What should I be selling my chicks for? Cause apparently...

[chicken_china_mom]

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Right now all I have besides the SS that are Lf are the ss/Wellie mixes and the Marans mixes. My daughter was trying to breed for a sexlinked dark egg layer, but it isn't working out like she planned. She would actually have to wait for her Lakenvelder pullet to grow up, and then put her in with the Marans roo instead in with her Lakenvelder roo. I deliberately didn't hatch out a ton of those because I knew it might be difficult to sell them later. I figure the roos we could probably eat if we had to, however shhh! Don't tell my daughter that! They amaze me how pretty they are. I even got pure whites out of the chicks. First hatch I only got one chick, a pullet, she was a yellow chick, feathered in white. Very pretty and took the best from both her parents and has a lovely temperment. See, my LF hens are BA, ASL, SLW, and I have 2 Wellie/Ameracauna mixed hens too. The next hatch I put two eggs in from the Marans mix, and I got 2 black chicks, one with a white spot on it's head, and one solid black. The one with the white spot has one of the SLW's for a mom and is feathering in gorgeous. Course no one wants it, especially since I suspect it's a roo.

This last hatch we put 5 more eggs in with the understanding that we aren't going to be hatching out anymore until these sell or we eat them. I don't have the heart, or the stomach, to process them myself, so I'll ask a neighbor.

I just went and sat out in the coop with all the older chicks, and of course my little white Marans mix, she came and sat on my knee and was talking to me. She's one I planned on keeping, but I kept looking at her guiltily thinking "I plan to eat your brothers". I suppose that's the city girl in me thinking, lol. I can figure out somewhere to put the pullets, it's the roos I have no place for. But isn't that problem most people have?

Ok, so I'm starting to get an idea of what prices I can offer my birds for. It sometimes feels like the only way I'm going to stay on top of current breeds is to own every breed! I don't have that kind of space (or money to feed them all!).

The Marans eggs I have in my bator right now, I don't have a lot of them in there. Only one dozen, and they are going to be the start of my own flock. They hatch in another week. I'm excited about them. Depending on how many hatch I might have some extras to sell. But I need to get rid of all the Wellie/SS mixes. They're almost 7 weeks old now. Boy they sure are pretty! And they hatched from eggs as dark as the first batch of Marans eggs I placed in my bator. I expect that they will probably lay a decently dark egg when they get older. My Wellie/Ameracauna girls lay the darkest eggs, and the eggs sometimes have a pink tint to them which makes for some interestingly colored eggs. By next year I'll have a rainbow basket when I collect eggs. Every color imaginable will be in my basket. I'll have to see about separating out my EE's so I can breed for more blue egg layers. Even though they seem to be a breed no one else wants, I love them. Course the winds could change and they could end up being next years most coveted breed. Suppose anything is possible. But basically what I am hearing is eliminate the number of mixes that I get, and focus more on pures. And get rid of them as day olds. Is the market more for eggs than actual chicks? Is that it? I'll see what I can do to move some of these mixes in the next few weeks. Then I'll start working on my flocks and see what I can do to have only Cochins in the big coop. That means relocating 10 birds, of which 5 are roosters. I think another ad on CL is in order. Not for the hens, but for the extra roos. Then I have to figure out what to do with the chicks. I have a variety of breeds in there too. I have the SS, the SS/Wellies, pure Marans, D'Anvers, a Japanese pullet, a Bantam EE pullet, a Quail Antwerp roo, a BR pullet (she stays, even if I have to build a coop for just her on the ROOF, she stays!) and some Silkie mixes and a Marans mix. Course I'm probably missing someone in that group that I'm not thinking of. Have to figure out what to do with all of them. Sigh*** It's just frustrating. So I'll go figure that out for now.

