Why Do People Buy Live Chicks From Breeders and Farm Stores‭?

[Shadrach]

They shouldn't even let you any where near their birds.

I agree, but it seems some breeders do.
I have zero experience of US hatcheries. I would assume that it is in their interest to maintain decent bio security.

 

[Shadrach]

Has anybody reading this thread been to a hatchery?
If so, what impression did they come away with?
How does the system work if you actually go to a hatchery to choose chicks?

 

[Mosey2003]

Has anybody reading this thread been to a hatchery?
If so, what impression did they come away with?
How does the system work if you actually go to a hatchery to choose chicks?

I'm pretty sure they bring your chicks up to the front store area, they're not going to let people off the street walk into the actual chick/egg/breeder areas.

 

[Mosey2003]

I'm not manic about biosecurity, but I don't let people come to my place, either. I did once, and they stayed on the driveway. I do try to wear different shoes if I'm going somewhere that has chickens, too and I change when I get back in the car.

 

[Shadrach]

Incubating isn't like popping a pot pie in the oven and waiting for the timer. There are MULTIPLE factors that can impact a hatch greatly.
Do you have a quality incubator? (hint, just because it's for sale doesn't mean it's worth a crap). Do you have it dialed in to the proper temperature and do you understand how to adjust humidity? Do you have to worry about power outages at all?
And then the eggs: are the parents fed an appropriate diet? Are the eggs too large or too small to incubate well? Were they laid in a clean environment, did you sanitize them properly, what temperatures were they at before being collected and then after? Have they been handled roughly? Did you have to buy them and have them shipped? It's quite easy to have a miserable hatch, or no success at all, and quite challenging to maintain anywhere near a 100% hatch. If you're really looking for quality, healthy, robust birds, you can't just chuck eggs into an incubator and hope for the best.

If you're wanting something specific, it is much, much wiser to actually buy chicks that are already hatched. At least then you know you'll actually be in possession of a number of chicks, guaranteed. It's up to you to do your homework in verifying that breeders have healthy flocks.

It makes me wonder how hens manage to hatch chicks.
Interestingly, chicks used to get hatched in an incubator here.
They then got moved to a wire cage with a heat lamp over it and once they had feathers they got put in with the rest of the flock one night.
They died like flies.
They died from coccidiosis.
They died because they didn’t get properly accepted into the flock and wandered about on their own and a predator got them.
A couple just wandered off, never to be seen again.

I threw the incubator in the bin when I took over looking after the chickens.
There is a reduced egg hatch but those that do hatch so far have lived longer.
Since making some changes to the two nesting boxes (the egging boxes are different) the hens hatch a much higher proportion of the eggs they sit on, 4 out of 4 on the first trial and 5 out of six on the second.
Of course, with an incubator if large enough can hatch many more eggs than a hen can. I restrict the hens to a maximum of eight eggs.

 

[Shadrach]

I'm pretty sure they bring your chicks up to the front store area, they're not going to let people off the street walk into the actual chick/egg/breeder areas.

I would be interested in hearing from people who have gone to breeders as well as hatcheries.

 

[centrarchid]

It makes me wonder how hens manage to hatch chicks.
Interestingly, chicks used to get hatched in an incubator here.
They then got moved to a wire cage with a heat lamp over it and once they had feathers they got put in with the rest of the flock one night.
They died like flies.
They died from coccidiosis.
They died because they didn’t get properly accepted into the flock and wandered about on their own and a predator got them.
A couple just wandered off, never to be seen again.

I threw the incubator in the bin when I took over looking after the chickens.
There is a reduced egg hatch but those that do hatch so far have lived longer.
Since making some changes to the two nesting boxes (the egging boxes are different) the hens hatch a much higher proportion of the eggs they sit on, 4 out of 4 on the first trial and 5 out of six on the second.
Of course, with an incubator if large enough can hatch many more eggs than a hen can. I restrict the hens to a maximum of eight eggs.

Someone needs to learn how to incubate eggs and properly acclimate brooder reared cohorts to general flock. Questions related to such are the most frequently posted on this site. There is a learning curve associated with it.

Basing success on two hen-hatched and reared broods is not ideal. I expect to average per brood what you call a success with two combined.

 

[Shadrach]

Someone needs to learn how to incubate eggs and properly acclimate brooder reared cohorts to general flock. Questions related to such are the most frequently posted on this site. There is a learning curve associated with it.

Basing success on two hen-hatched and reared broods is not ideal. I expect to average per brood what you call a success with two combined.

Indeed, it's early days. I'm interested to see how it goes.

 

[Shadrach]

Someone needs to learn how to incubate eggs and properly acclimate brooder reared cohorts to general flock. Questions related to such are the most frequently posted on this site. There is a learning curve associated with it.

Basing success on two hen-hatched and reared broods is not ideal. I expect to average per brood what you call a success with two combined.

Certainly integration has been more succesful with a hen hatching and I should really have kept better records of sociability of the chickens as they grew.
I can't get the people who looked after the chickens before to give even an half honest estimate of their incubator cluth hatch rate, or the survival of the chicks.
I base my views on what I saw in my first few months here.

 

[Mosey2003]

It makes me wonder how hens manage to hatch chicks.
Interestingly, chicks used to get hatched in an incubator here.
They then got moved to a wire cage with a heat lamp over it and once they had feathers they got put in with the rest of the flock one night.
They died like flies.
They died from coccidiosis.
They died because they didn’t get properly accepted into the flock and wandered about on their own and a predator got them.
A couple just wandered off, never to be seen again.

I threw the incubator in the bin when I took over looking after the chickens.
There is a reduced egg hatch but those that do hatch so far have lived longer.
Since making some changes to the two nesting boxes (the egging boxes are different) the hens hatch a much higher proportion of the eggs they sit on, 4 out of 4 on the first trial and 5 out of six on the second.
Of course, with an incubator if large enough can hatch many more eggs than a hen can. I restrict the hens to a maximum of eight eggs.

Some hens manage to hatch chicks quite well. Some manage to half incubate them and then give up, or start kicking the eggs out of the nest. Some even kill chicks once they've hatched. It's nowhere near a guarantee of success to let nature take its course.

That was gross mismanagement if they were dying of coccidiosis while on wire floors. Also mismanagement to not acclimate them effectively and not take care in regard to predators.

You can use hens only if you like, it's your flock. Personally, I refuse. I want a specific amount of chicks at specific times and from only certain hens, not randomly when a hen decides she'd like to sit on a mixed nest of eggs. And my coop is not set up in such a way to indulge a broody hen's whims.

Maybe it's a language thing, but I find your posts mildly aggressive towards people who choose to use an incubator and brooder raise chicks, there are reasons people choose to do it that way and they're just as valid as the opposite choice.