Please help me understand.

[Cammo77]

There was a surge in chicken interest when the price of eggs went through the roof. TSs are all over the place and offered convenience to old and new chicken folk, understandable. With me local hatcheries were more or less a given as that was all I knew as a kid back in the late 50s and early 60s and in the 80s we were able to get our chicks from the same hatchery. Last January 2023 when we decided to get back into chickens again we had to do a search for another local hatchery. We found a hatchery/breeder an hour and half away, TS and local feed stores were never given a thought as it always seemed to be a grab bag. Just to put into perspective a feed store is 15 minutes away and TS 30 minutes away. The breeder/hatchery 1 1/2 hrs away, had what we were looking for and sexing was 100%. As a bonus, we were supporting an independent who had the "states official seal".

Thank you that's a great insight into how it works over there. I'm guessing the breeds available would be ten fold to what it was when you were a kid?

 

[Cammo77]

Where we are, an hour from any major city in any direction, we have TSC, Rural King and a couple family owned farm stores in a 50miles radius. Trying to find chicks, in good quality can be somewhat unpredictable in our area, even though we are farm area. We wanted a variety of color and only certain breeds, so we scoped out our local TSC (10 minute drive into town with all our groceries) our tsc allows minimum of 4 per order and they generally have a variety of breeds. This particular year they had more pullets than straight run, which is odd for the beginning of "chick days" (which is commercially advertised).

We have been reaching out more for hatching eggs locally, but I've only found two within a reasonable distance from us

So TS would have contracts with hatcheries all over the country and just ship these chicks to whatever store orders them? The two hatcheries you've found local do they breed a few different breeds or just one or two?

 

[Cammo77]

I'm not sure what you mean by social media trend? The system has sort of been there from the 1950's. I think it is more that back then the majority of people in the US (not sure about Australia) lived on the land on farms or in some other ways while now 90% or more are urban or suburban and don't have much actual knowledge of what's going on with where our food actually comes from. Since the advent of social media there are a lot of people posting and, for many, chickens have become pets instead of livestock. But the basic system of supplying chicks was set up a long time ago.

What I mean by social media trend is seeing a tonne of carbon copy posts of people holding there red and white TSC boxes and then also memes being made about going there to get chicks. It pretty much flooded my feed so that's why I was confused thinking TSC had a monopoly on chicks. I hate big corporations creating monopolies. It happened here with a hardware chain. Australia is pretty much the same when it comes to rural vs country/farm living. The smaller farms are being bought out by bigger families (ours was one of them). I'm still fairly new to chickens but from what I've seen here people buy every stage of chicken, from fertilised eggs right through to POL hens and also adult chickens. We have breeders we buy direct from but I don't think there's many stores that sell chicks. Our local produce can order in commercial laying pullets and that's it. I'm definitely getting my head around how things work over there now.

 

[Molpet]

After WW II my dad was a garbage truck person and there was a local hatchery on his route. It supplied the local farmers. It's been out of business for probably 50yrs. When the hybrid layers and broilers took over the farming poultry.
Most small farms had poultry, but when the store started selling cheap eggs and meat people quit. My great uncle pulled his hen house up and attached to the house as an extra bedroom.

 

[Australorpfamily]

So TS would have contracts with hatcheries all over the country and just ship these chicks to whatever store orders them? The two hatcheries you've found local do they breed a few different breeds or just one or two?

Local "hatcheries" are just local people who have hatching eggs, and the only have one or two different breeds. One does have the Amerucana (blue wheaten Ameraucana roo and hen) and others to make easter eggers, which is nice.

Eta: there are some other hatchery companies/small businesses but not within driving distance

I believe our area's TSC uses Hoover's and Rural Kings use Murray? Not certain, every time we go to RK the bins are empty and dirty, our local tsc keeps the chicks clean and sorted and are chicken keepers themselves and are pretty knowledgeable on breeds and care.

