Tractor Supply Employee Knowledge About Chicks

[wvgal61]

Come on, is southern states any better or is tsc just easier to type)? Or any other feed/ farm supply store any different? The fact of the matter is you should never buy an animal of any type without some knowledge of how to care for it and keep it safe. Chicks should never be a "Jr wants a chick so pick one" type deal. And I have hear people make the statement "I don't need all that stuff for a chicken, they just want to sell more stuff". I am a nurse that worked in a hospital on med/surg, if you asked me what are normal v/s or what the procedure for a fresh from surgery pt is i can tell you. But if you asked me what the nurses did on the "baby" floor I would have no idea or what is routine for ICU, or The ER, not a clue. Just because you work at a place you cant be expected to know everything about every department. And if I am not wrong, doesn't TSC have all the lights for keeping them warm and starter feed and books , feeders, waterers right near the chicks?

 

[moetrout]

If you don't like what is going on at your local TSC then lend a hand when you are there. I seem to educate someone everytime I go during chick days. Last weekend a lady was buying a dozen straight run. I casually asked "all straight run???". She says something like "yeah, is that bad?". I then expained what straight run meant, but she got them anyway?! So then I hear her on the phone to her hubby and he wants barred rocks and she tells him they don't have any. I interjected again ans said yes they do, thet're right here and pullets too! When I expained pullets I could see a light go on inside her head. It's like right then she finally got what I had told her about straight run. The TSC employee was obviously not happy about having to put them all back and start over with the rocks. My last question to her was do you have your heat lamp and brooder already setup and ready to go at home. She told me yes, and that was a relief! Everytime I go I educate somebody.

 

[Habibs Hens]

My last question to her was do you have your heat lamp and brooder already setup and ready to go at home. She told me yes, and that was a relief! Everytime I go I educate somebody.

Thats the most important question any one including TSC should ask

here in UK when you go to a pet shop they ask you a million questions about your home environment and then make you sign a contract type thing to say you comply with whats needs to be done to care for an animal

Animal Cruelty is taken real seriously here in UK so much so that if you even buy a few gold fish they ask tank size and current populataion and will only allow you to buy if you can have more in the size tank and population you have and even then if your a new buyer buying a new tank and fish they will sell you the tank and send you home for a few days saying fill it up set it all up and run it for a few days to aclimatise then come back and buy the fish

 

[Keileigh]

So you as the company would hire seasonal work for one month, it cost a company a lot of money to hire someone, just to let them go. Question #2: can you identify chicks of multiple breeds in one tote? Everyone get real. I have been on my job for 10 years, do I know how to do every job in our warehouse, NO...... At there others that can do it yes. When you are expecting a boat load of chicks and are kept to the bare minume of employees there is nothing you can do but wing it. Give them a break they don't have to carry them at all. The more complaints they get the more likely they are not to carry them again.

Retailers regularly hire seasonal help for their busiest times of year. It's not always just to let them go, either -- I had several retail jobs during high school and college where I was hired seasonally but asked to stay after the busy months were past. The dollars spent training new employees usually repay themselves in terms of improved customer service and return business, and for an agricultural store like TSC, it makes sense that springtime would be the time to hire extra help. Technically, I suppose, you could run a store with one manager and one cashier, but the resulting poor customer service would put them out of business pretty quickly. Most businesses realize that it's better, in the long run, to spend a few more payroll dollars and provide a positive customer experience. So why not hire people who already know something about the product? Plus, if you'll notice, I did suggest the alternative of having someone with some knowledge and experience come in for a store meeting and explain the basics to the regular employees. It's quite probable that a good "chicken person" would do that for free. Store meetings are routine anyway -- why not use one to prepare for the chicken onslaught?

By the way, I didn't "complain" to TSC. I sent them a very positive email about how much I like their store and a few easily implementable suggestions, like making their breed info signs bigger on the tubs of chickens and including good pictures of the chicks of each breed, not just the adults. No, I probably couldn't tell the difference between two fluffy yellow chicks of different breeds, but the easy solution to that is not to put chicks of the same color in the same tub. They come labeled from the hatchery -- the store just has to keep them organized, and now that they're kept behind fences so customers can't mix them up, that should be a pretty simple job. I might not be able to tell a day-old White Leghorn from a Cornish Cross, but I can definitely tell either one of those from an Easter Egger! You might not know every job in your warehouse, but I bet you know YOUR job, and like you said, SOMEBODY in the warehouse knows how to do each of those others. The problem at our TSC, at least, is that NOBODY knows anything about the chicks. They wouldn't even have to memorize anything -- they could have little flip books of cheat cards (like many other retail chains use) with pictures of the various breeds and basic information.

