TSC chicken purchase

[Krcismesia]

I was thinking about getting more baby chicks from tractor supply and saw that they have a 6 purchase minimum. I was wondering if anyone would know if I can buy 3 or 4 but pay for 6. Also are tractor’s chickens vaccinated and does anyone know if the sexing of the chickens are mostly accurate there?
Thanks so much

 

[Kessel23]

Vaccinated against what? Marek's? If you want sexed pullets from Tractor supply then your best bet is sexlinks, that is the only breed that they can't mess up on. Most of the chicks at TS are straight run, unsexed, but some are sexed. The ones that are sexed pullets were sexed by a hatchery and should be around 95% pullets. The problem I have with TS is they have no idea what they are doing, my sister bought some "cuckoo marans" from them and I am not sure what they are but they are definitely not cuckoos! There is plenty of stories on here about people getting the opposite of what they wanted from TS, in my opinion TS is like the McDonalds of the chick world. I still buy chicks from them but you need to make sure you know what you are buying, do not count on the employees to help you out because most of them know nothing about chickens. They end up putting similar looking breeds in the wrong bins all the time.

 

[N F C]

I was thinking about getting more baby chicks from tractor supply and saw that they have a 6 purchase minimum. I was wondering if anyone would know if I can buy 3 or 4 but pay for 6. Also are tractor’s chickens vaccinated and does anyone know if the sexing of the chickens are mostly accurate there?
Thanks so much

Our TSC has a 6 chick limit also. Do you know anyone around you that might want to share the 6?

@Kessel23 makes some good points...chicks do get switched around. And the employees I've run into don't seem to know anything about the chicks...make yourself familiar with the breeds they sell so you can be the judge (or at least somewhat knowledgeable guesser) of the chicks.

 

[21hens-incharge]

I have to agree. Its a crap shoot at TSC.

We see tons of threads about wrong breed, wrong sex and "what did I really get".

I would look for a different source altogether.

Whatever you do research the breeds and what the chicks look like first.

 

[Krcismesia]

Ok thank you guys so much!!! I don’t know any local farmers in my town so do you guys think Craigslist would be a good idea or is that also bad (I searched and found some nice looking legit posts but I don’t know for sure)

 

[N F C]

I've only had 1 experience with CL and it was really bad. Other people have had good success going that way. So it's hard to make a general statement of good vs. bad.

Have you looked at the buy-sell-trade forum here on BYC?
Buy ~ Sell ~ Trade

Maybe there's a member that's somewhere close to you. Check your state thread to find out:
find-your-states-thread.270925

 

[21hens-incharge]

Ok thank you guys so much!!! I don’t know any local farmers in my town so do you guys think Craigslist would be a good idea or is that also bad (I searched and found some nice looking legit posts but I don’t know for sure)

Sometimes there are feed stores other than TSC that have craigslist postings.
We have an awesome one here in Colorado that puts what is coming in and what they still have on Craig's to save a million phone calls of "whatcha got, whatcha getting".
It is the season where many people got cute chicks for Easter and lose interest when they are a couple weeks old. Those are largely found on Craig's in the coming weeks.

NFC made a great suggestion of looking here on BYC.

 

[ashlandco]

Never bought chicks from TSC but I have bought 3 from Big R... one died but they were pullets, and honestly our best egg layers

 

[Ohmyheart]

Check Facebook for chicken groups in your area. I'm in a bunch and bought chicks off a few ppl. It's a good place to try to sell or give away roosters if you don't want or need them.

 

[llombardo]

All the feed stores by me carry females only(or so they say). The TSC by me has a 4 limit. I wasn't looking for any particular breed, I just picked the ones I wanted. I'm very happy with them so far, very pleasant personalities and happy chicks.