Hatching eggs and business advice

Man that hits home! So I sell hatching eggs locally only, and once they leave here, my policy is its your problem! 12 roos your problem, didn't hatch the exact bird from the pictures on the internet, your problem, only one hatched, agian your problem! I hatch my eggs each month, so I know my eggs are good. Next 1-4 week old chicks. 5 out 10 people kill at least half if not all. Not my problem! I lose 1 out of a 100, you killed 5 out 10? Not my problem.
I dont advertise any chicken under 12 wks anymore. I raise out all my birds, shooting for 300+ this year. Roosters separated early by at least week 6. Best roos held back shitty roos go to free range and will become food for something or someone. Snake and reptile weirdos feed whole chickens all sizes. There is a market there, also people will raise out good roosters for a couple more months to eat. It takes a while to build clientele.
This is how I break even or ish by 2054🤣. Pullets and laying hens.
I sell them like this to make it easy!
Pet quality (it is a ______ but its flaws mean it should not be bred forward) 55$ laying hen 35$ 12 week pullet
Breed quality (full on ____ not SOP but headed the right direction 70-100$)
Show quality (never for sale) I spent to much time and money to give away my genetics for any money.
If I had a 1000 hens today, I would have them gone in a month.
Next yr my prices are going up in order to slow down demand. We sold our whole spring stock in less than 2 wks on Craigslist and regulars only.
Are you NPIP certified or anything else? I'd like to charge those prices, but for what you sell prices are significantly lower around here, so I'm wondering if there's anything I can do about it, do I have the wrong clientele, or it's just the area I live in?
 
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That is weird to me, too. I am waiting for her to sue me, since she is either 1) willing to blame me for some unfortunate damage that happened to occur to her car, or 2) willing to damage her own car just to be "right" and intimidate me. If she is telling the truth, it was odd for her to wait 2 days to say anything and to not mention it immediately when I messaged her about her owing money. I HIGHLY doubt it was a coincidence. I am trying my best to handle it in a professional way and imitated how I think a successful business would respond to her without adding further drama while denying her allegation. I am not contacting her at all anymore, of course. Just hoping nothing further comes of this. What a joyful person to teach me a few new lessons about people!
Run far and fast. Luckily, if she is so hard up that she can't afford to pay you that $11, she probably can't afford to sue you either. But there are many other nasty things she could do. Keep all your emails, texts, and screen shots, and record any and all conversations.

Here's hoping she just disappears...
 
What are many of your hatching egg policies? Do you ever give free eggs if someone claims none were fertile? What if you knew the eggs had a great fertility rate?

I am having issues with people claiming no eggs were fertile/no eggs hatched. I am trying to ask people which it was. Not hatching does not mean they were not fertile. It's...difficult. I know some people are not dishonest--they really just don't know. For example: one person did not put eggs in their incubator for two weeks. I need to continue running my farm as a business, though, and not a charity or science experiments for other people. I realize I could have hatched those birds and sold them instead, but people want another dozen for free. That puts me at losing potential birds and lost income to pay for management and improvement of my set up. I feel I need to raise prices on my birds to try to compensate for not having as many to sell because I feel pressured to give another dozen here and there away. If I do this, though, dishonest people are likely selling chicks from my eggs for cheaper to my potential customers.

Should I have people agree (in a trackable way in messages or contracts) fertility is not guaranteed? I am feeling discouraged lately. I recently had someone short me on chicks...and the situation got weird...I know it seems to be a hard year for people with livestock businesses. I have a waitlist of people wanting birds and can't give away certain breeds, like my Lavender Ameraucana, Royal Palm turkey, and Welsh Harlequin duck eggs. I also have people questioning my prices, but I research hatchery prices, other sellers in my state, Craigslist, and the farms I got my birds from to make my pricing decisions. I also factor in breed standards. I have multiple people telling me I should be charging less than $3 a bird, and I am struggling to find a good professional response to their remarks. I believe it is time for me to type out policies to have on hand to keep people from getting to me. Business advice, anyone?

