Ha, this earlier post reply of mine went by the wayside in a New York minute!

[Hip Hillbilly Acres]

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• Hip Hillbilly Farm
• 5.00 star(s)
• May 31, 2022

I am SO glad I found this forum. Everything is so useful that I have read. Helping us newbies keep it real is the most valuable thing here I believe.

As much as I would like a buncha breeds; nope, not gonna. Think I will stick with one M A Y B E two (people keep recommending Leghorns. Then I found out about brown ones, yeah baby). I had firstly decided upon Rainbow breed.

Er ah, I am currently at: 8 babies and I have four more in a cart at Meyer (we won't mention the other carts). Of course most of them will have to go by the wayside I now have Silkie/Polish/Dixie Rainbow on the brain. Oh, and Sultan . Then, I shall be done and able to watch them grow and thrive. Yeah, for real, yaw'll!

That will STILL be way less than the 30 birds hubby wanted me to begin with. What kinda messes me up is how the hatcheries have these minimums or charge up the butt I can't help but think instead of paying them $$$$ for NOT ordering chicks, just add to the order and forego the charge (can't help but wonder if THAT is their MO)

 

[saysfaa]

Hatcheries have minimums because there is no heat in the box the chicks are shipped in. They need either enough chicks that they can keep each other warm or special packaging materials. The special packaging adda to the cost directly and by taking the employees a lot longer to set up the box.

Sometimes the hatcheries also have a minimum of each breed. I think this is because it is a lot faster to stop at one or two or even ten bins to collect the chicks for a given order than to stop at twenty-five different bins.

Farm stores that have minimums usually do because the laws in their area require it. Usually this is an attempt by the lawmakers to encourage more humane treatment of chicks - a combination of understanding that chickens are social animals that do much better in a group and, maybe, that people are more likely to buy a chick or two without learning what they need than they are to buy several chicks without at least a little bit of looking into what they need.

Happy chicken raising!