Mislabeled Tractor Supply/Feed Store Chicks

[casportpony]

Hatched them! I'm in the US.

Haha, don't give me an excuse to show you emu pictures

 

[Conan]

Hatched them! I'm in the US.

Haha, don't give me an excuse to show you emu pictures

Oh, boy... GREAT pics. Is that the goose with them in the pool???? He still hang out with them? So neat. Loved that hatch thread.

 

[PouleChick]

Look at them they are so confused - what is that green stuff - they don't see that in Oz

 

[Pyxis]

Precious little turkey poults! That's a good one. But you know what? It might not always be a case of them mislabeling their birds; you guys shouldn't be so judgmental...Because most times it's probably a case of customers picked up the chicks to hold them, and when they put them back, didn't realize they go in their own bin, or just didn't care, so they just put them wherever.

They have them fenced off and only employees are allowed to handle them, so in the case of TSC, that's not what's happening, sadly. I've never been to a TSC that allows the customers to handle the birds. When I bought these, they only had two tubs, one labeled 'leghorns' with all the turkeys in it, and one labeled 'dominiques' that had barred rocks and not dominiques.

More likely the hatchery had the box labeled wrong, or the employees were trying to guess what they are by matching them up to pictures like someone earlier in the thread said they do, and they got it wrong. Not the employees' faults at all since they don't get training.

So since you hatched them are they easier to deal with?Are they tame? I learned the hard way not to try and hand feed one of those birds lol, had a bruise in the middle of my hand that hurt for a week

Very tame I had to sleep with the male his first night because he wouldn't stop crying, and the female multiple nights.

Oh, boy... GREAT pics. Is that the goose with them in the pool???? He still hang out with them? So neat. Loved that hatch thread.

Yes, that's Desi's goose Caesar (the goose) still lives with them. I still post updates on the thread.

 

[dotporter]

Precious little turkey poults! That's a good one. But you know what? It might not always be a case of them mislabeling their birds; you guys shouldn't be so judgmental...Because most times it's probably a case of customers picked up the chicks to hold them, and when they put them back, didn't realize they go in their own bin, or just didn't care, so they just put them wherever.

I'm not judgemental of TSC. They rely on the supplier. Our TSC gets all of their chicks locally.

They even once asked if I'd be willing to supply Muscovy for the spring chick sales. But, I don't incubate the eggs and my ducks don't all hatch eggs all at one time in April, so that was a no.

Point being that some local yokel lied about the nature of the babies they were selling. In my area, barred rock aren't popular and are a dime a dozen. So, someone decided to sell barred rock as something better.

That isn't on TSC.

 

[llombardo]

Mine were labeled as 4 girls and 2 turned out to be boys. For two months they denied that was possible because they were sexed females. I asked them if they would like me to bring them over at 4:30 am.....

 

[Birdsong 82]

I would say I think a lot of the problem is TSC. I’m aware when I buy chickens there not to get my heart set on the breed. I was asking about a chicken called the Spanish when I was in there and the lady said 00 my gosh half of those are black Marans. They didn’t even have a been labeled for black Marans. Then two of the other Bins had to signs of two different breeds for the same chicken. It could be a combination of hatchery and TSC. Luckily the manager at the one I go to knows her stuff because the employees there don’t get as thoroughly trained as they should. But this lady has been raising chickens for about 15 years and has anywhere from 30 to 50 at all times. She’s giving me advice on several different things and always been dead on

 

[Chica'sChickens]

We all know Tractor Supply is notorious for mislabeling their chicks. However, I got the idea for this thread today when I encountered perhaps the worst case of mislabeling I have ever seen.

I stopped in to grab some feed and peeked in the chick bins, and immediately some of the birds caught my eye. So I asked to buy a couple of the "leghorns" they had.

This is what I bought:

View attachment 1483891

Broad breasted white turkey poults. Not only was the breed wrong, but the species too! In the past I've bought some chicks from them that were labeled pretty wrong, such as red sex links labeled as silver laced wyandottes, but this takes the cake.

Oh, and as a bonus, since they require you to buy at least six birds, I picked out four dominiques to fill out the purchase. Except when I got home and looked at them closely, I realized they had single combs. So they're not dominiques. 0 for 2, Tractor Supply. The moral of this story is, when you're buying chicks from Tractor Supply, be careful that you're getting what they say you're getting.

Who else has bought chicks that were mislabeled? What were they labeled as, and what did they end up being?

Happened to me and my son. Out of 8 chicks, 3 were starting to try to crow 6 weeks later!

 

[lazy gardener]

I never buy ducks so I a only talking about chickens. They go off color and feathering. They have always been right so far!

I'm guessing they were right b/c: You wanted pullets, right? They "hand picked" pullets out of a pullet bin, not out of a SR bin. Yeah, if I'm hand picking from a pullet bin, I'm most likely gonna be right if I'm trying to pick out pullets. Otherwise, some breeds are auto sexing. (barred, cuckoo, and a few other patterns can be discerned at hatch).

As for blaming the breed errors on "customers handling the chicks", many stores have their chicks behind a fence, so customers can't touch. Then it gets a bit dicey (in my location): All the red ones in one bin, all the white or black ones in an other bin, with a sign above each bin: Reds: May include Red Star, RIR, NHR... Blacks: May include PBR, Black Star, BA... If you don't care what you get, buy from TSC. If you do care what you get, buy from the hatchery. You will be guaranteed that you get the breed you ordered, and you will at least get a 48 hour survival guarantee. Much better odds IMO than TSC mystery bins.

 

[Leaguinea]

We all know Tractor Supply is notorious for mislabeling their chicks. However, I got the idea for this thread today when I encountered perhaps the worst case of mislabeling I have ever seen.

I stopped in to grab some feed and peeked in the chick bins, and immediately some of the birds caught my eye. So I asked to buy a couple of the "leghorns" they had.

This is what I bought:

View attachment 1483891

Broad breasted white turkey poults. Not only was the breed wrong, but the species too! In the past I've bought some chicks from them that were labeled pretty wrong, such as red sex links labeled as silver laced wyandottes, but this takes the cake.

Oh, and as a bonus, since they require you to buy at least six birds, I picked out four dominiques to fill out the purchase. Except when I got home and looked at them closely, I realized they had single combs. So they're not dominiques. 0 for 2, Tractor Supply. The moral of this story is, when you're buying chicks from Tractor Supply, be careful that you're getting what they say you're getting.

Who else has bought chicks that were mislabeled? What were they labeled as, and what did they end up being?

I am totally not a professional but I looked at the picture prior to reading your post and said to myself "those are turkey hatchlings."