Poultry auctions. What to expect

Poultry auctions can be a great place to buy new chickens or to sell a few chicks. They can also be intimidating if you're not sure what to expect at a poultry auction. I've been to quite a few poultry and livestock auctions and since we've already discussed what to expect at a poultry swap, I thought I should tell you what to expect when you buy or sell at a livestock auction.

If you've ever been to any type of live auction then you'll have a good idea how a poultry auction is run. Most auctions are run in a similar manner, though adding cages of chickens to the mix can get a bit confusing. Not to mention smelly!

Poultry auction: What to expect

Registration: When you get to the auction you'll need to register. They'll ask for your identification and you'll fill out a form with your information. You'll be assigned a buyer or seller number. Some places use the same number for both. 

The auction I go to has only required me to register once and my number has been good for the last 6 years. Other auctions ask you to register each time, so check to see how your auction does things.

How to ship hatching eggs (the right way)

I have bought a lot of hatching eggs online. In fact, I started this chicken adventure with shipped hatching eggs! Every time I opened a new package of shipped eggs was like a little surprise. It seemed like everyone had a different method for packing and sending eggs through the mail.

Sadly not all of them worked!

With all the boxes and boxes of shipped eggs I received, only 1 box was crushed but luckily the contents were just fine.

I started comparing the different styles of packaging for shipping eggs and found the similarities in the boxes with the broken eggs and the boxes that all the eggs were intact.

From there I figured out exactly how to ship hatching eggs with great results.

First though, I want to tell you what didn't work. Not enough padding was the main reason hatching eggs arrived cracked.
 
If there was any movement inside the package, the movement could cause the eggs to bang against the sides of the box or each other, and crack.

Not securing the eggs was another problem. Many time I received a box with well wrapped eggs just floating around inside a box of packing materials.

Flimsy packing materials was another problem. Wrapping eggs in paper towels is great for absorbing the mess when they inevitably crack, but not so good for actually providing some padding.

Selling fresh eggs

If you've had chickens for any length of time then you know their egg production has peaks and valleys. While some of those low times can make you feel like you'll never get another fresh egg again, the high production times can leave with with more eggs then you've ever seen before!

When your chickens are laying like crazy, you might have considered selling eggs from your hens. While it may seem as simple as putting them in a carton and exchanging them for money, it's usually much more complex. 

It can depend on where you live and how many chickens you have. In some states you need to wash and refrigerate the eggs and in others washing and refrigeration is strictly forbidden! 

There are even more requirements about packaging and handling fresh chicken eggs. Plus, what about taxes? It's a mess quite frankly, but how do you figure it all out?

How to sell fresh chicken eggs

Before you start selling fresh chicken eggs, you'll want to look into all the rules and regulations to make sure you're not setting yourself up for legal trouble! 

How I make $1,000 a month from 15 chickens!

Chickens can be expensive. Even if you don't count the coop, the feed and bedding are monthly expenses that add up a lot! I decided a long time ago to have a no freeloaders policy and I make all my chickens earn their keep. I've tried many different ways to make money from my chickens but the most profitable way just fell into my lap!

When I started raising chickens, I decided to hatch the chicks from eggs I ordered from a breeder. When word got out that I had hatched chicks, I started getting calls from people who wanted to buy my chicks. As soon as my chickens were full grown, I hatched their eggs!

The calls kept coming and I kept hatching. Over the years I've had as many as 90 chickens and as few as six. I've realized that by setting things up the right way I can make up to $1,000 a month on as few as 15 chickens.

Of course you could sell eating eggs, feathers and even chicken poop to make money from your chickens. I'm not knocking that at all, because it is a good way to make extra money. In my opinion though, the best way to make money off chickens....is by breeding chickens for profit.

Now, I'm sure you thought of that. In fact I'm pretty sure you're sitting there now saying "well yeah, but I can't make $1,000 selling chicks!" I promise you though, that you can do it. You just have to follow the money.

Keeping your flock disease free at a swap

Due to the recent spread of Avian Influenza (H5N2) I have decided to rewrite this post. Because AI is spread through close contact with infected birds many poultry shows have been cancelled this season, some for the year. Here in Pennsylvania the shows have all been cancelled for the rest of the year because of the very real threat of bird flu. 

