FYI: I have a "Project Helper" out here, named Derek. He isn't on BYC yet. (I keep trying to get him to check it out, LOL.) He has a big incubator, the 300-egg kind, and says he'd be happy to help me hatch out chicks this spring. (Last year, they were selling great on Craigslist, but my two little foam incubators couldn't keep up with demand for live chicks.) Anyway, it should be a lot easier for me to provide newborn chicks for shipping lives this spring, with his help. Probably will be a lot of half-Alohas in there, because Derek has bought 12 Buff Orps and is setting up a breeding pen with those and Aloha roosters. Plus I have two pure Sussex hens my pen. Chicks would be a mix of small Aloha stock and bigger outcrosses. The bigger outcrosses probably wouldn't have spots and would be boring to look at, but would carry spots. You'd probably get a few little ones with amazing color but they would all be smaller and more gamey in type.
Kind of a motley bunch, the chicks would need to be sorted out and improved upon the next generation, but if someone in a far-flung locale is interested in getting involved, live chicks would be available.
To a serious project member, chicks will only be $1 each, but you'd have to spring for Express shipping if you live more than just a couple states away . . . I'm kind of scared to use Priority to ship them really far? So it may cost as much as $70 for a box full of them, if you live in the upper Midwest, Florida, East Coast, far South, etc. Which would include the box, express shipping, and the actual chicks themselves, ha ha. Because I'm selling them just at cost and it's a lot of hassle to ship, I need only really commited folks to apply. (Folks that have a safe predator-free coop set up, and are willing to mess with keeping roos and hatching chicks for at least a year or two.)
Shipping eggs, on the other hand, is no big deal. But usually folks haven't had enough of them hatch on the other end, to really get a good start on a program. Tamra culled pretty heavily to get her stock figured out, which is the best way to go! (Better to have me ship you 25 chicks and pick the very best 5-10 to get started.) A lot of times folks with shipped eggs got maybe five or so chicks, and then something would happen to them, and it never would get off the ground, so it ended up just being a waste of eggs in the end. I think live chicks are actually more affordable all things considered . . .