Oh, and Tab is probably not on an atlas since it just made it onto maps in the last 2 years, and only about a year ago did it start to show up on electronic maps. It's right on the Illinois/Indiana border. In fact I could walk down the road from my house and I'd be in Illinois with walking only about a mile. We're in West Central Indiana. Try an online map system, like Google. My zip is 47917. We are in a REALLY small town, and even mapping my zip you won't get a direct map to Tab, but instead it would take you to the town that we share a zip with. Unless you put in Tab. We don't have our own P.O. cause we only have a town of 50 people. Rural living, it has it's pluses and minuses! Lol!

 

[TheBeatlesAddict]

i paid 99 cents for 3 of my chickens and 1.99 for my other 2. idk what a normal/good price is

 

[briteday]

This year we bred mostly sex links so that we could tell the roos apart frm the pullets. The day old roos went to snake feeders that we found by posting on Craigslist. We got $1 each for the roos. The hens went so fast we couldn't keep up with weekly hatchings...black and red sex links mostly. Girls went for $4.

We also did some straight run RIR, orps, EE's. Straight run was $2.50 - 3. They went fast too because they are some of the most common breeds sold near us at the feed stores. However one customer had an issue when 3 out of 4 RIR's turned out to be roos.

There were some bantams thrown in for the kids too. The silkies went very fast, straight run...$3.50 each. The frizzle cochins...not so much. Ended up with a bunch of those left over. Guess they're just not as "wanted" as silkies and money is tight in our area.

Then some people don't want to get involved with raising chicks. So my friend that I do the hatching with raises up point of lay chicks for them. She charges for the initial cost of the chick and $1 per week that she keeps them. Some people just like them to be old enough to go into a coop (they don't like keeping chicks inside the house), and some want them grown out to POL.

Next spring we will be doing orps, EE's, silkies (? if my hen stays productive), re-think the cochins, and do a bunch of sexlinks. I have an RIR roo and 6 RIW hens. So we're hoping to get rid of the problem of straight run or leftover roos. The orps and EE's will always sell here, even straight run.

Mixed breed chicks would only go for $1 here. Everyone has them in their yard and some people just give them away. So they hold little value for sales.

Marketing...we post on CL and pre-sell the chicks so we know how many eggs to set. So we have a rough estimate, then add 50% more because people always want more, not all eggs hatch, and with sexlinks there will be a bunch of roos that the egglaying people don't want. I get a name, email address, and phone number from everyone who wants chicks. I give them a hatch date (set them on Thursday so they hatch on Thur, Fri...must be picked up by Sunday of that week if you were given that hatch date) and it is cash only. Anything that's not picked up goes to people on our waiting list. My friend will also hatch ducks. But because they are more expensive (she charges $8?) she will only set eggs if people request them and give her all of their contact info beforehand. Ducklings are just too much work otherwise. and with everyone, we make it very clear that we have a waiting list. You either come when called or we move on. Sunday at 6PM we start going down the list. We also plan our hatches to happen a bit before the feed stores get their chicks in. They run screaming deal sales that we just can't compete with. So we start collecting fertile eggs in late January / early Feb with our first hatch well before the end of the month. The earliest feed store chicks are usually available by March 5 or so, and then the stores get different breed shipments weekly after that. So we reel in the sales in January and February, hatch in Feb/March/ some special requests in April, and done with day old chicks by the 1st of May.

 

[peterlund]

I just sold some 18 week old hens (just ready to start laying) for $18 each. They were healthy friendly birds, and the buyers knew what they were getting. If you do the math I assure you I made 0 profit. Get your price... It is more than fair.

 

[2pinkmom]

I suppose it depends on the area where you live. I accidentally discovered that there is a strong market for started pullets around here. I bought 15 one day old female chicks intending to add most to my laying flock, and sell a few extras. I posted on craigslist and my phone rang off the hook. I sold all 15 of them for $10 each within a day. People who called after they were all sold were asking when I would have more available...LOL.

They were EEs and Cuckoo Maran. Apparently people around here are cuckoo for marans!

