Want to hatch and sell chicks

[ccrane11]

I want to hatch and sell chicks, but don't do not know what to charge for them. They are a barnyard mixer of RIR, RIW, and Golden Sex Links. Eggs will come from our excellent laying hens. Would sell them around 2 weeks old so they would have a good start.
Would probably be sold as straight run.

 

[Percheron chick]

Somewhere in the $2-5 range depending upon your market. How saleable will they be? What will distinguish your birds as more desirable?

 

[ccrane11]

They are regular farm chickens. Producers of nice brown eggs which people where I live seem to prefer. Nothing exotic that lays blue or green eggs. There is a big market here. People are wanting chickens for eggs and for eating.

 

[donrae]

Do you have local feed stores to compete with? That's an issue in my area. Our local feed stores have chicks all spring/early summer, and again in the fall. They sell sexed pullets in the $3 each range, depending on breed. That makes it hard to compete with, especially when you're selling straight run. I've found I do better with sex links, so I can guarantee gender, or raising them up until I can sex them around 6ish weeks. Or, having something more exotic/ornamental does better as a straight run around here.

You'll just have to feel out your local market. I would start around $3 each for a 2 week old straight run chick and see what your response is. You may need to drop the price some, or you may be able to raise it.

If you have the space, raising some up to point of lay is a nice way to go. I get $20 for a point of lay pullet easily.

 

[Egghead_Jr]

If you still have the parent RIRs and RIWs you could just use them and have sex links. As donrae said people want pullets only unless its a breed/variety of value then they'd do straight run. I'll be hatching out a ton of chicks this next spring so will be selling straight run dirt cheap to get rid of them. In my case it's a matter of culling the unwanted birds a.s.a.p., keeping only the 50% that show more potential then culling as they grow. You'd really want to only do sex links. A RIR over a bunch of RIW will give you exactly what is best market, 100% sexable so you can sell only high laying pullets for $4 each and eat the cockerels or sell the cockerels for $1 each as fryer specials.

Every market around the country is a bit different. In my area it would have to be a desired breed to get more than $15 point of lay. You'll see people here trying to get $20 for organic raised point of lay but those adds stay up a long time. Pullet chicks from feed store here are 3-3.50 so folks would pay $4 for a sexed pullet from a local seller as there is a large natural/organic, local grown market here so a local grown sex link would be worth that extra 50 cents in my market.

With me dumping a lot of chicks straight run (those with smaller heads) to get numbers down quick I'll probably do something like 6 for $10 and even tell them if they don't get at least 3 pullets I'll sell them a few at cost later. Like $3 each pullet (with photo of males from me) at 5 weeks to cover feed and electric. Be selling six week pullets for $6 each and will provide free cockerel if they want for market price (can sex by that age). I'll be hatching well over 100 and culling down to dozen best pullets and eating cockerels down to two breeders. I see a lot of chicken BBQ in my future. Thankfully 12 weeks is a great time to cull for that.