Our local 4H is big in livestock, and while there is a show chicken presence south of us, most chickens I've seen are on farms in our area. And while I'm in several Facebook chicken pages for my area, we still have yet to find the breeds we had wanted within a reasonable traveling distance and have found them at our tsc.

 

[Ridgerunner]

There are over 2,200 Tractor Supply stores scattered around the United States. I don't know how many sell chicks, probably most. Some sell for a few weeks in the spring, some sell chicks for most of the spring and summer. Their are other national chains like Orscheln and Rural King. There are some regional chains. No one has a monopoly.

Last I checked Tractor supply got their chicks from three different hatcheries but that was a few years ago. I don't know which hatcheries they are using this year.

Cammo77 I have included links to some of the hatcheries we use. There are a lot more than this. We can order directly from them or drop buy and pick up chicks if we live close enough. It might help you understand the system.

https://www.cacklehatchery.com/

https://www.hoovershatchery.com/

https://meyerhatchery.com/

https://www.idealpoultry.com/

 

[Molpet]

a bunch of hatcheries, some in the land of OZ
https://www.feathersite.com/Poultry/BRKHatcheries.html

although this may not be up to date, I clicked on a couple which either didn't have any available or wasn't a active website

 

[5Australorpasaures]

Thank you that's a great insight into how it works over there. I'm guessing the breeds available would be ten fold to what it was when you were a kid?

As a kid grandmom only wanted Rhode Island Reds, some folks had the Barred Rocks and some Leg Horns, pretty much it, I still lean hard to the Rock type single comb Bird. I guess you are what you know. Our new supplier does have a wide array of breeds. Now have the Black Aus,

 

[NatJ]

What I mean by social media trend is seeing a tonne of carbon copy posts of people holding there red and white TSC boxes and then also memes being made about going there to get chicks. It pretty much flooded my feed so that's why I was confused thinking TSC had a monopoly on chicks.

Some of those may be impulse purchases (go in to buy dog food, see chicks, buy chicks.)

Others are probably people who did their research, built a coop, and are now buying the chicks. There can be various reasons for buying at the store instead of directly from a hatchery. The person may want to see the chicks in person before getting them, rather than ordering from a hatchery. The person may be worried about the chicks dying in the mail, and prefer to buy the ones at TSC (that were sent through the mail, but the customer only sees the one that arrived alive, not any that died on the way.) The person might want just a few chicks, which is not possible with some hatcheries and even the hatcheries that will sell small numbers will add a big surcharge because they have to pack the chicks differently to mail a small number.

The big hatcheries have been around long enough, and buying chicks from them is so easy, that there is not as much market for chicks from local breeders or smaller hatcheries (as compared with how much demand there would be if those big hatcheries did not exist.)

For shipping chicks through the mail, they do best with a certain number of chicks in the box. For many years the standard was 25 per box, although now I'm seeing quite a few hatcheries that will ship a box with 15 chicks. Either way, that many chicks produce enough body heat to keep them all alive and healthy during shipping, at least most of the time. (Bad weather, shipping delays, or poor handling by the Post Office can change that, but chicks arriving alive is much more common than chicks arriving dead.)

To ship smaller numbers of chicks through the mail, the hatcheries need to pack them differently: smaller boxes, insulation, sometimes a heat pack: all of this takes more supplies and a lot more time, so the hatchery usually adds quite a surcharge. It often costs the same amount of money to order 15 chicks or 3 chicks! Buying 3-6 chicks at the local TSC is quite a bit cheaper, because TSC was able to get them shipped in large numbers (much smaller per-chick shipping cost.)

 

[Australorpfamily]

who did their research, built a coop, and are now buying the chicks

That's what we did. Before we even bought our chicks we researched which ones we wanted, but we had also had an indoor bantam rooster for four years (4H project turned house chicken lol)

After chicken math happened and we found some olive eggers, we upgraded the coop before they were outside.

But, not all TSC chicks have happy endings