No More Chicks At Retail Outlets? What do you think?

[country lady]

Several of you were saying you were not allowed to touch stuff at the store. When my sister was little, she was a toucher at the dime store (remember those?!) Before we ever left home, my mother would get her aside and say, "if I catch you touching one thing, I will pull (tug) your hair." Sis got another reminder at the store. The threat must have been enough because I don't remember her ever getting her hair pulled. A little discipline goes a long way--remembering makes me smile.

 

[Aemelia]

It seems to me from what I read here and other places that chicks mail ordered die fairly often too without any kid loving them to death. I know I wouldn't mail order chicks after reading about how it works out for the chicks.

I live in Nebraska and I've taken my 3 kids to chicks days for 13 years now and didn't buy any until this year. I finally got my husband on board that we could have 2 hens that our city allows, ok I got 3 figuring for chicken math if I want 2 I should get 3 in case one dies on me after the 48 hour get a free replacement chick runs out. So of course I now have three 3 week old chicks. I'll see if I can fly under the city's radar otherwise one of our chicks will have to go to a friends who has lots of chickens and sells eggs, I do have a back up plan. Anyway, my kids have never climbed into the brooder's or been allowed to hold a chick at chick days much less squeeze one to death. A few years back I had two young boys to watch and they never hurt any chicks and my 4 year old didn't kill any at the store or at home and she is a crazy impulsive child who over loves all our animals and I still kept her from hurting any. It really isn't hard you just have to step up and actually watch over and discipline your kids.

I have never seen anyone mauling chicks or ducks in all the times we have been going there. Maybe because we live in a farm state (Nebraska) and more people know how to treat baby animals. But our store (Orschelns) allows you to buy as many or few chicks as you like (even though TSC here still sells them in groups of 6 clearly that is a store rule here). The store we got our chicks at had lots of different breeds, way more than our TSC has offered, they have them right up by the front by the check out area and someone is always right over there by them if people are looking at the chicks offering to help out with info (all good advice) all knowledgeable about the breeds in each brooder. If they got busy and needed to check people out they just called someone else to look over the chicks. No gates just informed caring workers.

I'm really glad I didn't have to buy more chickens than I wanted, more than I could legally have.

 

[ChooksChick]

It's not about kids, but that's an easy answer.

It's about someone getting burned on a heat lamp and suing.

 

[Aemelia]

My daughter did touch our lamp once...only once she hasn't done it since. Life is often a better teacher than I am.

 

[tarragon]

I guess it really depends on each situation, doesn't it? We have a family owned feed store near us that does chick days. They post what breeds they are getting on which days, they are fully stocked with supplies, they are knowledgeable and helpful. The chicks are in big metal troughs with heavy wooden lids that have a wire window on top, so I don't think kids could open them easily. This was our first time getting chicks and the lady spent about 1/2 hour helping me get supplies and answering questions for me, 2 weeks before they even got chicks in. When I went to get our babies there was another customer, obviously already a chicken owner, and they let her pick out her own chicks. Then the lady helping us offered to pick out our girls for us if we didn't know which ones we wanted. She sought out some really active ones, and made sure there was some way of telling them apart by their markings, so one of our Red Stars is more yellow than the other, and one Barred Rock had a distinct spot on her head. And they sent me home with a "chick care sheet".

Don't even get me started on the lack of discipline by today's parents. And yes, it is getting worse very quickly. My daughters are teenagers and there is a huge difference between how I raised them and how parents treat their little kids now.

I hope chick days doesn't go away, because I only wanted 4 chicks, not 25. Having to do mail order would not be fun.

 

[Doopy]

I just got home from a trip into town this morning and I saw the new "fencing" around the chickens, ducks, and rabbits at the Tractor Supply store. Actually the fence is made of large tube steel gates and they are held together at the corners with hose clamps. Pretty cool. These gates were not there last week. Our neighbor works at the store and I mentioned to him that I saw that the baby animals are in Fort Knox - he just rolled her eyes and whispered that he hopes they do not have the animals next year. AND he will probably be the store manager by next year.

Our Tractor Supply and Rural King stores are almost next door to one another. I must say that both stores are great about customer service and knowledge during Chick Days. Maybe it's because we are out in the boonies and most of the employees and the customers are rural folks.

 

[Fred's Hens]

Quote:
I'm guessing they won't do away with chicks, or selling just 6 chicks, but the way they sell them will change dramatically. Instead of the tubs being out on the show floor, (gates or no gates) the chicks will be held in back. Our of sight and out of touch. All it will take is a counter put into place for the customer to step up to and place a chick order, for whatever the store has in stock that day. An attendant would soon appear from the back room with the chicks in a box and the customer can head to the cashier. Done.

Speculating, mind you, but it seems quite straightforward.

 

[Duker17]

I know it is really easy to complain about TSC and chick days, employees and everything else, but I would just like to mention a few things. The "chicken fad" that has swept the nation has completely changed the way TSC has had to deal with chicks. In 2008, the store I managed had chicks for 3 weeks only, and received 75 chicks and 25 ducks each Friday. Rarely would you have chicks left after the weekend. In 2009 and 2010, chick days were expanded to I believe 6 welds, but stores still only received roughly 150 chicks a week, a small enough number to sell through quickly. This year, chick days lasts for over 2 months, with stores receiving well over 2000 chicks. However, in that same amount if time, full-time employee turnover has likely been low. It's hard to train people on things that they have no real life experience with (trust me, I learned about welders numerous times and while I can tell you the different types, I have no idea what it actually means.) So, even though employees may try to learn about chickens, if they don't have experience in anything but caring for them the first few day of their life, expecting them to be able to distinguish between anything but red and black chicks is next to impossible.

I would also like to mention that many times employees really do try to care for sick chicks, but its hard to not become jaded when every chick you get attached to dies.

Sorry about the lecture, but it's hard to watch people complain without hearing the other side of the story! I also haven't worked at TSC for almost 2 years but am still very close to people at 5 different stores across Kansas and Missouri so I know it wasn't just my store!

 

[Fred's Hens]

Quote:
Thanks for posting some great insight into Chick Days. Just hashing and re-hashing how bad some TSC (or other company) employees are or how badly behaved some TSC (or other store) customers are has gotten old, frankly. This thread is actually a conversation (hopefully) about how chicks might be sold in the future, not an anti-TSC rant thread at all. There's plenty of those going if you wish to also post your thoughts on one of those. Might be worthwhile, but then again, maybe not.

 

[Duker17]

Oh maybe you're right...I've read several of the anti-feed store chick days threads in a row and already had this reply forming in my mind, this just happened to be the thread I was on when I hit the reply button lol. Please excuse my misplaced response