New Chicks need some advice

[Kenpo]

hey everyone, new here first post,

im going to be getting some new chicks soon and im going to take Pattis advice and start out with 8-10 chickens, problem is most places minimum order is 25, so what do you do, raise up the other 15 that you dont really want to proccessing age?, give them to others? or what do you guys do

Thanks alot

[gardenjoinery]

We ordered our chicks from MyPetChicken.com, which allows a minimum order of 3. They are pricier, but it met our needs. Also, McMurray's had a problem with illness last year, so we were glad not to have been involved in that. Are you talking to local feed stores, or looking online? Can you find any other families that might want to split an order, maybe through BackyardChickens or somewhere? I believe that you can order sexed birds even from the big hatcheries, so you can be reasonably sure that you will all get girls.

[boyd3]

I was in there getting some layer ration and the gals at the counter told me that they are going to have chicks and baby ducks in store soon. Not sure if there is a tractor supply near you, but for 1.75 a chick didn't sound too bad.

[gardengirl72]

Sounds like a good deal to me!

[Kenpo]

thanks all for your replys, after your good advice i found a hatchery within 30 mins of me that seems to be a good place to look, going to take the kids there this weekend to see them.

http://www.meyerhatchery.com/

Thanks again

[Growing Boy]

Just a thought on getting more chickens than you want. When we got our ducks last spring the hatchery threw in 10 rooster chicks to keep the ducks warm. (we called them the packing peanuts). We really didn't need them so we raised them up for twelve weeks to butcher size , then put them on freecycle. They were gone in an hour. We probably could have sold them on Craigslist if we had wanted to.