Where to buy chicks??

Ideally I'd find a local breeder, but I am not finding the quality that I did 8 years ago.  

I want to start a new flock of about a dozen chickens, raising them from chicks.  Someone is offering to pay me to start them in the next month, but I have had mixed luck with store/hatchery chicks.  I spent an hour on Permies/Critters/Chickens and lots of advice on how to but nothing on WHERE to Start!

SO: Where did you get your best layers that are good foragers from?  =)

Briana Great wrote:Ideally I'd find a local breeder, but I am not finding the quality that I did 8 years ago.  

I want to start a new flock of about a dozen chickens, raising them from chicks.  Someone is offering to pay me to start them in the next month, but I have had mixed luck with store/hatchery chicks.  I spent an hour on Permies/Critters/Chickens and lots of advice on how to but nothing on WHERE to Start!

SO: Where did you get your best layers that are good foragers from?  =)

Up front, I'll say this.  My chickens are good foragers because I have them forage every day that is warm enough for them from the time they are 2 or 3 days old.  I also encourage it.  I throw small pieces of food in the area they will be in, pieces of worms, especially meal worms, small pieces of fruit, wild bird seed, anything I think they would like.  I think foraging is as much nurture as nature, excluding the obvious like hybrid meat chickens that don't even want to move.

With that out of the way, yes, local breeders that have chickens with traits you want are a good way to go, but I have had no problems with chicks I ordered from Murray McMurray hatchery.  I had had very few problems with chicks I got from Tractor Supply, but if I were in your position and wanted chicks right now, I would order from Murray McMurray.  They have a good selection, good prices, and I have gotten very healthy chickens from them that did well.

I have ordered from Murray last year and had very low survivability - the chicks were raised in spartan conditions and out of 15 only 3 survived. This year I tried Privett Hatchery with much larger breed selection - I had to order minimum 25, but lost only 3 - in less spartan conditions.

We have always bought from our local feed store because the feed store sold the breed we wanted.

My experience is that the best foragers, and most resistant to predation, are chicks that are raised by a broody hen.

Cristobal Cristo wrote:I have ordered from Murray last year and had very low survivability - the chicks were raised in spartan conditions and out of 15 only 3 survived. This year I tried Privett Hatchery with much larger breed selection - I had to order minimum 25, but lost only 3 - in less spartan conditions.

It may be because Murray McMurray is close to me, and Privett is close to you.  I've had nothing but good experience with Murray.  I've ordered 40 chicks from them I believe, in several different orders.

Joseph Lofthouse wrote:My experience is that the best foragers, and most resistant to predation, are chicks that are raised by a broody hen.

I agree.  But we have found that chickens who are raised by hens are NOT good at coming when called, and less friendly around my kids.  We have done both.  We don't have a rooster now, so need to buy chicks again and have decided to hand-raise these ones in a brooder.  

What are the negatives one has to worry about from a local feed/fleet store? Temperament and heartiness mostly?

I would not worry about anything. Local stores also get chickens from major hatcheries. I chose Privett, because I liked the selection they had and I like variety: for beauty and to see which breed is best fit to my environment.
I gave 9 chickens to my buff orpington (2 per night) and she raised them. The rest I raised in a box.
Chickens come and go, they can die, be eaten by predators (recently I lost 4 to a bobcat) and at the end it does not matter much what breeds you have and where you got them from. Just get what you like and see what happens. This is the best learning.

I've done the Feed store supplier, the mail order supplier (several different ones, they all have their good and bad points), and lucked into hen raised chicks (and a surprise gosling).
In my experience, the hen raised chicks had a lower survivability (one out of six), but are amazingly thrifty, good foragers, and skitterish. The brooder raised chicks are less stand-offish, but generally more feed/scatter feed oriented, instead of looking to the yard for food. It's a balance.

You just need to decide what your priorities are and go that way. Any chicks can be taught to be friendly, any chicks can be encouraged to scratch and forage. I have my personal favorite breeds, and experiences with hatcheries/stores, but that's not your question.

I would, in your place, just get whatever chicks I could (since it doesn't sound like breed is important), raise them in a brooder, and encourage them to forage from a very young age. They'll do better with "scratch time", anyway, and letting them try out their instincts to do Big Chicken things is never a bad idea.

I have had decent luck with Privett, but always seem to “lose” a few. I did get some ISA Browns from Tractor supply, which were hardy and great layers, and crossed them with a Rhode Island Red rooster that I adopted. I had barred rocks that I crossed with the other RI red rooster, and put eggs from both in an incubator and raised my own chicks. Took the best resulting rooster from each, and swapped in with the separated hens. Keeping back one new rooster, total alpha, nearly all white with a red head, to breed the best hens of the new group for more eggs in the incubator. “Growing your own” is fun, and allows you to select for traits and hardiness/acclimation to your specific area and conditions. A breeder might say this is the “wrong” approach, but it seems to be working for me just fine.

I don’t know where you are or if you worked something out but always watch Craigslist. My chickens are from a local hatchery in the Atlanta, GA area that I found via CL.

Whoh there! Glad I read the whole thread... for a second I thought you were asking another question lmao  I was gonna suggest Tractor Supply as another user did. Theoretical question: would baby chickens under a warming lamp be considered "hot chicks" ?  Any suggestions where to buy them? Asking for a friend.