For what it's worth (and since many people point out that chick days is just a small part of TSC's business), chicks aren't the only products that employees lack knowledge on, although they ARE the only products whose lives depend on it. My husband asked for hipwaders there one day, and the guy looked at him like he was crazy. And I called once to see if they had pine tar in stock -- after three bouts of "hold time" and associates who couldn't answer the question, I wound up with the manager, who still didn't know what I was talking about. I had to walk him through his own store over the phone and tell him which aisle to go down and what was around the pine tar on the shelf before he finally found it. My husband manages a store for a big office supply chain, and his store is probably four to six times the square footage of TSC with three or four times as many SKUs, but he knows every inch of it and he trains his sales associates to know it, too. Even the minimum wage ones.

In answer to the next poster's question, TSC is the only agricultural chain in our region. Not saying they're somehow worse than any of the others, but they're the only one we have any experience with. As far as why I still shop there, I do generally try to shop at our local feed and seed, but it's almost 20 miles away and TSC is less than 2 miles from our house. They also carry a lot of products not available at the f&s. It's a great place to grab what I need in a crunch, but I know better than to go in asking for advice. I'm not so worried about MY experience there. I do worry a bit about how many first-time chicken owners at TSC (or Southern States or Orschein's) assume they're getting good advice and don't need to look any further just because they're asking a store employee. But my goal is not to randomly criticize the company. I like TSC. I just think they could create a better customer experience with improved employee training.

 

[Keileigh]

If you don't like what is going on at your local TSC then lend a hand when you are there.  I seem to educate someone everytime I go during chick days.  Last weekend a lady was buying a dozen straight run.  I casually asked "all straight run???".  She says something like "yeah, is that bad?".  I then expained what straight run meant, but she got them anyway?!  So then I hear her on the phone to her hubby and he wants barred rocks and she tells him they don't have any.  I interjected again ans said yes they do, thet're right here and pullets too!  When I expained pullets I could see a light go on inside her head.  It's like right then she finally got what I had told her about straight run.  The TSC employee was obviously not happy about having to put them all back and start over with the rocks.  My last question to her was do you have your heat lamp and brooder already setup and ready to go at home.  She told me yes, and that was a relief!  Everytime I go I educate somebody.

What a great story! If not for you, she would probably have been very unhappy in a few months when half of her chickens started crowing!

 

[RollinWithTheStones]

I'd settle for signs on the right bins LOL. Went in to try and exchange some disabled chicks bought there and they had the CX sign over bantams and the bantam signs over Red Pullets. The other five tanks weren't even labeled. Also the duck breeds they had listed were not even the ducks I bought (Labeled Mallards, ducks bought were pekin and Cayuga)

I've got to say, yes, TSC haters don't need to be at TSC. But neither do TSC-hater haters need to stay on this thread if they're offended. And if anyone bothered to read the first couple pages, the thread was created for amusement. People thinking turkeys are 'probably leghorns' IS pretty funny!

And while we should also be thankful TSC sells chicks, and customers should know the basics if they're buying an animal, customers can't be expected to know exactly what breeds the store has, or the genders if they are unmarked. It is the responsibility of the employee to inform the buyer of the details like this on what they're buying. The TSC management, however, could see if they can get their employees that may have knowledge of these topics working in the right sections of the store, since having everyone know everything about everything is impossible.

 

[Bleenie]

Thankfully my local TSC has a couple older women working there that both own chickens and have for a while. They never have a problem helping someone out or answering questions. I think Buyers need to be more educated before they buy and not expect the sales person to tell them everything they need to know or nned to have to raise chickens.

I wish things were tougher around here on Animal Cruelty. I reported a place in the past about some starving, thirsty & dead ducks on this farm and it took them FOREVER to get out there. It's like if they're "livestock" they don't get the same attention as if it's a cat or dog. It's maddening.

