Hatching vs purchasing chicks

[JDS98922]

I just ordered 9 day old chicks from MyPetChicken.com

They also have eggs they are selling too. They also sell pullets. I used them for the day-old chicks because they did not have a minimum order of like 25 chicks of one breed. I ordered 9 chicks and 5 different breeds. They had a fair amount of information (obviously not as much as this site) that I found useful. They pre-group some chickens into categories like cold-hardy and heat-hardy. A good number of pictures of mature and young chickens for each breed.

I have not received my chicks yet (they are shipping April 22. I am in Central Washington State and I still have areas of snow and heavy frost this morning) so I can not vouch for the shipping, etc. I found the price to be good ($35 for the chicks and $35 for expedited shipping). I have placed my order and paid, I can cancel my order for a $5 fee up to the week before. They had a section for me to fill out telling them what substitutions where acceptable if they did not have enough chicks hatch to cover my order.

Maybe you could try both. Start with some local chicks from the local feed store or online and then as you and your children's confidence in raising chickens grows you could try hatching them. I remember when we hatched eggs as kids. It was actually exciting.
From a financial standpoint it may make better sense to start with day old (less equipment required) and then if the kids and you are still interested add hatching eggs.

 

[TLCMidMichigan]

I went to a local who had the birds I wanted and got eggs to hatch. Not doing the best, but got 26 out of 48 eggs hatched. There may have been more but I was in a hurry to setup house for the chicks. Out of those there were 8 roos!
I gave 6 of them to a family that had a bunch running around. They didn't care.
Their yours when hatched and brought up.

 

[alex5chickens]

If you want three females of each breed, at the very least you should get twelve eggs of each breed. To begin with, since you are a begginer, you should count on six eggs of each breed not making it. And since most hatches are around a fifty -fifty split, you'll have 3 males and 3 females. And that's only if you're lucky!
if you start out hatching, you should get probably 15 eggs of each breed.
if you just buy chicks, you are going to save money since you won't need to buy as many chicks as you would eggs.
Also, no incubator cost.
in the end, it's up to you.

 

[BugMunch]

I bought my first set of chicks last May, from a barnyard supply store, they were 3 weeks old when I got them. Last June, I incubated some eggs I got from a friend and had 3 hatch(2 cockerels and 1 pullet). All of them are friendly and I can hold all of them, but the one pullet that I hatched in my house, will follow me around like a puppy when I am outside. I bought 3 1 day old chicks a few weeks ago(they were the breeds I was looking for) and I just hatched 5 eggs again, as well.....they are all super attached to me, as they see me as their "mom"....the only down side is like the others have said, getting cockerels when you hatch them yourself. Luckily, I have friends looking for roosters, so mine will have a home to go to. My boys really enjoyed the whole incubating, candling, and hatching process.

 

[BugMunch]

Hey y’all.
I’m new to chickens, though my husband is not. He has incubated eggs as a child, as well as raising chickens. This will be a family activity, but primarily my “project”

I’m looking for opinions on hatching vs buying chicks. To get the breeds I’m really looking for, odds are I’ll have to order online. I’d love to incubate/hatch primarily for the kids to experience it. (They are 13 and a very well behaved 6) Any advice? I’m completely on woth you telling me I’m nuts for starting off with hatching and I should get chicks instead. But if I do hatch I have these questions:

Anyone have recommendations for where to order the eggs?
Taking into consideration the survival rate and the fact that I really don’t want roosters, how many of each breed (I want 2 different breeds) should I order if I’m aiming towards 3 females of each breed? (I’m flexible on that though)

I’m open to any other advice, and I’ll be pouring through the thread to see what I find

Thanks!

Oh, and I’m in SC if that makes a difference

What part of SC? I am in SC as well

 

[Shadrach]

I’m going to stretch a point here. There is more than one way of hatching eggs.

If I wanted to hatch chicks as a project and as a means of showing my kids the miracle of life and the wonder of the process of reproduction, I wouldn’t want that miracle delivered by courier, or cooked in a machine.

Nature often has a inconvenient way of doing things but for me, watching a breeding pair mate, make a nest and set a clutch, then watch while the hen sits until she eventually hatches her eggs and after rears her chicks with the help of her rooster is the most instructive and for me the most fascinating.

If you can have a rooster then this is the method that will teach your children most.

 

[Toothpick]

I ordered all females from Meyer Hatchery :https://www.meyerhatchery.com/get_subcat.a5w?cat=1020&A5WSessionId=11002c12609543c0b86072d6978e3065

And I also included 1 rooster. So I got 15 hens and 1 rooster. Arrived at the PO early in the morning - 4am. They called and I picked them up and it couldn’t have been easier.

Chicks take about 21 days to hatch. So you can start them and time your order so they arrive when the eggs hatch. Best of both worlds.

 

[CarpCharacin]

I think that purchasing chicks is a good option if you can find the breed that you want for a reasonable price, but if you're looking for a rare breed chicks might be extremely hard to come by and/or prohibitively expensive, and in that case I think you are better off hatching them.

 

[aart]

Well, how many learning curves do you want to tackle right off the get go?
First thing to do is..... build a coop.

 

[Criticalicious]

Yes, what part of SC? I got my chicks at Egg Well Farm and they have all turned out lovely. They're NPIP and they will ship, or you can pick up on the farm if you're not too far away from the Spartanburg area.