Your opinion on the most salable breed that I'm considering to hatch - your votes please

[DorothyH]

My incubator is coming tomorrow and I haven't found anyone that wants me to hatch some duck eggs for them in Austin Texas to practice for my indian runner eggs arriving in February so I figure I can buy some chicken hatching eggs to give it a trial run. The thing is that I know if I hatch them then I'll want to keep one or two (won't be able to help myself) so I figured that I should get something that I want to have but also would be very marketable - especially the roosters as I can't keep roosters.

So my choices would be exchequer leghorn or cream legbar to buy now or wait for mille fleur leghorn or blue maran.

I have 3 leghorns and they are the best chickens ever for the intense heat we have here in the summer and their egg laying ability is outrageous and those exchequers are so pretty and rare - but the cream legbar I will be able to see which ones are roosters from day one and although they make less eggs they are blue pastels which will add beauty to the eggs on my countertop. Downside to the legbar is that I don't know how it will do in the heat. Even my ISA Browns suffer horribly compared to my leghorns in the triple digits.

The big question is about re-homing the roosters. That's my big concern. With the legbars they will be chicks and just maybe I won't be too upset if they go early? I don't eat chicken btw so don't cull. I'm a pansy when it comes to such things. The exchequers I won't know which ones are roosters but that's a pretty rare breed. I also could wait for those marvelous mille fleur leghorns I saw but those will probably be the same issue as the exchequer leghorns and the maran - well that's because I'd like a chicken that lays that color egg some day and that blue color is so lovely. I wonder though about finding homes for roosters with the marans as that's not as rare is it?

Do y'all think I will have a hard time with the rooster issue with these breeds? I would just hate to get attached to a little chicken and then find out it's a rooster and not be able to find it a good home.

I can't decide.

Votes please! What should I order???

 

[keesmom]

You do realize that the vast majority of roosters hatched each year wind up as dinner, don't you? Including rare breeds. There just aren't "good homes" out there for every one. I've also had hatches where 80% of the chicks were cockerels.

Aside from that, if this is your first time incubating I would advise you to go with a cheap, local batch of fertile eggs to practice on. After you have some success then go for the expensive, rarer eggs.

 

[aart]

You do realize that the vast majority of roosters hatched each year wind up as dinner, don't you? Including rare breeds. There just aren't "good homes" out there for every one. I've also had hatches where 80% of the chicks were cockerels.

Aside from that, if this is your first time incubating I would advise you to go with a cheap, local batch of fertile eggs to practice on. After you have some success then go for the expensive, rarer eggs.

x2

 

[DorothyH]

Ah yes, I do realize that the vast majority of cockerels become dinner and that's why I was hoping to choose a breed that might be rare enough that it wouldn't be the case. If there were one breed that was most likely not to end up as dinner what would you think that would be?

If I get local cheap then there's no chance at all of re-homing the roosters. Spending a little extra money on my hobby is ok with me. I don't want to spend too much on the rarest of the rare but spending $40 on some eggs on ebay and being able to re-home the roosters if any of them do hatch and live is preferable to me even if I end up losing the $40 because it's my first time. With the quality of the incubator and my willingness to read and learn I figure that there is more than a 50% chance I will be successful.

If I order lesser genetic indian runner ducks to experiment with the males can be re-homed fairly easily but then I know I will end up with keeping some lesser genetic ducks. If I get great genetics chickens and keep one or two that would be preferable as long as I can find homes for any sweet cockerels that are produce. Any nasty ones should become dinner for someone.

I'd honestly not hatch chickens at all if I'm going to have to sell sweet pet males as dinner.

So - is there a breed that has enough "salability" for the cockerels that will make this project worth doing?

I really appreciate your help with this.

 

[aart]

Highly depends on your location and market.....unless you want to wade into shipping birds and maybe agricultural requirements for other states. You might want to post in the Breeds forum and/or your state thread to learn what type of chicken would be most desirable.

