A guide to buying your chicks

There are so many options and places to get your chicks, so today we are going to talk about all the different choices and the pros and cons of each.

Your local farm store

Your local farm store will most likely have chicks, but you can only buy the breeds that are there, so if they didn’t have a certain breed that you were wanting then you would just have to choose a different one. I know that Tractor Supply, Bomgaars, and Murdochs around here sell chicks so those would be great options. Plus a lot of times your local small farm stores will also have chicks. When we bought our first chicks we got them from Bomgaars. They had some of the breeds that I wanted so we just chose to get them from there. Read here to learn more about my favorite breed!

From a hatchery

Another way to buy your chicks is through a hatchery. If you order through a hatchery then you can pick out whatever breed(s) you want and they will mail them to you, but keep in mind that they do have a minimum amount of chicks that they will send to you, so if you were only wanting two chicks then you would probably have to get them from your local farm store. Another thing to keep in mind if you order chicks, is that a few may die. Since they are literally being shipped through the mail it is a pretty common occurrence that a few may die. The nice thing is that a lot of hatcheries will replace the chicks if any die! So if you don’t want to deal with that then your best option would be to get them from a local farm store.

A breeder

This is another option for you to get your chicks. If you are wanting to show your chicks then make sure to use a breeder for your chick, because hatchery chicks don’t have show quality features. If you do purchase from a breeder the chicks may cost a bit more than from a farm store, so if you aren’t doing shows with your bird then your best option would be one of the other two above.

Depending on your needs any of these options would be great! Let me know in the comments section below if you have tried using any of these and how they worked out for you!

Other articles that you may like:

• The best chicken breeds for your backyard flock
• How to keep your chickens cool in the heat of summer
• Why you need to store your eggs pointy side down