So, you want to buy some chicks? Maybe some hatching eggs?
After spending a few days checking known hatchery sites and not finding availability in certain breeds or colors you want, you come to the conclusion that you want to order from a small family farm or from a breeder instead.
The birds will be better than hatchery birds, right?
But how do you find a legitimate source of good birds online?
In this age of e-commerce and crowd reviews coupled with the latest movement of self labeled homesteaders, micro farms, and hobby breeders, the possibilities for new stock are seemingly positive.
IF you can find an actual source, that is.
This farm on Facebook has beautiful pictures and great reviews!
A browser search gave you a breeders website that boasts a large selection of breeds and colors.
The breeding stock of these eggs on eBay look promising, and there's free shipping!
But are any of these options legitimate? How do you find a trustworthy purveyor of quality birds when the closest you can get is a picture on a screen?
In this article, we'll go step by step to learn how to identify red flags, green flags and what you can possibly do if you've found yourself chick-conned.
There is no one so easy to fool, as someone who thinks they're too smart to be fooled.
1. Contact Information and Physical Address.
1.a Contact Information
Look for the contact information, it should be easily visible, without digging or going through "contact portals". There should be:An email address.
A real phone number, preferably one with an area code that matches their physical address' region.
If a breeder, their name will often be listed, but not always.
Maybe social media links, depending on the individual farm.
If the contact information is hard to find, if it just takes you to a "live chat/chat with us" portal or non-existent, walk away.If it's a texting/call/cash app number, run.
1.b Physical Address
There should be a physical address listed, whether it's their office address or the farm itself.Copy and paste that address into a search engine.
The farm's website should come up in the results somewhere.
It should be somewhat rural, where, if the birds can't be on property, will likely be in driving distance.
Some major hatcheries have 'in town' offices, to help keep their birds bio-secure.
If you get a business complex in a downtown city, walk away.If there's no physical address listed, walk away.
2. NPIP Number
What is an NPIP Number? An NPIP Number indicates that the farm in question participates in the National Poultry Improvement Plan, a program that was initiated in the 1930s to reduce the spread of poultry disease through monitoring and to encourage healthy chicken keeping practices.
While an NPIP Number is not necessarily required for the shipment of eggs, it is required for live bird shipments.
It should be listed for all live shipments.
If the farm focuses in selling hatching eggs, they don't necessarily need one but having one does often indicate that they are taking their birds seriously.
You can look up the breeder by state on the NPIP site.
Having a NPIP Number doesn't necessarily mean quality birds, but should mean disease free birds.Not having a NPIP Number is not necessarily a bad thing, but if they claim to have one and are not willing to give out that number, walk away.
3. Photos of Stock
Right click and save pictures of advertised birds.
If you're on a social media site where right-clicking isn't possible, take a screen shot. There are several browsers that offer screen shot extensions to do this on a desktop or laptop.
Upload the picture to a reverse image search engine such as Google Image Search or Tineye (I prefer Tineye which dates the appearances) to validate whether or not they are using their own pictures of their own stock.
If the results come back that they are only from that website, that's great.Now, examine the birds for quality.
Quality birds are judged by the Standard of Perfection, which is set (in the U.S.A, anyway, other countries will have different standards) by the American Poultry Association.
You can find what the proper look for these birds from the Standard of Perfection handbook, or get a general idea by looking at breeders clubs websites, who often have pictures of champion birds.
Is the body type correct?
Correct comb type?
Eyes bright and interested?
Face and comb perky and healthy?
Are the legs, skin, beak and ear lobes the right color?
Are there supposed to be feathers on the legs?
If the pictures are found on other sites, what are the sites?
Other hatcheries/ breeders? Some farms get their stock from breeders, check to see if they say (i.e) "Cuckoo silkies out of Janey Lee Doe's lines " Stock image sites? That's not too unusual but not preferable. You need to see the current breeding stock. Good breeders of good birds know they have good birds and they are not going to be shy about using a camera. You'll still want to see current pictures of any supposed stock but bear in mind, that people take pictures of the best the have, if the birds look below average or unappealing, walk away. If all the pictures are all stock images or every picture is from a different source, walk away.4. Reviews
If you've spent anytime on the internet, you'll know that people love to review things.
Businesses, places, food, products...anything.
Anywhere they can toss their two cents into the opinion pool, they will.
We often rely heavily on those reviews to make purchasing decisions, and that's where some of the problems begin.
Many farms on social media and other review platforms have hundreds or even thousands of reviews. And yet...it's not always an accurate way to guage trustworthiness and quality.
As most people who have been on the internet awhile know, reviews can't only be bought but they can be BOT!
