MTchicknman
Chirping
So I have a question ..... I've looked into buying eggs from a private party rather than buying chicks from a hatchery, (I thought the resulting hatch might be a better chicken from a private individual) ..... but when I found the eggs I was interested in, the individual wanted $120 for a dozen eggs + S&H. Is this normal?
To me, that seems awful expensive for a few fertilized eggs - plus S&H can be anything nowadays (just look at some of the 'bargains' on eBay and then look at the 'shipping' costs for something that weighs 6 or 8 ounces - like a CD or DVD!). I ended up buying from a hatchery this year, hoping that I will get some answers to my question before next year's flock additions ;>).
We had chickens when I was a kid, and we almost always put extra eggs under a banty - they went broody instantaneously, it seemed. Right now, we have a small flock plus the new hatchery chicks, (not counting some CornishX meat birds that will be in the freezer in a month or so), but some of the others are destined for the stew-pot as they are sub-standard - i.e.; we bought some RIR's and fully half of them turned out to be Bantams of some sort, - they're half the size of their counterparts - worthless as layers to us - and a couple of the others are some sort of Buff/Rock/Hybrid mixture, useless for breeding, but we'll probably keep them for layers!
One thing for sure, we'll never buy chicks from Tractor Supply again! I saw a pic/cartoon of Tom Hanks, and the caption was ... "Life is like buying your chicks from Tractor Supply, you never know what you'll get!" and that is so true as far as I'm concerned.
To me, that seems awful expensive for a few fertilized eggs - plus S&H can be anything nowadays (just look at some of the 'bargains' on eBay and then look at the 'shipping' costs for something that weighs 6 or 8 ounces - like a CD or DVD!). I ended up buying from a hatchery this year, hoping that I will get some answers to my question before next year's flock additions ;>).
We had chickens when I was a kid, and we almost always put extra eggs under a banty - they went broody instantaneously, it seemed. Right now, we have a small flock plus the new hatchery chicks, (not counting some CornishX meat birds that will be in the freezer in a month or so), but some of the others are destined for the stew-pot as they are sub-standard - i.e.; we bought some RIR's and fully half of them turned out to be Bantams of some sort, - they're half the size of their counterparts - worthless as layers to us - and a couple of the others are some sort of Buff/Rock/Hybrid mixture, useless for breeding, but we'll probably keep them for layers!
One thing for sure, we'll never buy chicks from Tractor Supply again! I saw a pic/cartoon of Tom Hanks, and the caption was ... "Life is like buying your chicks from Tractor Supply, you never know what you'll get!" and that is so true as far as I'm concerned.
