Has anyone made money on selling chicks, pullets, roo's?

[chickened]

That is possible, I myself sell off craigslist and past customers mainly because I cannot survive from what feed stores offer. The biggest complaint I get is from people buying at a feedstore and not getting what they thought they were getting. I have personally seen people pick up a chick show it to someone and put it back into a different pen at the feedstores. Not to say I have not screwed up.

 

[pascopol]

Quote:
Yea, go for it, you may even get rich, who knows, depends how good are you at hatching and selling them.

 

[jvls1942]

I make money at it.. but for only a few weeks out of the year..
How much extra room do you have available for the chicks that do not sell ? You could easily suddenly end up with a hundred or two chicks looking for a home.. now you have to feed them and they are going to keep growing.. are you prepared to kill them if you cannot sell or even give them away? do you have enough room for 200 full grown chickens??

last year was a strange year for selling birds.. the sales stopped early summer.. I ended up with about 80 extra muscovy ducks..

we sorted out two trios and butchered the rest.. not an easy job. we even bought a small extra freezer to store them in..

I am going to be way more careful this year,,

 

[MuranoFarms]

Yes, I make money at it.
Figure out what your market demands. I can sell guinea keets out the wazoo if I price them at $5 each. All summer long I hatch every egg I get. If they start to get a few weeks old and they're not selling, I switch to selling hatching eggs online for a few weeks. Then I'm back to hatching. I give as many eggs as I can to broodys....cuts down on bator and heat lamp costs.

I have a list of swaps. I plan the hatch for the week before I have a swap. I like silkies because they just always seem to sell. I also do blue marans and EE's. (occasionally I'll hatch others, but I live by Pittsburgh and the suburbs people like cute fluffy birds, and pretty colored egg layers) This is just my method, again....figure what your market will bear. My guineas dont sell at all near the city because of noise ordinances. I market those to 'farm country'

Everything gets listed on craigslist also!

I have an auction about 2 hours away. If all else fails, extras can go there. Sometimes they sell really cheap, but it's better then loosing $ feeding them! I also have an uncle that likes to butcher, so if the standard sized chickens don't sell as chicks, I sell the pullets at $10 each and give him the roos. Occasionally I'll butcher for stew birds.

Have a plan: Where you want to sell, what happens if they don't sell....etc.
Good luck!

 

[deineria]

People do make a side income with it here. . .same with selling hatching eggs

And goodness

I can sell guinea keets out the wazoo if I price them at $5 each.

Everyone I know here could sell Guineas ALL day at $5 - they are your money makers - lol​

 

[Steve_of_sandspoultry]

It will support itself but don't quit your day job.

I agree with this. In season the money rolls in but when you spread it out over a year and keep good records you will find alot/most of your profit gets "eaten" in the off season. If you figure in your time even at min. wage you will come out in the red, but on a good note sitting back watching the birds is very relaxing.

Steve​

 

[Niele da Kine]

We make money hatching and selling eggs, but it is a very small operation and mostly we just want to cover feed costs as well as some pocket money. We have two tabletop incubators - one for incubating, one for hatching. Since the eggs won't be hatching in the incubator, they are really stacked up in there. There also isn't an egg turner so that leaves more room for the eggs in the incubator. Once they hatch, they are sold on Craig's List so there's no advertising costs and the folks come pick the chicks up so there's no transportation costs, either. Oh, we are also on a solar electric system, so no electric costs for running the incubators, either.

I list them for $5 each unless they buy them in multiples and then give them "group discounts". I also try not to have the same breeds as the feed store has since they sell them for less and have them sorted by gender as well. I sell the chicks straight run since I can't tell them apart BUT we sell them with a "rooster return policy". If a chick turns into a rooster and they don't want a rooster, they can bring him back when he crows and I will either refund their money or give them a replacement chick if we have any available at the time. The side effect of this policy is folks will not only bring me plump tasty young roosters and let me use their $5 for five or six months but they also will bring extra free roosters they don't want that they got from somewhere else. We haven't had to buy chickens to eat in several years now.

 

[gitlost80]

For me I just started selling my day olds for a few bucks to help pay for their parents food, and I mostly incubate for the fun of it, and give em away if I cant sell them. I do know that some people can make good money, at least in the spring.I know this because I bought day old chicks due this spring and paid $15 a piece!

 

[Niele da Kine]

$15 each for day old chicks? What kind were they? I want to hatch out some of those!

 

[gumbii]

they must've been some nice day old chicks...


i'm thinking about selling some of my chicks for 5 bucks, but i was told to let them feather out since their parents are SQ... probably still sell them for 5 bucks afterwards... LOL...