How do you find the reviews written by actual people who have done business with this farm?
First of all, you take the farm's name and plug it into your nearest search engine. You can also add the terms 'scam' , 'reviews' and/or 'fraud' to the end of the search term.
Many scammy places are good at managing bad reviews by burying them, but they can't control everything.
Independent scam checker sites, public review sites and even little ol' backyard chicken forums are great places to check.
If you're looking at hatching eggs on a selling platform, look for reviews that mention the packaging quality.
Were they wrapped securely that they arrived unbroken?
Does this seller ensure fertility?
Were they clean eggs?
Does the seller include a few extra eggs, if possible?
How does this seller handle refunds?
Are they snippy or aggressive to unsatisfied customers or are they pleasant and professional?
Most of the time, you only see reviews of the eggs, sometimes the hatch rate and babies. But you rarely see a follow up on the adult birds, dig around a little and look for return customers leaving reviews for previous orders. If they're back, that's a good sign
Keep in mind, that there are consumers that consider business practices that they don't understand or information they shouldn't have ignored (such as terms and conditions) to be a scam. Context is key when reading reviews.
Con. Fraud. Ruse. Dupe. To swindle (a victim) by first winning his or her confidence by overwhelming them with signs of legitimacy.
5. What else do they offer?
It's not unusual to see the same places that offer chicks and eggs, also provide of other small farm animals and/or products such as goats, rabbits, pigs, flower, fruit and veggie seeds/starts, preserves, old and new handicrafts, etc. However, if the website lists non-agricultural, or strange services such as:Cryptocurrencies/ or other financial services.
Illegal goods or services.
Perishable Foodstuffs that lacks source or detail.
Offers of larger (than a chicken) animals to be shipped to you. USPS is the only shipping method in the USA that allows for live animals, and those are limited to day old poultry and waterfowl, adult poultry and waterfowl, harmless reptiles, honeybees and bugs.
Other methods of shipping animals require a person to chaperone or are pretty pricey and involved.
6. Selection
Mainstream hatcheries, (which most are family owned businesses) with all their resources, can't carry every variety of bird, so consider that a small farm/breeder with much less resources can't either.
If they advertise to carry more distinct species/breeds/varieties than seems reasonable, be wary. Especially if some of the birds require a permit or license in most places. (I.e) Certain types of pheasants, quail, and waterfowl. Small farms and especially good breeders like to focus on quality, I would consider a handful of breeds in a few approved and experimental varieties to be more realistic.Barnyard mix is very realistic for many small farms.
While it's entirely possible that they do actually have all the listed breeds and varieties, the quality of birds may be less desirable because they're spreading themselves too far. Or they also could be dropshipping at best, lying at worst. If they offer only the "rarest" and most "exotic" species/breeds but provide no other details than surface information, walk away.7. Prices
Prices per chick or egg should be clearly listed on each breed page and shipping should be a predetermined flat fee.I've seen prices for chicks up to $70. EACH! UNSEXED! Now what kind of bird can command that price?
A truly rare breed or color, high quality stock, decades of selective breeding....or a slick salesman pulling a fast one.
Shop around, see if you can find a few breeders that also are working with the breed, see what prices they ask.
Prices of common breeds and non-show quality birds should be reasonable. Generally, not much more than twice a hatchery charges. Prices of truly rare breeds, high quality birds or project colors are generally 3 to 5 times hatchery price.If no hatchery has the breed or variety in question, try to find a breeders club of the breed and ask them.
If the prices seem too cheap, walk away. If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.8. Method of Payment
Any payment method should offer fraud protection, such as major credit cards, PayPal-Goods and Services (not, Friends and Family) and some debit cards. Money Order Some older/old-school breeders still prefer money orders. Take note, everything else should check out on the legitimacy before proceeding. If there's any other yellow or red flags, walk away. There is no fraud protection for money orders, however, if you figure out it's a scam while the money order is in the mail, you can stop payment on it.
Peer-to-Peer payment apps.P-2-P apps are intended for friends and family to send each other money, they are not meant for commercial use. If a transaction is flagged as commercial by one of these services, they can ban you, hold your funds or even fine you for misuse of platform.
Most p-2-p apps have limited fraud support, and you need to report fraud within a small window of time, much smaller than it will take for most people to realize you've been scammed.
CryptocurrenciesMany cryptocurrencies don't offer fraud protection. If this is an preferred method of pay by the farm, walk away.
PayPal - Friends and FamilyFunds sent through the Friends and Family offers ZERO fraud protection.
Walk away.
Wire TransferWire Transfers are generally irreversible and not recommended for businesses or individuals you don't know.
