Naive about chicken swaps

[debilorrah]

Honestly just about every chicken show I have gone to, I find chickens in that condition. Now, I have to tell you that I have several naked chickens in my flock. Plucked clean or molted.... I would never in a million years take them to a swap. Who wants a straggly, naked chicken??

Oh and yes, let me take the ones that have leg mites too. I mean really.

 

[teach1rusl]

Quote:
Yes! From a sales perspective, I would think people would want to display good looking birds (good looking meaning healthy looking, clean looking). That doesn't mean that they're disease/mite free, but at least the "product" is eye pleasing. Some of these may have been molting (because they did look like dogs with mange), others were definitely overbred, and some - it was apparently just badly feather pecked.

Jeffjustjeff - You don't know how badly I wanted to rescue some of those birds from those horrible conditions. But in the back of my mind, I kept thinking about how that just encourages those people to continue doing what they're doing - because it's obvously workiing if people are buying their birds.

I would just think conditions like that would give swaps a bad reputation (evidently auctions have that reputation already). It just seems to me that you'd attract a lot more people (buyers) if swaps had set standards/expectations of conditions. I'd think a LOT more people (I know I would) would be interested in swaps if, when they got there, all the birds looked well kept, had reasonably clean bedding and feathers, and didn't look like they'd just been mauled by the family dog.

Heck - I can't see someone bringing a bushel of moldy, worm infested apples to Farmer's market and dumping them out on a table - because they wouldn't sell. But shove 8 pitiful looking chickens in a cage typically used to house 2 - well that's a good sells strategy???

Okay - just ranting.

 

[Stevenson]

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I was there yesterday and witnessed the same thing. I also saw a group of kids (around 18 years old or so) who were dressed up to go to the Jason Aldean concert walking around with baby chicks in their hands. They must have bought them for $2 or $3 because they thought they'd be fun to hold that night. I can imagine that these poor chicks didn't make it through the night.

 

[mandelyn]

Yeah.. swaps and flea markets can be pretty scary. I've been to a lot, some booths, you don't even walk near for a closer look because you'll feel like you may catch something just by looking. Other times it's lack for forethought, like at noon on a 100 degree day on black top and they don't have shade or water. Some people sell out on their birds, other people take them back home again. Presentation is REALLY important in sales and some people don't seem to realize it.

I've seen half naked birds with mites and scaly leg, babies in feather so dirty and cruddy that the feathers are all split, not nice at all, because they had been over crowded in the brooder before ever arriving at the sale.

When you do come across nice birds in clean cages it's refreshing. But you still need to watch every bird there in that booth to see if anyone is sneezing or gasping for air or has watery eyes, or bugs. Clean feathered birds is a start, but you still need to be careful.

 

[speckledhen]

To me, seeing chickens housed at a chicken swap or flea market shows a huge deficit in our society...empathy. Humans are losing that. Amazing what they'll subject a chicken or other animal to and think they're just swell human beings. Empathy is disappearing from the human race. I'm not talking about chicken diapers, for goodness sake, I'm talking about making sure they have water on a hot day and aren't packed into a crate like sardines so they can't even breathe well.

 

[dainerra]

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I really don't think that this attitude is new or even becoming more prevalent. I'd say it's actually "NEW" to think of providing past the basic necessities. Dogs were dogs - they lived outside, crawled under the porch to shelter from the elements. Chickens were food. They slept in the barn, free-ranged all day. Predation was just a fact of life.

If you were taking a chicken to market, you just shoved them in a burlap sack. They might or might not be alive when you got there. If they weren't, you just bled it out when you got there and sold the carcass.

 

[speckledhen]

Quote:
I really don't think that this attitude is new or even becoming more prevalent. I'd say it's actually "NEW" to think of providing past the basic necessities. Dogs were dogs - they lived outside, crawled under the porch to shelter from the elements. Chickens were food. They slept in the barn, free-ranged all day. Predation was just a fact of life.

If you were taking a chicken to market, you just shoved them in a burlap sack. They might or might not be alive when you got there. If they weren't, you just bled it out when you got there and sold the carcass.

Maybe, but I never saw that world. Even my grandfather, who was born in the last 1800's and lived to be 100 years old, provided space and food and water before processing his birds for supper for us. If someone can look at some of those scenes we are describing and not feel a hitch in their stomach, I have to wonder. I always saw animals treated well, even "back then". So, maybe the human race has always had that element, but not in my world.

 

[sheila3935]

We bought 6 production reds from an auction ran by the Amish. I will say these birds were in good condition and went on to be excellent layers, and all the birds looked good but they didnt have water and were crammed in too small cages. The main reason DH and I wont go back is the way they handled the birds. Carrying them by their legs and generally rough. My DH was appaulled and said never again. As soon as we bought ours we put them in a large cage in the back of the truck and gave them water which they drank like no tommorrow. I have never been to a swap and dont know if I would go. I know alot on here go to the Kankakee swap but I have never been. As for the teens walking around with the chicks, I work at a feed store and last spring a teen came up picked up a chick and started to nwalk off. I stopped him and told him he couldnt buy just 1 he would have to take 10. He then asked me how much. So I told him and then asked do you have a place for them lamp feed waterers feeders etc. He said how much would that cost I shot him a too high price and he said never mind. He was going to prom and thought it would be a good idea to get his girl a chick for prom. I ended that idea real quick. I do the same for parents trying to buy a chick or duck for Easter.

 

[Hangin Wit My Peeps]

I've only been to one swap (didn't buy anything cuz I was new to chickens and didn't have anywhere to keep them seperate for a month) but no one had ill looking birds, so that was a good thing! This was near EauClaire WI I don't know if I would want to go to another one if I seen what you seen

It's disturbing to hear so many can be like this

 

[dainerra]

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At home, sure the birds have unlimited access to food or water. but going to auction/market? the birds were boxed/bagged up and tossed in the wagon - much like the commercial haulers do today. The commercial haulers are MUCH worse though. I never would have believed you could fit that many turkeys into such a small space *shudder*

On the other post, carrying chickens by the legs and upside down is actually one of the easiest and safest ways to carry them. They will kind of go limp and not keep struggling around like they often do if you are trying to carry them in your arms.