 

[lolita117]

People are getting a little too out of hand on this thread. I like TSC, don't get me wrong. I like all their chicken, horse, and dog stuff plus their clothes and other odd end things I may buy. But there is something wrong that when somebody calls with a question they can't provide a better answer than "Oh we have red and yellow chicks." I live an hour from my local TSC. If they can't answer a simple question over the phone, like that, they need a different job. I can't drive that far just to see what they have, I want to know. I bought 6 chicks last year at TSC, and I didn't need their help once I was there. This year I bought 11 Speckled Sussexes about 2 months ago, and I bought my first bantams today. I got 6. Every Time I knew what I wanted and didn't need their help. But like today I didn't even begin to bother asking the young man what breeds the assorted bantams were, cause I knew he wouldn't have a clue. I just told him specifically which ones I wanted him to get out of the bin. But I did notice a dead baby chick, and pointed it out to him. He said that he didn't even notice it until I said something and their duck bin today WAS HORRIBLE. It was caked up like 5 inches deep with wet litter and food. I didn't even bother saying anything. I'm not totally bashing TSC and I don't think people need to get to upset over some of these post. They are not opinions, they are observations. Some get dealt with and some probably never get up to the point where some change can happen. I'll continue to shop TSC, I love shopping there. I just wish they cared about knowing about the chicks as much as some seem to care about the other stuff. I worked a Walmart in the lawn and garden dept. I tried to learn everything I could about my department and learned a great deal about the entire store. I still help people when I go in Walmart, and I don't even work there no more. It doesn't hurt to learn something new and/or to care about what your job entails. The young man today was nice, but I knew better than to ask a single question about the chicks.

 

[Nsampsel]

My local TSC in my small town (surrounded by farms throughout the surrounding area) has ONE GUY who knows much of anything about chicks. I had gone back into TSC a few days after picking up my first 6 chicks & asked an employee (this is her 2nd job, she has a desk job elsewhere-I know her personally) what the breeds were of the pullets in a particular tub were since they were what I had just gotten & I hadn't been able to locate a name for my 2 white ones (they had just been labeled Production Layers) that were in with the 2 I had already identified as Red Stars or Production Reds. She informed me they were just "Layers" that they didn't have a breed. I asked her what they were a cross of then & she looked at me like I was an idiot. Even I could tell that the "red" chicks & the "white" chicks that were all "pullets" were not the same kind of chicken!!!!

I had to wait almost a month til I went back in for feed & managed to bump into "the chicken guy". He had researched on his own to find the breed of chicken they were carrying & had posted it...Tetra Tints!!! I was pleasantly surprised that he had done this on his own time at home and made the effort to research this for the customers when it wasn't even info that had come with the chicks on delivery. They had been mixed with the Reds & the Ambers & meerly labeled "PULLETS." This is no fault of the local TSC but of either the chick hatchery or the main management of TSC for not requesting better labeling from the hatchery.

Now, everytime I go into TSC I look for "the chicken guy"...he has even made me a special deal on 6 more of those Tetra Tint Pullets so he could get his week-old birds out of the bin before his new babies came the next day. He was very surprised the last time I was in when they had Black Stars & I knew not to get the ones with the white spots on their heads...lol I was looking for all pullets & he knew it...I did end up with 4 mixed banties & a Columbian Rock I'm not sure of gender on tho...can't always win...have to take some chances once in a while

 

[Keileigh]

Thankfully my local TSC has a couple older women working there that both own chickens and have for a while. They never have a problem helping someone out or answering questions.   I think Buyers need to be more educated before they buy and not expect the sales person to tell them everything they need to know or nned to have to raise chickens.

I wish things were tougher around here on Animal Cruelty. I reported a place in the past about some starving, thirsty & dead ducks on this farm and it took them FOREVER to get out there. It's like if they're "livestock" they don't get the same attention as if it's a cat or dog. It's maddening.

I completely agree that buyers should be educating themselves. In fact, I just recommended several books on my blog a few weeks ago on chickens and small-scale farming because I think it's crucial to research things like this before jumping in. But realistically, I know that a lot of people do impulse-buy chicks without any research or preparation, and I think even a few well-placed questions from store associates could make them think twice about making such an uninformed decision and would certainly spare some chicks an unnecessary death. For example, the customer above asking about the heat lamp. A few pages in this thread, there's a post from a TSC employee ( who I wish worked at our local store!) talking about a coworker who sent a woman up to the register with two chicks, a bag of feed, and a waterer. Fortunately, the other employee asked her how she planned to keep the chicks warm enough and helped her realize that she wasn't prepared to buy chicks. If that employee hadn't been working that shift, the customer would probably have had two dead chicks by the next day. They don't have to be able to tell people all they'll ever need to know about raising chickens, but since we know not every customer will do the proper preparation, it makes sense to train associates in the basics.