Gift CardsGift cards are a very popular method of pay by scammers, some gift card issuers may help with fraud but its not common.
"Sign in to pay with Amazon/google/apple" etc.Now, you can buy hatching eggs on Amazon, but a site that's supposedly a small family farm isn't going to have that payment option on their website. It's likely not a real sign in and is an attempt to get your personal information.
9. Grammar, Writing and provided Information
Does it make grammatical sense? Is it factually correct? Is there detail?
With the new A.I generated writing tools, writing can now be a breeze!
But also with a.i, there's often a breakdown of facts, because a.i works by compiling information from across the internet, unfortunately, for better or worse.
If there there's obvious misinformation, it could be someone just repeating something they heard or read somewhere or a.i. generated text.
If it's the former, I would hope that some who claims to be a breeder knows their animal well enough to dismiss or confirm a supposed trait.
If it's the latter, it's either for convenience or they don't care how the birds are presented because there is likely no birds.
People who know about their birds, are going to use that knowledge when writing about them.
If grammar is off, spelling leaves much to be desired and information is vague at best, walk away.If it sounds like the words 'chicken' has been used to replace another product, walk away." this *chicken* will be such a benefit to your life, you'll be surprised on how well a *chicken* can add curb appeal and value to your backyard. "
10. Drop Shippers.
What are Drop Shippers?
Drop Shippers are middlemen for products, they have no on-hand inventory, but offer a catalog of products that they order from suppliers that ship to you directly.
This isn't necessarily a bad thing, a few mainstream hatcheries do this for species they don't carry. A well known pet chicken website operates on this principle, they order from a few different hatcheries to offer better selection and simplicity to customers.
As long as they make it clear that the birds aren't coming from them directly, I wouldn't be concerned. Phrases like "our hatchery partners", "we supply from national hatcheries" etc. They should also be open on which hatcheries they use, if not on the website, they should be happy to tell you if you contact them.You may be able to go a step further and contact those hatcheries to ask whether or not that's a legitimate site.
Most hatcheries are on the ball with maintaining customer relations and business partners, if they aren't familiar with the site, walk away.
If there's no mention of where the birds come and they won't disclose it, walk away. There's no good reason to withhold that information. If they offer pick up, there should be an office of some sort, or a gate side pick up. The pick up area should be separated from the birds area to prevent contact. If they only sell hatching eggs:If they offer 'tours' of their farm, or are 'open to the public', use caution.
Poultry disease can be spread on the wind through dander, fecal matter and other biohazard. If the birds are penned away from contact, be wary.
If the public can stroll through the pens or 'pick their own birds', walk away.11. The Website Itself
Now, some people aren't good at the "online part" of business, and that's fine. But you should be able to tell there was an attempt at making it right, even if it's ancient and running, by some miracle, on Flashplayer.
A lot of older breeders that have been breeding awhile, may not have the greatest website. As long as the pictures and information is updated regularly, just use caution. Most long standing breeders are known by other breeders and judges. Long term breeders also usually have a well earned show record that should appear in other places, such as news articles and breeder club sites that you can use to verify identity, quality and legitimacy.
However, the site itself should:Be easy to navigate, with the essential contact and address info.
Breeds should be correctly labeled and spelled correctly.
Information on breeds should be correct and detailed.
Prices for birds and shipping should be easy to find and predetermined, with no surprises or extra fees at order.
Low quality photos and graphics, odd, confusing layouts, inaccurate information and poor page layout can be warning signs of a scam.12. What to do if you've been scammed.
Now technically, I can't give you legal advice, not being a lawyer. But I can get you on the right track to getting into contact with the places that will help you hopefully get your money back.
The first thing to do is contact your financial institution and/or the method of payment for help.
They have the expertise to help and can often find the best course of action to take.
If the farm claims to be apart of NPIP or another similar group, you can report it to them.
You can also report the "farm" to various agencies such as the Federal Trade Commission, Internet Crimes Complaint Center, USPS (if using the post office), the FBI, etc.
If the "farm/breeder" is threatening you with physical harm, keep all evidence and contact your local law enforcement to make a report.
https://consumer.ftc.gov/consumer-alerts/2025/03/what-are-signs-scam
https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/
https://consumer.gov/scams-identity-theft/if-you-were-scammed
https://www.usa.gov/where-report-scams
https://www.ic3.gov/
https://www.justice.gov/archives/jm...l-940-18-usc-section-1341-elements-mail-fraud
https://consumer.ftc.gov/articles/what-do-if-you-were-scammed#Paid
https://www.uspis.gov/report
https://www.fbi.gov
Good Hunting!
