Do I have a choice of buying baby chicks or mature hens?

[emmanhxo]

Meyer Hatchery does and MyPetChicken too. Also, try locating a chicken swap in your area.

 

[Featherland]

Where are you in Missouri? Orschelns has baby chicks in this week if you are near one. I see chickens on Craigs List all the time. Mostly roosters but there are people selling chickens around point of lay.

 

[Ol'Biddy]

First of all

. You've come to the right place for tons of advice and really nice people.

Like you, I'm a real newbie, got my first hens last summer, but I can tell you what's worked for me. I got point of lay hens from Craigslist and it's been a great experience. My 3 hens are all Black Star, but from what I've read here on BYC it's fine to mix several breeds, but you do have to be a little careful combining banties and standard sized hens. My Black Stars are egg laying machines and went right through winter with only a little slow down even with no light in the coop. They free range all day (we don't have many predators here) and survived winter fine. The advantage of day olds is lots of handling when they're babies so they're more friendly as adults. My hens were pretty skittish at first, but with lots of treats, they come running now and let me pet them although they're still not thrilled with being picked up.

One thing you have to realize: chickens are addictive! I was perfectly happy and had lots of excess eggs to give away to friends and family, but with spring coming I'm making plans for a brooder and can't wait til the baby chicks arrive at the feed store. It's pretty hard for me to order since I live out in the sticks and the closest PO is about 30 minutes away so will have to depend on the feed store to supply my addiction.

So, getting POL pullets worked for me to get my feet wet, but the addiction is growing. Save me from myself!!!!

 

[pdsavage]

another choice is small animal sales they are all over in Missouri,where are you at or close 2 in Missouri lots of us here can help you find some hens or chicks.

 

[Ang]

I was going to say if you are close to Rutledge, Mo you could see what is available for older birds there.

 

[pascopol]

Quote:
Yes you can!

 

[WoodlandWoman]

Two fun sites for looking at breeds are:

Henderson's, for all kinds of information on a lot of different breeds, in an easy to read chart. In the far left column where the breed name is listed, there are links to other sites. The "FS" is a link to the Feathersite breed page. Very handy!
http://www.ithaca.edu/staff/jhenderson/chooks/chooks.html

Feathersite, for pictures of a lot of different breeds. If you scroll down on the first page, you'll see where it has the breed pages listed alphabetically.
http://www.feathersite.com/Poultry/BRKPoultryPage.html