huge chicken shortage about to hatch 400 eggs !

[maf8009]

huge chicken shortage so I am about to hatch 400 eggs !

Many hatcheries are sold out for 4 months or longer on CHICKS. My craigs list ad still has the phone ringing after 6 months.

I am hatching 400 eggs. (got some from neighbors that sell fertile eggs) and planted a 1 acre chicken garden (oats/millet/wheat/corn/sunflowers and more)

This economy will have to stick together to make it.....

has anyone else had problems getting chickens? the feed stores have set strict limits and they are already pre sold. I SAW THIS COMING

(to my husband! I TOLD you soooooo!)

 

[SKR8PN]

Not in this area.......yet. I pick up my new laying hen peeps the 21st of this month, and a week later I pick up my meat bird peeps. I had better get my arse in gear and get the new chicken tractor finished up!!

 

[freemotion]

Shoot, I'd better hurry up....I've been saving for an incubator. Gotta speed up that process.

Anyone have an opinion on how much to sell mutt chicks for? The local craigslist ads sell 2-3 day old chicks for $5-6 this year! And often don't even say what kind of chicks they have. Not mutt, though, usually the standard fare, RIR, Red Star, Golden Comet, etc. I have Rocks, Buff Orps, mutts, and EE's, will be getting some sort of rooster this weekend.

Because they will be mutts, I was thinking of selling them for $2 with a rooster return policy, but now I am thinking of going up.

 

[aggieterpkatie]

I was just debating that same thing, Free. I have mutts, and I was thinking somewhere between $2-3 for chicks. I'm not sure if I want to do a roo return or not, simply because I'll have to feed them until they're large enough to process. I won't process them...just because I don't care for them, but there's a hispanic lady that comes and buys them for $5 each. I could also take them to our local livestock auction. I've heard prices are up there.

I guess I should get off my hump and fire up the bator!

 

[TanksHill]

400 eggs, that's a lot.

My feed store has always been pretty spendy when it comes to birds. They go by age. Starts at 3 dollars then up to 5, 10 and 20 bucks for a laying hens.

My McMurray meatie order is not coming until April 4th.

But I have two turkey hens setting there hearts out right now. One is on a ton of chicken eggs, the other turkey.

g

 

[glenolam]

Last year I had no problems selling my chicks for $3 each. I'm actually not sure I'll be selling any this year since we had such a massacre this winter but I'm sure at some point I'll be getting rid of some.

We have yet to really hear about a chick shortage - on our local craigslist people are selling chicks starting at $2.00.

I have two incubators (the cheap ones from TSC) and already have 18 eggs set to hatch this Tuesday. In about 2 weeks I'll be firing both together and I'm thinking about buying fertile eggs from a person near me.

 

[freemotion]

glenolam, it is the cheapo from TSC that I'll be getting. Does it work ok? Good hatch rates? I got the egg turner, and will be getting the base soon. They had one turner and a bunch of bases, so I grabbed the turner first.

 

[patandchickens]

Wow, you better *hope* there is (and continues to be) a huge chicken shortage in your area, if you are hatching 300-400 chicks!!! That is a LOT of space requirement and feed bill until they sell!

Pat

 

[HEChicken]

Free, I've never used the TSC incubator but have heard such bad reports about it. Nevertheless I was going to get one and try my luck because they are cheap and readily accessible. However after talking to DH, who admittedly is an engineer so has a clue about some of this stuff that is still magic to me, he said it wouldn't be that hard to make one. He agreed to help me and it honestly was SO easy. It took about an hour from materials we had around the house already. I've only done one hatch in it (so far) but it worked great. It held temps/humidity perfectly, recovered very quickly after being opened, and best of all, I have chicks in my brooder right now

I started with an Omaha Steaks cooler. This I did not already have but I put an ad on Freecycle and a nice lady said I could pick hers up from her front porch not far from me. The reason I specified Omaha Steaks is they use very thick styrofoam. We used an old computer fan (again, if you don't have one, Freecycle would be a great source). I was fortunate to have a thermostat already from when I needed one for my reptiles. This is the only thing I would have had to purchase if I didn't already have it, but even it would have been cheaper than the TSC incubator. If I recall correctly, the thermostat did originally cost me about $35 at Petco but it is VERY good - a much better thermostat than comes on most commercial incubators, and it is the reason temps stayed so constant so I believe it would have been worth the expense even if I'd had to go out and get it just for this purpose. An old lamp fixture (if you don't have one, thrift store or Freecycle) and you're all set. I made a shelf out of some scrap pieces of 1/4" hardware cloth (and who amongst us does not have scrap hardware cloth, I ask you?) and an optional window created from the glass out of a 10x13 picture frame (I purchased the frame at the thrift store just to get the glass).

 

[freemotion]

We looked into making one, and have most of the supplies, but two things stopped me....the price of a good thermostat, and the size of the unit. I am out of storage room here! The TSC one can be stored in a very small space for the many months that it will not be in use.

I plan to have my parents do the hatching, since their apartment is kept so warm and a steady temp, unlike our woodstove-heated house. And they have no critters to knock the 'bator around and sit on it, like my two gigantic cats! Then the chicks will come here and go under a heat lamp in my cellar until sold or moved outside into a tractor here.