 

[DorothyH]

Yes, of course what breeds would be better here in the sweltering heat of Austin in the summer would be quite different than Michigan. I sure don't want to get into shipping birds. I didn't realize that there was one state thread for each state. Thanks! Texas is so big, but still better than asking the entire country.

I was hoping that someone would say if I got this one breed of chicken people want those everywhere - but I guess that would be too good to be true. On the site where the cream legbars originate the rooster chicks sell for $19 a piece so I thought that there must be a pretty big market for this rare bird just about everywhere - but that's with the willingness to ship which is not my situation.

Thanks for the info aart on the state threads idea.

 

[keesmom]

If I get local cheap then there's no chance at all of re-homing the roosters. Spending a little extra money on my hobby is ok with me. I don't want to spend too much on the rarest of the rare but spending $40 on some eggs on ebay and being able to re-home the roosters if any of them do hatch and live is preferable to me even if I end up losing the $40 because it's my first time. With the quality of the incubator and my willingness to read and learn I figure that there is more than a 50% chance I will be successful.

I suggested local cheap eggs to start with because thy haven't been punted around by the USPS. At least you'd have a good chance at a hatch. Shipped eggs are a gamble as the mailing process is hard on them. Even the best wrapped eggs may not hatch at all even with the best incubator. Did you get a Brinsea?

Ask around on the TX thread and see if there is anything in particular in demand. (Look in in Where am I? Where are you!) I know Legbars are not uncommon around here. Several people have them.

 

[DorothyH]

Being new to incubating I didn't realize that ordering on-line would be that much of a gamble in terms of hatchability and now that you've informed me of that I might have a less than 50% chance of hatching and none of the eggs might hatch at all from no fault of my own - it occurs to me that this would be a poor test of my incubator indeed no matter what breed I order. The last thing I want to do is try out my incubator, do everything right and have the incubator in perfect form and think that there's something wrong with it when the failure was only because of the mailing process.

Thank you - you've made me re-think this entire thing. I've already put out a post locally offering to hatch anyone's fertile duck eggs but haven't gotten a response likely because ducks don't lay much this time of year and we have had some levels of cold that are rare here lately.

What I will do is offer to hatch out someone's fertile eggs or have them buy local eggs of any kind of chicken or quail or duck etc. and then give the person the hatchlings for free. That way I will be olbligated to give all the babies away quickly and not keep any of them. Then they will get all the males and I won't have to worry about possibly getting attached as I raise them. I don't know if anyone will take me up on it, but I would if I had a rooster and hens and didn't have an incubator but wanted some chicks. I just hope someone doesn't want me to hatch silkies or bantam polish or I might end up with a pet anyway. If no one takes me up on that I saw only one person in my larger Austin area selling a barnyard mix of hatching eggs (still a pretty long drive). Hopefully someone will want the free service but if not then I can just offer all the chicks for free and undoubtedly someone will need/want them.

This is all unexpected and the last thing I thought I'd do is try to hatch out a regular old mix of chickens - but logically with the information you provided me - that does make the most sense.

Thank you again keesmom!!

 

[keesmom]

Yeah, I've had many 0% hatches along the way. I generally do not hatch shipped eggs anymore but I needed to recently to try to correct a problem with my birds. I now have a Dickey cabinet incubator and I was still only able to get 5 out of 15 to hatch. The eggs were packed by an experienced person, arrived quickly and in perfect condition but I only got 33%. I'm not complaining, I got what I needed!

Funny, I was going to mention silkies as a possible breed. Good quality ones that is. People do look for those from time to time but I'm not sure about your area.

 

[DorothyH]

I found someone who is going to bring me 5 eggs tomorrow! Yay.
She said that her silkie wasn't mating and I said "thank goodness!"

I told her that she had to promise to take all chicks even if she had to do it at gunpoint. hee hee.

Thank you all so much for your help.

Keesmon - you got some good karma points for helping a stranger today.