I sell eggs and are very expensive for an egg. Be honest send extras like if someone agrees to buy 12 I at least try to send 16. 18 eggs shoot for 2 dozen. Make sure to pack extremely well. I'd also advise to not write anything indicating fragile eggs. No matter howmuch you want to believe people are nice they are not. They will try to mess them up as much as they can. I've done experiments shipping eggs indicating they were eggs versus nothing. The indicated boxes were almost always at least scrambled if not broke. They don't care. I personally witnessed at a major hub in new Orleans people throwing boxes into usps bins from 20 or 30 feet away. Made it every time that tells me they have alot of experience. Also if warmer months tell them to put the eggs straight into an incubator or under a hen. My thoughts are if the eggs are in a hot environment during transit the embryo could start developing then someone sits them on thier counter for a day to rest in 70 degree weather will kill the developing embryo. Like I said I have shipped many eggs and have had great hatch rated as long as the buyer does thier due diligence on their end to get the best hatch they can.

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You do your part and that's all you can do. They have to do theirs too.
 
That is weird to me, too. I am waiting for her to sue me, since she is either 1) willing to blame me for some unfortunate damage that happened to occur to her car, or 2) willing to damage her own car just to be "right" and intimidate me. If she is telling the truth, it was odd for her to wait 2 days to say anything and to not mention it immediately when I messaged her about her owing money. I HIGHLY doubt it was a coincidence. I am trying my best to handle it in a professional way and imitated how I think a successful business would respond to her without adding further drama while denying her allegation. I am not contacting her at all anymore, of course. Just hoping nothing further comes of this. What a joyful person to teach me a few new lessons about people!
If you have someone who can give you legal advice on how to prep just in case she pursues anything I'd reach out to them. I'm no lawyer or anything, but in simple HR "investigations" into incidents you always want to have a written statement with as much detail as you can remember about the event, people, places, times, descriptions, all the facts you can remember. Make sure the statement is dated, sign it, then file it away. If you ever need it, you have it and you won't be scrambling trying to put the bits and pieces back together at a later date. Use pen, if you make a mistake, run a single line through it and initial it, never use white out and never completely scribble out something so you can't read what was originally there.

Hopefully nothing ever comes of it, people take the fun out of so many things.

By the way, I'd totally pay your prices for some Lavender Ameraucanas and the Spitzenhaubens. 😃 Since I'm too far way to get started chicks, if I get an incubator for next year and you're shipping eggs I may "need" some... if my husband asks, neither of us know how eggs ended up in an incubator at my house 🤣🤣🤣 he did say "no more chickens unless they are fancy chickens, or silkies" about 2 hours after he said that he wanted to go to TSC and they had silkies! So now we have silkes and only need fancy chickens for next year 🤣
 
Are you NPIP certified or anything else? I'd like to charge those prices, but for what you sell prices are significantly lower around here, so I'm wondering if there's anything I can do about it, do I have the wrong clientele, or it's just the area I live in?
I am not, and I'm not getting into a debate about why I will never be. For me, this isn't a business. Its a hobby gone completely off the rails. I turned the neighbors house into a giant chicken coop, and am converting the property across the street this yr. To say that, I would have to sell about 2000 a yr at a premium to break even in 5 or 6 yrs. Although, I do like my birds to help finance thier existence.
To get 3-5 nice improved birds I want to look at 30-80 individuals to find those improvements. Now I have 27 - 77 birds that have no interest to me. So I use to sell them cheap, but people are a pain in the ass. If I look at 300 birds this yr and hold 40 back I have 270 way better than average hatchery chicks. Roosters suck, but my dogs like them, we eat them young, I give shitty ones away when you buy a couple hens. My son is a snake wierdo, so he takes orders from other snake weirdos. Sometimes someone wants a few for eating.
As far as my prices. I was a contractor, I charged more than anyone else, and did a better job than anyone else would. I sold me, not the job. I raise my chickens, every single one (even the shitty ones) in the most natural way I can imitate, I spare no expense, I plant food plots, there are fresh herbs daily, and I start them young (week 2) on grass in yard boxes. My prices weed out the bullshitters, my chickens and my way of raising them, is impressive in person.
So between its not really a business, and I dont care if they actually sell or not (I dont like selling people my chickens) (I enjoy when I give someone deserving a chicken or chickens for free. Odd?) I have 4 dogs 3 over 100lbs favorite food whole ground chicken kale and rice.
 
