If you had to sell hatching eggs from these 2 breeds...

[boykin2010]

I really like lemon cuckoo orpingtons and swedish flower hens but i cant decide which i want to get and sell hatching eggs from. They are selling at about the same price on Ebay but most of the lemon cuckoo eggs they are selling 10 at a time. Swedish flower hens on ebay are selling 6 eggs at a time. The only thing that is not making me want to bid on the swedish flower hens is that the seller only has 1 pair. That means that even if she gets an egg every day the eggs are going to be pretty old when i get them. Not to mention i am only getting 6 eggs and i would be lucky to get a 50% hatch....
What do you guys think?

 

[Nimby Chickens]

I'd go with the lemon cuckoo orps. They will make you more money than the swedish flower hens I think, just due to them being more popular - especially in a rare color.

 

[boykin2010]

yea BUT what happens when the fad for lemon cuckoo orps goes out. The swedish flower hens are a newer breed.... Anyone else have any comments

 

[keesmom]

Why are you concerned about how much eggs are going for? Why are you not concentrating on the pros and cons of having those breeds? Which breed has the traits you would prefer in your birds? What will you do when neither is a fad (and that WILL happen)? Why go through the hassle of shipped eggs when you can order your chicks directly from Greenfire? It will really save you money to order chicks or started birds instead of eggs.

 

[Time-Out]

Quote:
+1

I found picking out the perfect breeds rather fun! You get to learn so much about all the birds and you have to think about what is best for you setup and the relationship you would like to have with your birds. It makes deciding which to get so much easier afterwards.

 

[Hangin Wit My Peeps]

I used to think like this when I first started chickens...then I realized I want to get what I like because I'm the one looking at them all day

And the above posts are right when they said they WILL fizzle out eventually. I realized that "the chicken business" is not really one you can make money on at all. Where I make most of the money on chickens (and it's not a lot...mainly to feed my crew) is selling chicks in the spring. I can sell a lot of chicks in the spring here and now after a few years of selling them I have some regular customers that come back for chicks every year

Often times I will put trios together but then I end up losing money because I sell my trios cheap and have to feed them while they grow out enough to be able to tell what's what.

 

[Time-Out]

That's quite interesting. In the UK, you hardly see chicks for sale at all. I imagine it's because you need to ship 50 of them at once for them to retain their heat. The breeders I've spoken to also seem reluctant for people to go and pick chicks up. I imagined it was because they make more money out of selling them as pullets.

 

[boykin2010]

I think my original post was a little misleading. I wasnt meaning at all that i just wanted them to make money off of them. YES that was a factor because i do want to make some money but it didnt really influence my decision that much. The price of the eggs are just really expensive and i was asking for opinions. I have done research and over the years i have really fell in love with my orpingtons BUT i like the way swedish flower hens look and they are newer. It would be cool to say these birds were recently imported from Sweden blah blah blah.
I talked to green fire farms and if i remember correctly he didnt have any chicks for sale. He had 8 - 12 week pairs for 400$. I was really wanting to hatch some from eggs but if you guys think i should buy them at that age then maybe i will reconsider it. I will have to re check my messages to see if they offer chicks.
Another thing that drew me away from the orpingtons is that like i said they arent as new. I am aware that eventually all breeds get to where they arent as popular as they once were. I wanted to get one that would last the longest though.
One of the sellers on ebay of lemon cuckoo orps really confused me with some genetics she was telling me about. Supposedly she was selling split lemon cuckoo orpingtons.... I didnt really want split because that would mean that not all the chicks that hatched would be lemon cuckoo??? Am i wrong? She assured me that this was the way to go though.

 

[cmom]

Quote:
+1

I found picking out the perfect breeds rather fun! You get to learn so much about all the birds and you have to think about what is best for you setup and the relationship you would like to have with your birds. It makes deciding which to get so much easier afterwards.

+2

 

[galanie]

Quote:
There can be many reasons why breeders don't want people picking up chicks. Biohazard, and then there's the issue of people getting cute chicks who end up being abused or given away when they get to be real chickens. So far as making more for selling pullets, they have to feed them for 4-5 months so I'm not sure they really make "more" that way.

Also, there are heat packs that enable one to mail 3-5 chicks. But mailing is such a hassle, I understand why more don't do it.