Freefire Farms?

[BrushyHillGuide]

Im wondering if the high prices are worth it and WHY they're so high?

I found these guys while Googling for some harder to find breeds and the prices really surprised me; especially since many of the more rare birds are only offered "unsexed." Are they so renowned that these birds are for breeders that want some sort of pedigree?? Why don't they sell these expensive birds sexed?

I'm considering buying a few Pavlovskyas an I'd like to get a rooster and 2 hens. Ordering "unsexed" chicks at $99 each seems like an overly risky purchase. I just can't understand why they wouldn't offer these chicks so that you can pick the sex.

I'm new to the rare chicken thing so I'd sure appreciate some insight into these questions. Thanks, in advance!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[BrushyHillGuide]

Greenfire Farm is what I meant to put in the title. Sorry. Autocorrect messed me up and I can't edit the thread title now. Ugh.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[dheltzel]

Unless you have had years of training working as a chick sexer at a commercial hatchery, most chicks are not sexable. It's not a matter of not wanting to offer them sexed, it's that they can't sex them. Even hatcheries only claim to get it 90% right.

Are the prices too high? I guess it depends on how bad you want them and if there is anywhere else you can get them. I bought some chicks from them and year ago and it was very worthwhile for me. I've sold enough to recover all my costs (and feed) and still have dozens more I'm raising to expand my flock. If you spent thousands of $$ to import a rare breed, would you want to recover that money, and maybe even make a profit to fund the next group you want to import?

Chickens are unique in that they can reproduce so rapidly (compared to say championship dogs and cats). I bought 16 chicks last year and have hatched over 200 chicks from those birds so far - not a bad return at all. As they sell to other breeders mostly, they have to know they are setting up their competition for a much smaller investment than they made bringing the breed into the US.

Buying chicks from Greenfire is one of the best bargains out there, IMO.

 

[BrushyHillGuide]

Unless you have had years of training working as a chick sexer at a commercial hatchery, most chicks are not sexable. It's not a matter of not wanting to offer them sexed, it's that they can't sex them. Even hatcheries only claim to get it 90% right.

Are the prices too high? I guess it depends on how bad you want them and if there is anywhere else you can get them. I bought some chicks from them and year ago and it was very worthwhile for me. I've sold enough to recover all my costs (and feed) and still have dozens more I'm raising to expand my flock. If you spent thousands of $$ to import a rare breed, would you want to recover that money, and maybe even make a profit to fund the next group you want to import?

Chickens are unique in that they can reproduce so rapidly (compared to say championship dogs and cats). I bought 16 chicks last year and have hatched over 200 chicks from those birds so far - not a bad return at all. As they sell to other breeders mostly, they have to know they are setting up their competition for a much smaller investment than they made bringing the breed into the US.

Buying chicks from Greenfire is one of the best bargains out there, IMO.

Thanks for the reply. You confirmed what I was thinking/suspecting. I didn't mean to sound like I was slamming them - I wasn't. At least I sure didn't mean to! I just wanted to make sure that there was, in fact, a legitimate reason for those kinds of prices. I can TOTALLY appreciate paying a top breeder of any animal, top prices for the pedigree. I'm sure having their bloodline in your flock makes your birds more desirable/valuable? One thing that I'm curious about- how many unsexed chicks would you have to purchase in order to, realistically, expect to get a couple hens and a rooster??

 

[dekel18042]

Thanks for the reply. You confirmed what I was thinking/suspecting. I didn't mean to sound like I was slamming them - I wasn't. At least I sure didn't mean to! I just wanted to make sure that there was, in fact, a legitimate reason for those kinds of prices. I can TOTALLY appreciate paying a top breeder of any animal, top prices for the pedigree. I'm sure having their bloodline in your flock makes your birds more desirable/valuable?

One thing that I'm curious about- how many unsexed chicks would you have to purchase in order to, realistically, expect to get a couple hens and a rooster??

. There is a huge demand for pullets as opposed to cockerels unless you're talking about meat birds (and most of them are sold unsexed.) Most commercial hatcheries euthanize their excess cockerels or in some cases send them to auction. If Greenfire Farms can sell their birds unsexed they don't have this problem. In most hatcheries sexed pullets cost more than straight run.
As for how many birds you would have to buy, Each bird has a 50% chance of being a pullet or cockerel (Although I just read recently cockerels make up 50-55% of all hatches and pullets account for 45-50%) so the more you buy the better chance of your getting both sexes although it should approximate 50% each.
Hopefully three would do it (I got three unsexed chicks had 2 girls one boy) but you could just as easily get three of either sex or two boys. In another case I got 2, one of each sex, but that was just luck. Not sure if I would trust that if I had to have a boy.

 

[dheltzel]

Thanks for the reply. You confirmed what I was thinking/suspecting. I didn't mean to sound like I was slamming them - I wasn't. At least I sure didn't mean to! I just wanted to make sure that there was, in fact, a legitimate reason for those kinds of prices. I can TOTALLY appreciate paying a top breeder of any animal, top prices for the pedigree. I'm sure having their bloodline in your flock makes your birds more desirable/valuable?

One thing that I'm curious about- how many unsexed chicks would you have to purchase in order to, realistically, expect to get a couple hens and a rooster??

I once bought 6 chicks to ensure I would get a viable breeding group and ended up with 6 cockerels.

This is dealing with statistical probabilities which are easy to figure out, but in the end a certain amount is just "luck"

# chicks probability of getting at least 1 pair
2 .5 (50% chance)
3 .75
4 .875
5 .9375
6 .96875 (about 97% chance if you buy 6)
7 .984375
8 .992188

(I can explain the formula and logic if anyone wants to know)

It is considerably more complicated to compute the stats of getting a trio