy invested to get the day old chicks, how can they be less expensive than the egg that you started with?

 

[debilorrah]

Quote:
Its the incubating fever, my friend. Also many of the pire breeds are not readily available for purchase as chicks.

 

[Illia]

Hatching eggs, in 90% of cases, could cost more because they are not from hatcheries, but actual breeders. In other words - The bird you get is better. And, to my experience, hatching eggs usually cost the same or less as chicks. If I'm paying $30-40 for a dozen show-quality birds that I know will last, I know will look like what they are supposed to, and had happy moms, and chicks run about $3 a piece plus shipping from hatcheries. . . I think I'd rather take the eggs.

But, really, hatching eggs are actually much cheaper for the person who is selling them (a breeder, not a hatchery. Hatcheries sell eggs too, and in that case then yes I would see them being more expensive for the simple fact that people don't buy eggs from hatcheries often. It is pointless to.) and in turn are cheaper than chicks. I'm curious, where are you comparing prices?

As for them costing as much as chicks - Again, because of quality. And if not that (if they are sold by a hatchery) because they aren't as popular. If someone is looking for an egg, they look to a breeder. And to me, it isn't worse to get an egg - Think of it, you can spend less than $100 on a cheap incubator, and for less than a month, you can get all that more attached to your chick - You can watch it grow, hatch, and see it in its first moments of life! Plus it does not have the shock of being shipped over states when alive.

Just my two cents.