KDailey's Journal

[KDailey]

I'm pretty much as far east as you can get, not far from the Louisiana border.

 

[autumnprairie]

I'm pretty much as far east as you can get, not far from the Louisiana border.

East and South, I am 6 hours from you, if my friend has different colors she used to have blue and lavender, would you be willing to meet me half way?

 

[KDailey]

Willing? Yes. Able? Would depend on when this took place as we're on a tight budget

 

[autumnprairie]

Willing? Yes. Able? Would depend on when this took place as we're on a tight budget

ok I have been talking to this other women too she also has lavenders and hers are 8.00 a piece. min of ten she also just picked up a pair of whites she is willing to seel them too when they start laying. I don't know how much the whites will be. you could have them mailed to you.


This is the email I received from her and I will get the rest of the info if you are interested. My friend does have lavendar and they are 8-10 for 4 week olds that are already sexed.


My Lavendar orp chicks are $8 each, minimum of ten if I have to ship them so they stay warm, $15 for a box & heat pack, and then whatever the shipping is to you.


I like to have a deposit of half of the chick cost about 4 weeks ahead of time, and then, the balance the day of hatch. That way, if I can't send you chicks, I will refund you the deposit and it won't be such a large sum. If the buyer backs out, the deposit is forfeited, and its not so much either.



If you decide you want chicks, and I have enough white chicks to sell, I could do that, or do you already have white?



Either way, let me know...

 

[KDailey]

So there really hasn't been much goin on around here lately. Tootsie is eating up a storm and is putting on lots of weight. She was so skinny before but is doing great now. She's even learning to walk on a halter.

Ideal Poultry called this morning and asked if they could ship out my chicks today instead of next week. So it looks like I'll be preparing for 110 chicks to arrive Friday. Woohoo!

We're going to a chicken sale in Louisiana Friday evening to sell a few chickens and a pair of call ducks. Hopefully I'll get a little spare cash to go toward my crazy chick adventure.

 

[Roll farms]

I can't even think about chicks for a while yet....tooo cooooold.

But I'm getting 100 black australorp pullets as soon as it's warm enough. I'm tired of my buff orps, we change breeds every few years.

 

[KDailey]

I'm more of a bantam Cochin kinda person as well as bantam old English but there's just no market for those around here. Now laying hens on the other hand bring a pretty penny. I'm keeping my Cochins and OEGBs along with a few select favorites. This will be my first attemp at raising a large quantity of something for the sole purpose of re-selling them for a profit (hopefully). I've been crunching numbers and as long as I don't lose a bunch of chicks or have somethin crazy happen I should make a good profit. Enough to pay for their upkeep plus my pet chickens for a while.

Depending on how well this goes I might save the money I make from them and put it towards doing the same thing for next spring.

 

[Roll farms]

I used to hatch / raise 20+ different breeds. Our 'specialty' were blue Orpingtons...I once sold 6 eggs for $120 on eggbid.

I love the bantam cochins (and standards) and the d'Uccles and my DH was wild about his seramas. I had Japanese, Longtails, silkies, just a huge variety of all the things *I* thought were pretty / would sell well. We also had several varieties of pheasants, guins, peacocks in different colors, turkeys in about all types....

Then A) Bird Flu and B) Farm Stores opened up by us and C) Ethanol all three happened and I lost my local customers to the farm stores, the USPS started charging double to ship b/c of Bird Flu (and required special boxes for while that cost $$$), and local feed prices went up 66% due to everyone selling their corn to ethanol plants instead of the feed mills.

Soooo...now I have just a few silkies for pleasure, one pair of cochins for yard art, 15 or so guineas, and a bunch of boring old layers because that's what most of my remaining customers want. Oh, and my royal palm turkeys...I just got another trio of those. I keep selling them b/c they're not 'practical' but I do adore them.

Seriously, at one time we probably had 300 adult breeding birds....t'was awesome.

*sigh*

 

[77Herford]

Yeah, Corn prices have really gone up. Since the Ethanol boom in the midwest. I use to feed chipped corn and chicken feed but had to cut back to just feed pellets.

Banty Cochins are a nice size. I like the Buff Brahma banties, they are often very sweet and good mums.

 

[KDailey]

The little fluffy butts are here! A day early I might add so we were not prepared for them. We were planning on getting everything situated for them today because everytime I have ordered from Ideal they have always arrived on Friday. Not this time!

So I hauled my butt out of bed at 7:00 am and drove 20 minutes to pick them up and 20 minutes to get home, then checked everybody out and counted them. We had one extra rhode island red female but 2 cross beaks and 1 with what i think are some of her intestines on the outside. The "retards" as I lovingly call them, get to stay inside in the storage bin that I'm keeping my precious cochin chicks that I hatched out from LuckyPickens while the rest go in the enclosed coop with a bunch of sawdust and heat lamps. There's just way too many to even consider keeping in the house. The coop is insulated and we're putting up several heat lamps so it should be nice and toasty for the little rugrats.

There are 50 buff orpington pullets, 5 buff orpington males, 51 rhode island red pullets, 5 buff orpington males. The males have purple spots on their heads.