Oregon

[Xtina]

Try Pistil's nursery in NE. They have chicks in the summertime. I bought my chicks from a poultry farmer in Hubbard who had posted an ad on craigslist. I just looked in my cell phone, the name of the farm is Lazy 54 Farms. Send me a PM if you want the phone number, but you'd have to drive to Hubbard to get your chicks. Still, he had the breeds I wanted within just a couple of days and the girls are lovely, so I trust that farm based on my limited experience.

 

[ZooMummzy]

Thanks for this info! I just wrote them an email and am hoping I can get chicks from them. The feed store in Corvallis actually recommended them to me yesterday too since he knew I was looking for small quantities of certain breeds. I was preparing an order for MPC but maybe I will wait now. Other heavy laying breeds, I am looking for Silkies, Polish and Frizzles. I can't find anyone local with Frizzles

 

[GopherBoyFarms]

there will be a chick auction at the stevenson show. April 18 19
We got 4 frizzles, and 4 polish at the chick auction after show at clark co faitgrounds Feb 21st.


~Tiff~

 

[ZooMummzy]

Quote:
Thank you for the information! I will check out and maybe make the drive up there if I can't find anything local. Thanks!

 

[thekla]

Lazy 54 has a website too : http://lazy54farm.com/ give you an idea what they have and a mapto their location ...

 

[exsia]

i'm in outer se pdx, and have just started building my coop. ok, my gf is just starting to build. i will be getting chickens next month, and am very excited. 13 years ago, when i still lived in nyc, i bought "chickens in your backyard" and have wanted them ever since.

if any locals have resources (or would like to sell me a few hens next month), just say hi.

Hi Tori! I live in SE PDX also

I usually shop/browse Foster Feed (off Foster Road and 205), Burns Feed Store (out in Gresham) and Gerens Farm Supply in Sandy. I've been going for years and the staff at all these places are always so nice and helpful. If you get the chance, I would defiantly recommend going out to Burns Feed on a weekend. Fran handles the baby chicks and has always been a fountain of information to me​

 

[skeeter]

HEY,all you Woodburn chicken folks,does anyone know what point of lay pullets are selling for at the auction there,I have six that I want to sell,

thanks

 

[sunshynnn]

Quote:
First, welcome to the group!

Sounds like you will soon have your hands very full of little fuzzy cuties

You mentioned in the post above that you were going to divide your space for roos/pullets. You don't really need to separate the boys from the girls (rooster & cockerel are terms for males; pullet & hen refer to females of different ages), but maybe you meant you would separate the meat birds from the laying breeds. That is what we have done, and it has worked really well and allows us to feed different protein % feed to them. We also ordered from Murray McMurray Hatchery and were very happy with our healthy little babies. Our first order was 12 RIR females, + 3 RIR males (knowing we would only keep 1 roo) and 15 Jumbo Cornish X Rock males.

We decided to go with a pure RIR laying flock. I have been thrilled with my ladies! I have 12 layers (8 mo old now) and I typically get 10-12 eggs per day; we sell the extra at our workplaces, and give some to friends/family. They have been laying very consistently since 19 weeks.

The Jumbo Cornish X Rock meat birds are freakishly focused on FOOD, and will run over anything and each other to get to it. If you had smaller breed chicks in with this variety, they'd likely be trampled or starve nearly to death. (My second order of 30 Jumbo Cornish X Rock chicks included the 'rare' chick, which could barely get a nibble!) However, if you have room to separate them from the others so you can control their protein % and quantity of food, they are *excellent* for meat purposes! We have been very happy with the final product; though a bit repulsed by raising them, too. They are focused on EATING and not much else; they do not waste any time scratching or turning over their bedding or doing anything that a nice, normal flock would do. They get so large so fast that they can hardly walk (they definitely waddle).

I don't have any problems with processing the meat birds or extra roos, as I was raised on a farm (though it took me over 20 years to get back to one!). Some people just can't do it, and that's OK, too. If you end up with some roos that you can't bear to process and need to instead give away, you can post here, put an ad at your local feed store, Craigslist, etc. My dear sweet husband built a motorized chicken plucker for me for my Christmas present (no joke -- I am positive that I married the most wonderful man in the world!!!). As we processed over 20 birds on our last processing day (and I'm the plucker), our motorized plucker was awesome! Now that my plucking effort is decreased, I'm sure I'll learn the actual dressing out in order to speed up our processing time.

Sorry for the lengthy reply to your post, and welcome aboard! There is a lot of valuable information here; don't be afraid to ask questions and use the 'search' tool, too. Good luck to you and have lots of fun with your babies!

Hi to all the Oregon peeps!

 

[tori]

exsia - thank you!

i've been pretty sick, so we're delayed again, but we're going out this weekend for lumber.

i decided to start with chicks, after all. hopefully, it won't drive the cats too crazy.

i'll check out all those places - thanks.

 

[thekla]

Thanks - I did mean seperating the layers and the meat birds - a lot of the info I read (including "The Joy of Keeping Chickens") spoke of different nutrition needs and the greedy meaters... I also was reading about those free rangers for meat birds (the reds etc from french stock) and they sound really cool - I want to try some of them next - I think I can handle the processing - even though I never had chickens I grew up out of town and cleaned fish etc as a kid - I think it will be ok once I get ove the initial weirdness... I will probably only have about 15 meat birds from the straight run this time so they will be my learning curve. Hopefully I won't make too big a mess - I have read several how-tos with photos etc, Aslo read a ton of stuff here about coops, predators and everything else...and plan to read more. Leslie