I bought 9 Orpington chicks from TSC. . .hopefully? Please confirm. . .

[Gray Farms]

Where are your located? Maybe somebody local has some chicks to sell.

 

[Folly's place]

Consider ordering a mix of breeds! You will find birds that you love, and never would have considered otherwise. And your climate matters; cold tolerant birds up north, heat tolerant birds in the south.
See Henderson's poultry chart, feathersite, and some of the good online catalogs for ideas.
Mary

 

[Folly's place]

Like me! Southern Michigan, and chicks to sell!
Mary

 

[keesmom]

Does it have to be Orpingtons? Most hatcheries are sold out of individual breeds, but they still have assortments available. I'd consider ordering one of those. You may end up with a breed you prefer.

 

[OfficialChickButtWiper]

Update:

I spoke to the manager today (Ms. Karen). She offered me sexling chicks she still had in the store with some Leghorns to make up the difference. The manager said she didn't know what they would do with the Cornish cross. . . (which I wasn't offering back, they ate a lot of food; food I bought from TSC). She also provided a name of a woman who may trade me one of her chickens for some of our Cornish X. She encouraged me to find her on facebook and talk to her and then call the store back if need be.

The problem is that I feel like we are out of money on this one. We don't have a problem killing the chickens to eat ( I haven't done it before but I will be helping my husband tomorrow with it). So it's not like I am wanting to trade b/c I don't want to "handle it". The point is I put thought into the type of chicken I wanted. Put a lot of effort in to keeping them healthy. (Maybe too much effort b/c I did give them all a bath before they went into the new coop, but they were filthy . )

After reading the above comments from Gray Farms and Folly's Place, I searched for a local seller. I found a few but we will go with the one an hour away; a nice man who said if he sells the orpingtons he has, he can always hatch us some new ones.

So I called back the store and asked for a store credit of what we paid for the chicks. This time it was a different manager, Ms. Amanda and she agreed to a credit but we have to come into the store and get it. The store is a 30 min away and we stock up when we shop so I don't need to go back there right now. We will see if they still credit us by the time we get back to the store.

Our happy compromise would have been if they ordered us what we thought we were buying. Nine orpington chicks; but that wasn't offered and when I mentioned it she said we would have to do that online.

So I'm going to stop complaining now. Thank everyone for their advice. When we do get our new chickens in I will add a picture but it will be a few weeks. My husband wants to finish the coop and we need to process some chickens before we get new ones. I'm probably going to give it a good cleaning too.

 

[Folly's place]

Do be careful buying (or visiting!) birds from private flocks. Read up about biosecurity, talk to the seller, and don't be afraid to pass up this purchase if any flags appear.
Mary

 

[OfficialChickButtWiper]

Okay, thank you. I just looked up biosecurity. In my phone conversation it seems like he has bred buff orpingtons from some chickens he bought from Missouri 3 years ago. He has all of the 11week old chicks in one pen. He keeps the older ones separate. So that sounded like normal chicken stuff I have read about online. I don't see a lot of pictures online but I will ask for some before we drive out there. He did say he is not a big breeder (which is fine with me).

Thanks for the advise. I will read some more on it so that I can keep my family safe. We are leaving our shoes for feeding the chickens outside. We do wash our hands after feeding or cleaning up after them. I could maybe improve on cleaning the shovel I use to flip the deep litter method. . . (I dont' clean it. I just leans against the coop ready for me to use it).