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LTygress said:
I do hatch to sell quite a bit, and I do tend to end up with some homeless ones. It takes a lot of work because you have to constantly update photos (and we all know chicks grow and develop FAST) so people can see what you have. Plus I usually spend HOURS outside during the warm months, trying to get the perfect photos of the parents. But you have to be ready to re-post or update ads all over the place, on a regular basis. I have sheets hanging up at Tractor Supply, feed stores, and ads on Craigslist too. And a lot of times, I'll end up holding on to several for a long while, only to have someone come by and buy them just as I release them with the rest of the flock... lol!

I think the hardest part (for me) is sticking to my prices. People try to talk you down. And they don't understand why a Phoenix should cost more than a Leghorn.

Christmas was (thankfully) a big demand season for them. I didn't think it would be, but lots of people contacted me. I had one guy that was wanting "anything I had" and contacted me ON Christmas Day! Unfortunately, I had already sold out by then.

But then some of the chicks I had around that time were 3 months old, too. So sometimes they will sit for a while, and sometimes they go right away. Spring time is obviously a BIG time for selling chicks, so I'm preparing now. Chicks actually seem to sell faster when you have a bigger selection so people can pick and choose which ones they want. Another thing that helps, is really knowing a lot about chickens. It also doesn't hurt that I'm one of the few hatch-to-sell people in the state who vaccinates ALL of my chicks from both Marek's disease, and general parasites (using ivermectin wormer), whether they are being kept or sold.

My second incubator is almost set, and the last of the eggs will go in there tonight. I have mostly mixed breeds right now with Plymouth Rocks, Easter Eggers, and Leghorns all mingled in with each other. But I will have purebred Ameraucanas, Sumatras (who just started laying), and soon some silkies in the mix too.
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Don't you end up with lots of roos? I hatch chicks for fun and advertise them. People only want the girls, so I end up with lots of boys. What do you do with them?
 
Flowerbh said:
Don't you end up with lots of roos?  I hatch chicks for fun and advertise them.  People only want the girls, so I end up with lots of boys.  What do you do with them?
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I sell them as straight run day olds. That's a possibility to do so you can get rid of them before you know what they are.
 
Jharper said:
I sell them as straight run day olds. That's a possibility to do so you can get rid of them before you know what they are.
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My problem is that I can tell what they are from day 1-3 by feather sexing them, so when someone comes and says they really don't want boys, I can't in good conscience sell them a boy. (That happened to me a lot in the beginning of my chicken days and i was sad to have gotten boys) I have even called those people I have sold chicks to, just to see if my sexing was right, and I have been right every time. So, yea, I end up with lots of little roos. And I'm the type who holds these young boy chicks and tell them I am sorry that they are boys and that their lives probably won't be long ones. It always makes me sad. That's the bad down side to hatching eggs!
 
Ok guys, seriously?? Every time I look at temps for next week, Monday and Tuesday's lows are even lower. I feel like a dork for fretting but I'm just not used to such cold weather. 10*F!! What will we dooo???
 
One solution I've considered is that I should probably go get more chickens. All in the name of body heat/survival, of course. ;)
 
Flowerbh said:
Don't you end up with lots of roos? I hatch chicks for fun and advertise them. People only want the girls, so I end up with lots of boys. What do you do with them?
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JHarper already mentioned the first part. I never learned how to sex mine and I put in every ad that they are sold "straight run only". BUT, for the ones that do grow up to be roosters that I don't want... they go to the chopping block. I can't do it myself at all, (I can process the chicken, I just can't be the one to take it's life) so I had to look up a butcher that would do it for me. When they come back, my sister puts them in the roaster. And after dinner, the remains are usually... fed back to the chickens in the pen. And thus completes the circle of life.
 

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