wow!!!!!!!!!!! Look at all of us underground chicken people in NY! My DH and I went to the Bath poultry auction (about an hour for us) this past fall and had sooooo much fun and we got some great deal! Maybe it's different at the spring show bc everyone wants chicks? I'm not sure, all I know is I will be there for sure again this year, I think its on Sat May 8th this year but you can do a search on this page to find links to it closer to the date, thats how I found out about it. We went in our car (1st mistake) and only expected the auction to last a few hours (2nd mistake). We wound up staying over 8 hours and bringing home in my 2 door car a : Bourbon Red Tom approx 6 months old for about 10$, 4 peafowl approx 1-2 months old for about 8$ each, like 8 cuckoo maran chicks approx 4 weeks old 2$ a piece and other odd assortments of chickens and roosters. I was looking for a cuckoo maran roo and I bought one there for 2$ he's gorgeous, then I wound up with 1 roo in the set of chicks I bought (if anyone wants a cuckoo maran roo I have an extra, he's very nice but I only need one to breed).
Some stuff went way high (other Bourbon Reds went for crazy high prices 40-65$ a piece) but as a whole I thought prices were great this fall, plus I was able to buy one or two of something I wanted but didn't want to buy 25 of through a catalog and raise from babies. You do have to be careful tho because some obviuosly looked sick, so you do take your chances there.
I also have heard of livestock auctions up bath way, buy have only happened upon one on a saturday drive in that area and it was almost done by the time we got there. I'll have to ask DH where it was, it was north of Penn Yann on that main road there (great with directions huh?)
I have pairs of Blue Cochins, Silver Laced Wyandottes and Cuckoo Marans that I plan on seperating this spring to gather eggs from, is anyone is interested come spring, PM me. I work in Hornell and Rochester and my DH works outside Bath, we got to auctions in Penn Yann on Saturdays alot and I'm sure we could always arrange to drop off either fertile eggs or chicks when I have them. I have high hopes this spring of having a few of my Hens brood eggs for me, I have a partidge cochin that wanted to set really bad this fall but I was done with chicks by that point!
I have 3 heatlamps in my coop right now bc it's sooooo cold here. I lost 3 peafowl over a one week period before xmas with the extreme weather and am very sad about that, the remaining one is doing great though, he's pure white. My neighbors gave me about 20 lbs of pork fat I'm going to mix with some hot oatmeal as a treat and have been taking out warm water a few times a day to help them out. I also bought some kitty food to give them as a treat during the cold blast. STAY WARM EVERYONE and KEEP IN TOUCH COME SPRING! What fun!!!!
