NEVER buying full grown hens again!

[HiDelight]

I could not and did not want to raise chicks this year and figured the $20/piece (around here they are between $20&$25 so $5/each is just unheard of! $3-$5 is what folks pay for chicks!) I paid for these beautiful hens was well worth it and so far it is ..I met a guy on craigslist went to his farm it was immaculate had my pic of the hens and then went back and purchased more ..with the cost of setting up for the chicks, the feed the time ..the worry and the atrition rate ..it was more practical for me to do this and I would do it again in a minute

I think one of my hens is older than last years batch but she is a very good layer so I am not complaining

anyway I have to chime in and tell you that not all sellers are bad and I would not judge by one bad experience

like on of the posters above this man wants me to come back and when I asked about the age of the hen in question he jumped to offer my money back or to come and exchange ..no way I love this hen old lady or not!


like anything else I guess buyer be ware and really look at your hens and where they live ..part of what sold me was driving into this guys farm ..it was spotless! just beautiful! no bad smells and all his animals looked happy and healthy! I watched the chickens for a while too just to see how they interacted and what they looked like

it kind of makes me sad to hear these things being generalized about the Amish

I hope not everyone feels this way

take care and good luck to you

 

[greenfamilyfarms]

Since it was recent, I would think that they hens are not "teaching" your other hens bad habits, but just trying to get familiar with their new digs. They could have gotten mites from several places.

 

[kschix]

About using Sevin on the birds....

I would completely rather not use any chemical like Sevin (we dusted them with the 5% Sevin) however my poultry books and everything I've read seems to have no other option then a poultry dust that has the same active ingredient. We use DE too, but the chickens that were dusted with the DE are scratching worse then the ones that were dusted with Sevin. So I'm guess that DE doesn't take care of the problem.

Now a new problem with our hens we bought... one of them has bloody droppings. Does anyone know what this means? I did feed them some tomato scraps yesterday? Could that be the culprit? I'm thinking of just giving the new hens to my brother- deep cleaning the coop, treating our existing chickens, and buying chicks!

 

[sugarbush]

I would gues sit is the tomatos first, worms second....treating for worms you need to discard the eggs for a month after.

 

[ArizonaDesertChicks]

Quote:
I've bought from this grower before. She has some good birds, even though they are a tad expensive in my opinion. She gets her chicks from Cackle and sells them at the Feed Lot.
Glendale Pullet Grower

Hi Mahroni,
I haven't purchased any chickens from her ("Glendale Pullet Grower"), but have seen her ad several times. She does seem to have a good selection, but we chose to start with baby chicks from The Stock Shop.

 

[Dar]

Quote:
when you are treating for worms you have to toss the eggs.... can you scramble them and feed them back to the chicken?.. or really toss them down the garbage disposal?

 

[sugarbush]

toss them...if you feed them back you are recycling the chemical wormer over and over again.

 

[tazcat70]

I bought full grown hens from Katy, and I have also gotten some roos from her. It has always been a fantastic transaction. I would do it again, any time! Good luck with your hens, hopefully it is just the mites that make them seem old.

 

[Katy]

Quote:
You won't if your hubby finds out our plans!!!

 

[tazcat70]

Too true....so let's not tell him.