Edit: Apparently I need to explain. I’m a farmer. Not one farm - not one single farm - I know will sell you either chicks or full grown chickens as some part of their regular operations. Mainly because it’s a pain in the ass and not profitable unless you are highly specialized and only producing chicks, in which case you are probably contracting with someone like TSC, using the cheapest feed imaginable and likely not making much money.
Now I’m not saying there aren’t exceptions to this. There are probably hobby-ish farms around that will sell you a few chicks for random reasons. And you might get lucky and some farm has an excess for some reason, but generally any farm that’s producing eggs or meat birds needs to keep those chicks. I mean, I’m not kidding, it’s a real struggle to make any money at all even with eggs at $7-8 a dozen.
But you are not, typically, just going to go down to your “local farm” (remember those?) and buy chicks. Go ahead, if you don’t believe me call around.
Uhhhh what? It sure as fuck does, in many regions of the world, and HAS for centuries. It even works that way in the US, in a lot of places - unless you happen to be in a weirdly cutthroat-capitalist area somehow.
I’ve edited my original post to explain why I say this. It boils down to this: it doesn’t make financial sense to raise chickens for sale to random people. If there is one thing you can count on, it’s that farms simply can’t afford to do things that don’t make money.
But go ahead and try it. Call the 5 farms nearest you to ask if you can buy chickens or full grown hens (roosters don’t count!) and report back. If you are lucky there is some hobby farm that doesn’t care about making money… but that’s gonna be the exception.
Wtf are you talking about? We often rent out or sell our layers all the time. We contract with Miller’s for our broilers and fryers as well. I’d be happy to sell someone who calls a setup. All they have to do is build their coop as that’s out of my purview. I’m not a hobby farmer either as my contracts pay my mortgage and fund my retirement savings and the kid’s college fund.
Well good for you, you are either solely or primarily a chicken operation although I suspect by USDA definition you are in fact a hobby farmer - no offense here, just pointing out the economics of it matter. The original comment here asserted people could just go to any random farm, show up, and buy chick(en)s. I don’t know a single commercial operation that would do that. And the funny notions people get about ag in general are, well, mildly annoying.
I tend to hope they were meaning getting accidentally fertilized chicks, which happens. I bet they could get a free cat or two while they’re there.
I assume you mean fertilized eggs or… just chicks? I suppose some might give them away. I don’t know why you would though. For anyone I know, myself included, chicks mean income. You are replacing expired layers. Or you feed them to the cats.
Never was it that easy for me to take a stand. None of my money will ever go to Tractor Supply.
(I never even heard of them before and had to google if we have them here. They are US only)
They’re right down the road from my house, if you were in the market for baby chickens or ducks they’re the only place to go.
Check your regional Craigslist, mine’s full of them. This is also why the fair exists (besides funnel cake).
You could try a local farmer
LOL. Doesn’t especially work that way city boy.
Edit: Apparently I need to explain. I’m a farmer. Not one farm - not one single farm - I know will sell you either chicks or full grown chickens as some part of their regular operations. Mainly because it’s a pain in the ass and not profitable unless you are highly specialized and only producing chicks, in which case you are probably contracting with someone like TSC, using the cheapest feed imaginable and likely not making much money.
Now I’m not saying there aren’t exceptions to this. There are probably hobby-ish farms around that will sell you a few chicks for random reasons. And you might get lucky and some farm has an excess for some reason, but generally any farm that’s producing eggs or meat birds needs to keep those chicks. I mean, I’m not kidding, it’s a real struggle to make any money at all even with eggs at $7-8 a dozen.
But you are not, typically, just going to go down to your “local farm” (remember those?) and buy chicks. Go ahead, if you don’t believe me call around.
Uhhhh what? It sure as fuck does, in many regions of the world, and HAS for centuries. It even works that way in the US, in a lot of places - unless you happen to be in a weirdly cutthroat-capitalist area somehow.
I’ve edited my original post to explain why I say this. It boils down to this: it doesn’t make financial sense to raise chickens for sale to random people. If there is one thing you can count on, it’s that farms simply can’t afford to do things that don’t make money.
But go ahead and try it. Call the 5 farms nearest you to ask if you can buy chickens or full grown hens (roosters don’t count!) and report back. If you are lucky there is some hobby farm that doesn’t care about making money… but that’s gonna be the exception.
Wtf are you talking about? We often rent out or sell our layers all the time. We contract with Miller’s for our broilers and fryers as well. I’d be happy to sell someone who calls a setup. All they have to do is build their coop as that’s out of my purview. I’m not a hobby farmer either as my contracts pay my mortgage and fund my retirement savings and the kid’s college fund.
Well good for you, you are either solely or primarily a chicken operation although I suspect by USDA definition you are in fact a hobby farmer - no offense here, just pointing out the economics of it matter. The original comment here asserted people could just go to any random farm, show up, and buy chick(en)s. I don’t know a single commercial operation that would do that. And the funny notions people get about ag in general are, well, mildly annoying.
I don’t think 20k birds count for hobby farming. What credentials do you have to support your frankly wildly unfounded claims?
I tend to hope they were meaning getting accidentally fertilized chicks, which happens. I bet they could get a free cat or two while they’re there.
I assume you mean fertilized eggs or… just chicks? I suppose some might give them away. I don’t know why you would though. For anyone I know, myself included, chicks mean income. You are replacing expired layers. Or you feed them to the cats.
That’s OK. I’m in the US and have never seen one. Fleet Farm is the king of that type of store in my state