starting a chicken businesss

[mulelover1999]

I want to start a chicken business. I want to sell amauracauna and Silkies hatching eggs and chicks and possibly pullets and cockerels. What do I need to start my business? How many hens and how many rooster? What do I need to know? Any info would be helpful or even any stories or experiences you may have.

 

[greenmimama]

I would suggest reading Storey's guide to raising Chickens.

It is full of information and goes into a lot of detail. Your local library might have a copy.

Good for you for having some ambition!

 

[mulelover1999]

Thanks

 

[mulelover1999]

Anyone else have any tips or info

 

[Frost Homestead]

I think it's awesome that you wanna start a business. My best advice would be to keep accurate breeding records and records of all of the expenses you incur while caring for your chickens. Do the math to make sure what you're going to do is profitable. Consider where you're going to get the birds from in the first place, are you going to order hatching eggs online to start your flock? If so make sure you have an incubator, etc and know how to care for the chicks.

Make sure you know the difference between easter eggers and ameraucanas!

Also, make sure you have adequate space and breeding pens and have a basic understanding of chicken genetics and the standards of perfection for the breeds you're going to be raising. How many hens and rooster you need depends on many factors: how much time you can dedicate to selling them, how many you can afford to care for, the amount of space you have, how many eggs you'd like to be selling, etc. If you're going to sell them through the mail make sure that set up a PayPal and have a bank account that you can transfer the money into. You can have smaller pens with one rooster and 4 or so hens, or you could have larger pens with 2 roosters and around 8 hens. Hope this helps and good luck!

 

[mulelover1999]

So what is the difference bettween amauracaunsa and EEs? I was told mine were amauracauna but just want to make sure as not to post the wrong kind. How much can you sell amauracauns or EEs for? And what is a good amount to start out with?

 

[Frost Homestead]

do you know what color they are? do they all look identical? if you post some pics I can tell you whether they're EE or ameraucanas. Here's some info on it from the Ameraucanas Breeders Club

http://www.ameraucana.org/faq.html

As for how much they would sell for it really depends on the quality of your birds and their egg color.

 

[Frost Homestead]

Here's another good link because the ABC one doesn't go into too much detail about the differences. There are also a lot of good threads about them here on BYC

http://apa-abayouthpoultryclub.org/Edu_Material/Easter Eggers vs.pdf

 

[mulelover1999]

I cant post pics as I am on my kindl but I can find ones that look like them. Would that work? If not it would be Wednesday until I can post pics

 

[mulelover1999]

This is what they look like