I plan to start breeding my chickens... any tips???

[HolyHenHouse]

Hi! I was hoping to get some advice about breeding my chickens? I plan to sell fertilized eggs and baby chicks. I have lots of different breeds in my flock and plan to breed them all. Any tips appreciated!

 

[nuthatched]

What information would you like?
Are you interested in also becoming NPIP certified?

 

[AinaWGSD]

My advice is to decide what your goals are first and go from there.

You may want to look around on your local Craigslist or Facebook chicken group and see what's popular in your area. Barnyard mixes are fun, but depending on where you live there may not be much of a market for them. It will also help you set realistic goals for your prices. What sells for $1-2 in one part of the country might be in higher demand and fetch $10-15 somewhere else.

Are you going to focus on egg laying abilities, birds that are really good at growing fairly fast for butcher, show quality? Are you looking to breed for specific traits like color, feather type, a specific egg color, etc?

Do you have a plan for the chicks no one wants to buy? Even if you don't hatch until people tell you they want x number of chicks you will still want to set more eggs than the number of chicks you want because a 100% hatch rate is difficult to get even when conditions are absolutely perfect. And people back out of live animal purchases all the time, you can't count chicks as sold until they are out the door. Some people grow out extra chicks and process them for meat, some people take extras to their local livestock auction, some might keep extra girls and advertise extra boys for free. There are lots of options, but it helps to plan ahead and figure out what will likely work best for you before you set eggs.

 

[HolyHenHouse]

What information would you like?
Are you interested in also becoming NPIP certified?

no I just want to start a small local business... I have a lot of ideas but I think I may be in over my head if I don't start very small. I don't exactly know what kind of info I need... I have a mixed flock and don't know what breeds sell best and things like that. I am pretty new to chickens. this is my first Flock.

 

[HolyHenHouse]

My advice is to decide what your goals are first and go from there.

You may want to look around on your local Craigslist or Facebook chicken group and see what's popular in your area. Barnyard mixes are fun, but depending on where you live there may not be much of a market for them. It will also help you set realistic goals for your prices. What sells for $1-2 in one part of the country might be in higher demand and fetch $10-15 somewhere else.

Are you going to focus on egg laying abilities, birds that are really good at growing fairly fast for butcher, show quality? Are you looking to breed for specific traits like color, feather type, a specific egg color, etc?

Do you have a plan for the chicks no one wants to buy? Even if you don't hatch until people tell you they want x number of chicks you will still want to set more eggs than the number of chicks you want because a 100% hatch rate is difficult to get even when conditions are absolutely perfect. And people back out of live animal purchases all the time, you can't count chicks as sold until they are out the door. Some people grow out extra chicks and process them for meat, some people take extras to their local livestock auction, some might keep extra girls and advertise extra boys for free. There are lots of options, but it helps to plan ahead and figure out what will likely work best for you before you set eggs.

I will probably just keep the ones that don't sell. I have a mixed flock... mostly purebreds but I have a couple mutts. lol. I want to sell both fertilized eggs and hatch some on my own. the hatch rate is what im worried about right now.