Question about logistics of buying birds at New York State (or other state) fair

[rolohman]

Good morning from upstate New York!

My family has been going to the New York State fair in Syracuse ever since the kids were babies, and are looking forward to heading there in a couple weeks. It's only a 1.5 hour drive for us. We are wanna-be poultry owners, and are building a coop+run right now. In the past, we've seen signs advertising that the birds are for sale, but don't really know how that works and would like to plan for it in terms of knowing how many trips we'd have to take, which days we needed to bring bird transport with us, etc. Does anyone know how that works? I.e., do you have to return at the end of the fair to pick them up, or can you take them home with you on the same day? We are particularly interested in getting pigeons there, since it's hard to find them where we are. But two round trips of 3 hours is a lot of driving. We'd probably go as early as possible to get the best selection - the fair is about 2 weeks long.

Thanks in advance for any experiences you can share about the NYS or other similar fairs!

Note - we have a source for some fun chickens in our next door neighbor - this is mainly for getting a pair of pigeons (that would have separate quarters). Pigeons are much harder to find!

 

[Debbie292d]

Good morning from upstate New York!

My family has been going to the New York State fair in Syracuse ever since the kids were babies, and are looking forward to heading there in a couple weeks. It's only a 1.5 hour drive for us. We are wanna-be poultry owners, and are building a coop+run right now. In the past, we've seen signs advertising that the birds are for sale, but don't really know how that works and would like to plan for it in terms of knowing how many trips we'd have to take, which days we needed to bring bird transport with us, etc. Does anyone know how that works? I.e., do you have to return at the end of the fair to pick them up, or can you take them home with you on the same day? We are particularly interested in getting pigeons there, since it's hard to find them where we are. But two round trips of 3 hours is a lot of driving. We'd probably go as early as possible to get the best selection - the fair is about 2 weeks long.

Thanks in advance for any experiences you can share about the NYS or other similar fairs!

Note - we have a source for some fun chickens in our next door neighbor - this is mainly for getting a pair of pigeons (that would have separate quarters). Pigeons are much harder to find!

I'm probably way too late, but we go one hour one way and one hour another for chicks. One's a swap, and the other is a private breeder. Whilst both have their own boxes with ventilation in them, we always bring our own small dog kennel for transport. We bring along hand warmers in case they get chilled, a roll of paper towels, bottled water, nipple water bottle, a sandwich bag with starter feed in it, and a small glass dish to make mash in.

Most places will have a box to put them in, but that's about it. It's good to be prepared.

 

[Electric Chickens]

Good morning from upstate New York!

My family has been going to the New York State fair in Syracuse ever since the kids were babies, and are looking forward to heading there in a couple weeks. It's only a 1.5 hour drive for us. We are wanna-be poultry owners, and are building a coop+run right now. In the past, we've seen signs advertising that the birds are for sale, but don't really know how that works and would like to plan for it in terms of knowing how many trips we'd have to take, which days we needed to bring bird transport with us, etc. Does anyone know how that works? I.e., do you have to return at the end of the fair to pick them up, or can you take them home with you on the same day? We are particularly interested in getting pigeons there, since it's hard to find them where we are. But two round trips of 3 hours is a lot of driving. We'd probably go as early as possible to get the best selection - the fair is about 2 weeks long.

Thanks in advance for any experiences you can share about the NYS or other similar fairs!

Note - we have a source for some fun chickens in our next door neighbor - this is mainly for getting a pair of pigeons (that would have separate quarters). Pigeons are much harder to find!

Thanks for asking such a great question. I hope to see more replies. I don't know the first thing about buying chickens at the fair but I need a couple more hens to replace the accidental roos.

 

[rolohman]

Thank you for reminding me to update! I don’t have 100% of the info, but here’s what we saw. Both in chickens and pigeons there were between 3-10 cages with birds and prices. They also said “see staff member”. That’s where we stopped- it was so busy that I wasn’t sure who to talk to, and we’d already gotten a great lead on a pigeon pair not too far from home.

One note is that there were also EMPTY cages with prices, which led me to believe that you could take the birds home right away. I may be wrong. I think these were birds that were not being shown, that were just there for sale. On the pigeon front they looked a little bedraggled.