Minnesota!

[jbenson]

I am quite excited, DH convinced me we should try bantam meat birds this year so we have 15 bantie Cornish coming next month along with a few fun other additions to the main flock. I figure we will try these and if we like them and how they grow and dress out and taste then we will get more. I am on hatch #2 of my d'Uccles so far with more cooking.

 

[cmom]

Hi everyone! I can't believe I didn't find this thread earlier!
This is my first winter with chickens so any advice would be helpful! I have six chickens so far and I'm hoping to get 2 more asap!

Does anyone know when feed stores usually start selling chicks????
Thanks,
Lightchick

Tractor Supply usually get their chicks in about a month or so before Easter. If you have a Rural King around they usually sell chicks year around. If there is a certain breed you want you may be able to talk to a manager and have them order them for you. I know TSC and Rural King both sell a minimum of 6 chicks at a time. We have a farm swap in the parking lot at a mall where there is a Rural King and I have went in and had a manager order some certain breeds for our swap.

 

[cmom]

Quote:

 

[Minniechickmama]

lala - two of my kids are still in 4-H. To have birds at good maturity for showing, we try to get them hatched as soon after Jan 1 as we possibly can, since they can't be hatched before that. Last year was such a rotten year, we weren't really getting anything out of the shell before March - something that was happening across the upper midwest then. This year is better, though I would like to have more out already than I do.
I start as early as I can after the 1st though, and I go until June. By then I am pretty sick of cleaning the hatcher and brooders LOL, but for up here, hatching later than that doesn't give the birds a chance to really get to a good point of growth and development before the cold moves in. If they aren't done growing, then their energy gets put into surviving the cold instead. They may catch up eventually, but it is tough on them.

 

[Bogtown Chick]

I might also make a generalization or assumption that a natural POL (no light added) for pullets coming out of a late hatches may be delayed with that growth slowing until early spring.

 

[duluthralphie]

For showing at the fair birds have to show breed standards correct?


I am just curious why a guy would buy eggs from me to hatch, in early January when my birds are just "street" birds and have probably not had a pure bred in their lineage in 20 generations..

On that note I have a question. or two..

Do any of you breed Crested creams?


Are they a full size bird?

How do they do in the cold?

Is there anyplace to get them without paying an arm and a leg?

I just want some for the egg color and cause I think the crest is cool, I do not want show quality birds and refuse to pay 30 bucks a bird just to have an eagle munch on it.

 

[duluthralphie]

I might also make a generalization or assumption that a natural POL (no light added) for pullets coming out of a late hatches may be delayed with that growth slowing until early spring.

I am fairly sure this is why my CX's have not laid yet. They were hatched on July 31 and appear to have no hurry to start laying. I actually read somewhere, a late hatched CX may never lay eggs. I am hoping that is wrong.

 

[Minniechickmama]

I m not sure why anyone would want mutts to show unless they are for the laying class. However, they still need to be the same hybrid variety and look alike, so that is a good question.

 

[Bogtown Chick]

Maybe Ralphie you've got some good lookin' Barnyard stock!
People are interesting though.... I live in a small lower populated county with agriculture not being a main feature here...but I met our County 4-H Poultry spokes person just randomly and she really really wanted my kids to enter the birds. Well I told her my kids know nothing about 4-H and the birds are Hatchery stock and wouldn't be feathered out fully until two months after the fair was over. She still wanted us to enter under Open Class or something like that. So Maybe he's going for an Open Class submission.

 

[duluthralphie]

I have no idea why he wanted them either.. Made no sense to me hatching my mutts in January.

He wants more but he wants 3 dozen blue eggs now. I am not sure if I can sell him 3 dozen blue eggs, I have egg customers that comment on the blue eggs and want them too, and they buy a lot more eggs than he does.


But you have to admit he is a cute little mutt!