 

[chicken_china_mom]

I dunno, in my area craigslist is pretty much a joke. People e-mail you once, maybe twice, and then drop off the face of the planet. I had a woman contact me the other day, said she lost her entire flock except her Silkie roo and asked if I had chicks available still. I said yes, described what I had, and she said she wanted the Silkie/Cochin mixes. I was thrilled that she wanted the mixes instead of the pures cause I know they're harder to place. We corresponded through 2 e-mails, and then nothing. Haven't heard from her since. I didn't even give her a price yet!!! I took some new pics of the brand new babies, and they're really good if I do say so myself. Helps to be a photographer, lol! I was going to try to post some of those pics up and see if I can't sell some of these babies. I'm wondering how many of these are going to have to go to freezer camp. It sucks when they each have unique personalities. I try not to get too attached until I know who is a pullet and who is a roo. I realized last night that 4 of the chicks are Bantam BO/Cochin mixes, and they are so docile and calm compared to the Silkie mixes and pure Cochins. They are so sweet. Hope I don't have to eat them! I may have to create a pen of just hens, where when I get extra pullets I can toss them in there without a roo and get just eating eggs. I'm going to try another ad on CL right now and see if I get any bites. Then I have to weed out the fake responses til I get maybe one or two serious ones. Oh yay...

 

[rancher hicks]

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Well it's the same way here in Syracuse NY. I posted on craigs for CM's and could n't find any. I drove 5 hrs to get a trio and when I finally hatched chicks and tried to sell them $5 ea. no one wanted them. I paid 10 ea.
As for Delawares. I was lucky to get 5 ea. Again I couldn't find them on craigs. I drove 6 hours for them.

The fact is people can get them for less from the hatchery. They don't realize that the hatchery are pushing crosses as pure. Or they don't care.

I won't be hatching next year and I'll have Lavender ameraucanas.

I was going to drive to NH for Dorkings but if I do I doubt anyone here will pay a fair price for chicks.

Not everyone cares about the pureness or standard quality of their chickens. Here in NYS they sure don't. Heck I can't even get $2 for barred rocks.

If I raise them to sexing age I'm not giving them away for 2 bucks. They can go pound salt.

 

[chicken_china_mom]

Quote:
Well it's the same way here in Syracuse NY. I posted on craigs for CM's and could n't find any. I drove 5 hrs to get a trio and when I finally hatched chicks and tried to sell them $5 ea. no one wanted them. I paid 10 ea.
As for Delawares. I was lucky to get 5 ea. Again I couldn't find them on craigs. I drove 6 hours for them.

The fact is people can get them for less from the hatchery. They don't realize that the hatchery are pushing crosses as pure. Or they don't care.

I won't be hatching next year and I'll have Lavender ameraucanas.

I was going to drive to NH for Dorkings but if I do I doubt anyone here will pay a fair price for chicks.

Not everyone cares about the pureness or standard quality of their chickens. Here in NYS they sure don't. Heck I can't even get $2 for barred rocks.

If I raise them to sexing age I'm not giving them away for 2 bucks. They can go pound salt.

That's what gets me too, if I'm raising them to the age where I can sex them, I'm not willing to sell them for a meager $2 each! That doesn't even cover the cost of the feed they eat or the litter I use under them. Nor does it cover the time and energy that goes into caring for them.

 

[ChooksChick]

When I post to CL I state in my ad my price, adding a buck for dickering room, and then I describe them: NOT hatchery stock, hand-raised, kid-friendly, prize-winning parentage, etc., and go on to say: "I am charging for the time spent caring for these birds and the feed I have invested in them. Prices are firm." That filters out a lot of the folks who will go off on you telling you the prices are set too high. I don't even care to talk to that nonsense!

 

[chicken_china_mom]

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I'm getting ready to write my ad right now. That's a very good idea, I will definitely try it. I want to weed out the people that want something for nothing.