Swap Meet Chickens

[Geckolady]

I need to start out by explaining that I am as newbie as a newbie can get when it comes to chickens. Somebody gave me some fertile eggs yesterday and I came here in a panic to learn how to care for them. I am planning to get a flock and have everything set up except the run and feed. Anyway....

Yesterday I went to a swap meet. Somebody had about a half dozen live chickens for sale. All if them were basically brown with long thin feathers. None of them looked happy. One was plucked all the way around the neck, one had missing feathers on a wing, and so on. I felt badly for the poor birds and wanted to improve their lives, but was wondering if swap meets are an OK place to get birds for a first, starter flock. What would cause this sort of damage? Illness? Chicken yard bullying? Any thoughts?

I'll check this thread after I get back from church, and thank you for your advice.

 

[sourland]

The birds you saw may very well have been 'spent' laying hens that have been kept in close confinement their entire lives. Noble to save them, but can be fraught with problems and few rewards in the form of eggs. Swap meet birds if in apparent good feather and health can be a good buy, but there is always the chance of introducing disease to your flock. Starting with chicks or adult birds from a breeder/fancier is generally a better way especially for a newcomer to the fancy. Good luck with the incubation. Have plans for the cockerels.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Hi, welcome to the forum. Glad you joined.

Not sure where you are located but I'll guess you are in the USA. This time of the year north of the equator that feather loss can easily be molting. They can look pretty rough when they are molting but it doesn't mean they are in bad health. Without looking at them that is my guess.

I agree with Sour, those are probably spent hens. The older a hen gets the fewer eggs she lays after her first couple of laying seasons. With it being half a dozen it sounds like someone was keeping hens for eggs and when they quit laying and started molting they decided to sell them, probably starting over with new chicks or Point Of Lay (POL) pullets. That's really common this time of the year. Somebody will probably buy them to use for soup. You'll get some eggs after they finish the molt but you may be disappointed in how many.

If you have the experience to know what you are seeing you can get some good chickens at swaps and auctions. Maybe even POL pullets or chicks. But it is a place you can be taken advantage of.

One of the big disadvantages of swaps and auctions is that you take a chance with biosecurity. Chickens can get diseases and parasites. If you get a bunch together from different backgrounds like at a swap or auction it's pretty easy to pass them around. Plenty of people get chickens from swaps and auctions and don't have big issues. Most of the issues they have when they do is something like mites or lice. Those are certainly an inconvenience but not life-threatening if you deal with it. But it is possible you could bring something pretty nasty home.

My main suggestion is to try hatching those eggs and see how it goes. That's not a bad way to start. You never know how many will hatch and what sex they will be, be prepared for some issues. And get that run finished. They grow mighty fast.

You can try finding your state, country, or regional thread (depending on where you are in the world) in the "Where am I? Where are you!" section of this forum. Or start a thread looking for neighbors. Put your location in the title and maybe you'll find a neighbor that can help you out, either with local knowledge or maybe even with chickens.

One issue if you bring in older chickens than the ones you are hatching is that you have to go through an integration. Sometimes you can just throw chickens together and they get along but often they can be brutally dangerous to each other, especially with much of an age difference. You may find a neighbor with chicks the same age as the ones you are hatching and put them in the brooder together, should work great as long as they are really young, but otherwise I'd suggest you hold off integrating until you get some more experience with chickens.

 

[Geckolady]

I'm on some acreage in rural east central Arizona, and met another person from AZ on a thread yesterday, so that's a start.

Thank you for all that information. I wasn't aware that hens don't lay as much when they get older, and am glad you told me about molting before I get to see it in person. Those chickens didn't look too clean yesterday, so I thought twice about getting one. Not just because of the dirt, but because that might be a clue as to how they were cared for.

I got a DVD on chicken care and will probably watch that today. You're right, I need to concentrate on taking care of the eggs in the incubator and learn what I can before doing anything else. Yesterday I read that chicken eggs take 21 days to hatch, so if the ones in the incubator are unhatched a month from now, it's probably safe to assume they're not going to hatch. One egg is definitely further along than the others, so there might be an integration issue later, but right now that's all just speculation. Thanks again.

 

[aart]

Glad you passed n the swap meet birds...as Sour said, rife with possible heartbreak.

I got a DVD on chicken care and will probably watch that today. You're right, I need to concentrate on taking care of the eggs in the incubator and learn what I can before doing anything else.

Keep in mind, the DVD may be good info or not.
Do a lot of reading here and ask questions too.

met another person from AZ on a thread yesterday,

That's good!
First hand advice form someone with experience in your climate is priceless.


Welcome to BYC! @Geckolady
Here's how to add your general geographical location to your profile.
It's easy to do, and then it's always there!

 

[Folly's place]

Welcome!
I hope your eggs do well, and you get some nice chicks, and few cockerels. Start thinking about what you will do with cockerels, do some reading about them too.
I'm very paranoid about biosecurity, and would never bring birds home from a swap or auction. in fact, only birds hatched here, or chicks from very safe sources, ever come here.
Also, keep your 'barn shoes' and other chicken realted items at home, and if you are visiting a chicken show, someone else's flock, or wherever, plan to wash everything, shoes on up, when you get home, before going to your coop or birds. It can matter a lot!
Post pictures of your coop, brooder, and those chicks when they are cute and fluffy!
Mary

 

[NatJ]

Swap meet birds if in apparent good feather and health can be a good buy, but there is always the chance of introducing disease to your flock. Starting with chicks or adult birds from a breeder/fancier is generally a better way especially for a newcomer to the fancy.

I also recommend hatcheries as a source of chicks for newcomers.

If you want to win prizes in a chicken show, hatcheries are not a good choice. But if you want pretty, healthy birds that lay well and are good pets, then hatcheries are often a fine source. (It's common for their chickens to be a bit too small or too large, or have the wrong comb type or the wrong leg color or slightly wrong feather color, when compared with what is required for a show. These things have no effect on egg production or ability to be a pet.)

Chicks bought from a feed store can also be good, but they are more likely to be the wrong breed or sex. We've seen lots of threads this year about chicks that were mis-identified in the store. (One yellow chick looks a lot like another yellow chick, so it's easy for them to get mixed up. And they do not have bar codes to scan and sort them out again!) The chicks themselves are typically healthy chickens, just not kind that was expected.

I think it would be better to finish the coop and run, and get your fertile eggs hatched, before getting more chickens. It is easy to get lots of chicks while they are so little and cute, and then find that you have too many in just a few months when they get a lot bigger.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

I wish I had swaps near me

I agree that they're probably molting or are spent hens. They could also have been in with roosters too, which sometimes make them look evennworse than normal

 

[Folly's place]

We order hatchery chicks, and sometime buy chicks at the feed store too. It's best to have some idea what chicks of different breeds look like if buying at a feed store, because they are notorious for mislabeling them in the bins.
Henderson's breed chart and feathersite are great places to get a start at picking breeds, and the catalogs too.
Mary

 

[MysteryChicken]

I got a couple really healthy 10 week old Pullets from an Animal Swap last year, & introduced them to their coop the same day I got them. (NOT Recommended) the good thing was they didn't get any of my birds sick, or have parasites. I did monitor everyone together though.