Faraday don't go to the dark side!I offer to take them back (not for refund - just as a favor if they can't have roosters) I also do my best to help them pick out females. If they bring males back and later buy more chicks - then I may take a few $ off. Most of my customers come back wanting more after owning a pair of my orps. They also spread the word to their friends.
I simply give away any chicks I beleive are male (to people willing to take them) or I process them myself if they're 10wks or more. Yes, I should grow them out for 5-6 mo, but when they're that young, it's like eating a very big quail or cornish hen.
The harder part is if the buyers bring back a rooster & also own hens from other sources. Due to biosecurity, I do not allow that rooster in my yard. So it's either process him ASAP or keep him in the house until he finds a nice forever home. If the rooster came from a place that only bought chicks from me, I'll let him stay in the garage until a home is found. I've had a few very worthy, wonderful roosters that I was happy to place in new homes.
Selling chicks is rewarding = You'll meet a lot of great people & stay in touch with some of them. I really enjoy seeing how my chicks turned out & hearing how well they're doing in their new homes.
Selling chicks is time-consuming = You'll spend hours answering email ?s & hosting visitors. Some people only want to take up your time, use you as a chicken prep class, & petting zoo.
Selling chicks requires patience = You'll get a lot of silly people that must be screened out. "What's a coop? Can't I just let the chicks "free range" in the backyard?" or "I already have a few hens, I was thinking of adding a few chicks. The adults will keep them warm and care for them right?" or "I need a 2nd chick because my other feed store chick died..... We ran out of the free sample of chick feed, so we just gave them bread...." (Sad to say, but I get about 1 call a year from someone who killed a chick & is looking for a replacement buddy bird or wants to dump the remaining chick here.)
Selling chicks only sometimes makes $ = After all your work hatching, caring for chicks, posting ads, and answering all the email ?s, you may end up selling only 2 $5 chicks. I have a small list of people who I can donate extra chicks to if I end up with more than I can handle. Last year I actually lost $ on my choc cuckoo orps. I thought people would like a rare purebred that was sexable at hatch, but they're just not as cute as my lav chicks. I ended up selling off all my chocolate orps. The few people who bought them send me pics & wanted more this year. I think they were just too rare for most people. I'm seeing the same with my laced orps. People love the way the SLOs look but they are a very, very pricey breed, difficult to obtain, and "fussy" to breed. Other times, someone from out of state will seek me out and want to buy up the entire brooder.
Selling chicks works in cycles = In March I just didn't have enough chicks. As soon as they hatched, they were gone before I even posted an ad. Right now, there are a lot of people giving away free chicks. There's also a lot of people who ordered hatchery chicks and are selling off the extras. I still have a lot I wish to sell. Perhaps I need to learn how to use Facebook......
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