Poultry swaps though are a smaller scale and there has been no official word on them as of yet. If you go to a poultry swap, auction or show you probably know about practicing good biosecurity. But did you know that you should be doing the same things if you go to the feed or farm store? 

When you think about it, if someone has an infected flock and drives off their property they carry the disease with them. It's on their shoes, tires and possibly their hands. When they drive onto the parking lot, walk into the store, touch the cart etc etc...they can be spreading the disease. 

Then you come along and drive onto the lot, walk into the store, grab a cart etc etc. You could very well be picking up that disease and taking it home with you! Normally I'm not all fanatical about this but with the recent outbreaks of Avian Influenza you just can't be too careful! Simply washing your hands and rinsing off your shoes and tires can prevent the spread of any bacteria they may have picked up.

Here are the steps I take whenever I attend a poultry swap or show. These are steps that I believe we should all be following to keep our flocks safe. These are 'rules' that I've came up with and stuck to for the last 13 years and they've worked so far....knock wood! lol

What to expect at a chicken swap (you might be surprised!)

By now you must have seen the signs: "Chicken swap this weekend" is what they usually say. They've been popping up all over the country, more so in part by Tractor Supply Company's and other feed stores willingness to host such swaps in their parking lots. Some auctions even host chicken swaps. 

The name can be deceiving though. After all, if you swap something with someone that indicates a trade. To swap one item for another is sorta like replacing it....ie: I swapped the dahlias for roses. I think this puts a lot of people off, so I'd like to explain exactly what a poultry swap meet is.

Selling a broodys chicks (without giving her a nervous breakdown!)

Being broody is contagious. Seriously....it's like the flu. Once one hen catches it, they all catch it! Ok, so maybe that's not entirely true but it sure seems like it. Letting your hens hatch their own chicks certainly is the most cost effective (and least labor intensive) way to expand your own flock. It's much easier to care for a broody hen than a whole brooder full of chicks!

However, it always seems like one hen goes broody and what starts as "oh good, we'll have chicks this year" quickly turns into 4 hens broody and "what the heck am I gonna do with all these chicks?"

First, if broody hens have overrun your nest boxes you can check out how we beat that crunch for free right here: Free nest boxes. Next, you're probably going to want to sell some of those chicks. If you've ever tried to take a hen away from her babies you know what a huge fit a little bird can pitch! Squawking, hollering, pacing, frantically searching and just generally breaking my heart! awwww. 

Sometimes it doesn't even end there though. Take her chicks away too soon after hatch and they often go right back in the nest box and try to hatch chicks again. It's a hormonal thing and if they don't raise the chicks long enough...the hormones just don't have time to 'reset' and they still have that need for babies. This can be a vicious cycle. Especially for the perpetually broody silkie hen.

Unfortunately we run things around here like a business and I can't always do what the hen wants. I came up with a simple solution. Never EVER take her last baby! I will sell her chicks off one by one (or sometimes faster) but never EVER sell that last baby! Eventually it outgrows her and when she's ignoring it, I move it down to the grow out pen. Then it can sell. 

If for some reason I want to keep a certain color or breed, I will either give her an egg or 2 to hatch or slip the chick under her on hatch day. That way there's no worries at all, she's already raising a keeper. I often give my Silkie hens some Guinea keets to hatch, they just grow up so much tamer....and since that baby is destined to live here, I don't have to worry about taking her last baby. 

Sometimes they do still get upset when I take a few babies, but they calm down a whole lot faster when they have some kids left to watch over. It stresses the hen less and stresses me less knowing she'll calm down quickly.

~L

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Surprise babies! What do I do with extra chicks?

Well of course I couldn't wrap up hatching season when 'I' wanted to! Zippy, my adorable black Silkie hen, decided that there was time for one more hatch. I guess I hadn't paid real close attention to if their were eggs underneath her. She's a great broody so I didn't think about it at all in fact.

Maybe I should have looked closer though because all the sudden I heard baby peeping today! The first chick out was a blue Marans.

First, let me explain Marans genetics to you real quick: I have splash hens and a black copper roo....when they mate you get blue! I don't have any blue silkies. So there is no doubt in my mind, That is NOT from one of Zippy's egg!