I am not, and I'm not getting into a debate about why I will never be. For me, this isn't a business. Its a hobby gone completely off the rails. I turned the neighbors house into a giant chicken coop, and am converting the property across the street this yr. To say that, I would have to sell about 2000 a yr at a premium to break even in 5 or 6 yrs. Although, I do like my birds to help finance thier existence.
To get 3-5 nice improved birds I want to look at 30-80 individuals to find those improvements. Now I have 27 - 77 birds that have no interest to me. So I use to sell them cheap, but people are a pain in the ass. If I look at 300 birds this yr and hold 40 back I have 270 way better than average hatchery chicks. Roosters suck, but my dogs like them, we eat them young, I give shitty ones away when you buy a couple hens. My son is a snake wierdo, so he takes orders from other snake weirdos. Sometimes someone wants a few for eating.
As far as my prices. I was a contractor, I charged more than anyone else, and did a better job than anyone else would. I sold me, not the job. I raise my chickens, every single one (even the shitty ones) in the most natural way I can imitate, I spare no expense, I plant food plots, there are fresh herbs daily, and I start them young (week 2) on grass in yard boxes. My prices weed out the bullshitters, my chickens and my way of raising them, is impressive in person.
So between its not really a business, and I dont care if they actually sell or not (I dont like selling people my chickens) (I enjoy when I give someone deserving a chicken or chickens for free. Odd?) I have 4 dogs 3 over 100lbs favorite food whole ground chicken kale and rice.
Also I only have 2 kinds of buyers anymore. Impulse (more money than sense, then thier friends have to have a couple also). People who want something better than average. I spent over 1k on hatching eggs and chicks this yr. I know what I'm looking 4 and they don't have it at TSC for 5.39$ a piece. I'm not against mass produce birds, but I prefer a bit more discretion in a breeding program. That being said, thats not all that much spread across 5 color patterns.
 
I am not, and I'm not getting into a debate about why I will never be. For me, this isn't a business. Its a hobby gone completely off the rails. I turned the neighbors house into a giant chicken coop, and am converting the property across the street this yr. To say that, I would have to sell about 2000 a yr at a premium to break even in 5 or 6 yrs. Although, I do like my birds to help finance thier existence.
To get 3-5 nice improved birds I want to look at 30-80 individuals to find those improvements. Now I have 27 - 77 birds that have no interest to me. So I use to sell them cheap, but people are a pain in the ass. If I look at 300 birds this yr and hold 40 back I have 270 way better than average hatchery chicks. Roosters suck, but my dogs like them, we eat them young, I give shitty ones away when you buy a couple hens. My son is a snake wierdo, so he takes orders from other snake weirdos. Sometimes someone wants a few for eating.
As far as my prices. I was a contractor, I charged more than anyone else, and did a better job than anyone else would. I sold me, not the job. I raise my chickens, every single one (even the shitty ones) in the most natural way I can imitate, I spare no expense, I plant food plots, there are fresh herbs daily, and I start them young (week 2) on grass in yard boxes. My prices weed out the bullshitters, my chickens and my way of raising them, is impressive in person.
So between its not really a business, and I dont care if they actually sell or not (I dont like selling people my chickens) (I enjoy when I give someone deserving a chicken or chickens for free. Odd?) I have 4 dogs 3 over 100lbs favorite food whole ground chicken kale and rice.
Thank you for the information! I appreciate your take on things, and am kinda jealous of your setup. That sounds awesome!

Been pondering NPIP certification/registration myself, but haven't decided yet. I see pros and cons there.
 
Well, a person who bought 6 Ameraucanas is reselling them for higher today, so that answers my gut feeling that raising my prices from $8 to $12 is the right call. I had someone do this with eggs for eating as well. She was selling them as hatching eggs, reselling them for higher as eating eggs, and hatching them herself and guessing the breeds. She even asked me to lower the prices so she could make more money! As though what she was doing was ok. My reaction to these situations is that I must need to raise prices to deter people like that who will undermine my business and take customers away with my own products.

I am reminding myself if I lower prices, people are probably going to resell for higher for anything I am selling. :thumbsup
 

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