Will I have trouble selling chickens in the Bay Area, CA?

[muddipuppy]

I'm just now getting my incubator as I've caught the proverbial "chicken bug." I can only have four hens in Mountain View. If I start hatching chickens will people buy them?

Just a New Egg.

 

[columbiacritter]

Since you already know your local area will only allow 4, hens only I'm assuming, you will have to be prepared for the rooster backlash. Consider 1/2 the eggs you hatch will be roos and unless you learn to sex reliably or only hatch sex links you will be selling straight run which many people don't want. If you can identify cockrel chicks before you sell what are you going to do with them?

I can tell you from experience it can be very hard to give away much less sell known cockrels in any area. Can you cull?

Another issue to prepare for. People buy straight run chicks from you and some are roos. They will bring them back to YOU!!! A few will want money back, most will just want YOU to deal with the unwanted roo.

There will also be people who don't care for their chicks right so they get sick and/or die. Trust me when I say it will be YOUR fault. You will get angry phone calls and people demanding refunds. They are a small minority but it will happen. When they bring ill birds back to you, then you have the double issue of an upset customer and an unknown disease carried onto your place.

I have a good friend who raises and sells chicks in a major metropolitan area as a hobby and I hear allllllll the stories good and bad from her.

Last year she said she couldn't deal with the people any more and was sellign her bators, but..... requests flooded in, so she started hatching again though far less than in the past.

Good luck

 

[The Zoo]

I live in the East Bay and bought my chicks from a feedstore - never even occurred to me to find a local provider. Not sure if that helps but if I didn't think to look for one, I'm assuming a lot of other people wouldn't either so you'd have to advertise or word of mouth.

At least it seems that pretty much every city (even Palo Alto) allows chickens around here!

 

[muddipuppy]

SUCH helpful feedback. Thank you!