This time of year, brings with it the excitement of baby animals. Most of the feed and seed stores carry baby chicks. One store in particular, Tractor Supply Co., has its ever popular ‘’Chick Days” event that usually runs about a month before the and through Easter. The big galvanized oblong tubs are in a special section of the floor and serve as brooders with wood chips, waterers, feeders and chicks and ducklings under warming lights. Chick Days is the highlight of many customer’s visit to the store attracting much attention. Tony stops by the Tractor Supply in Ravenel, SC on his way home from work regularly and announces when the chicks are in the store. It doesn’t take long for him to see some breed of chicken or duck that he thinks will interest me and bring home a box with a few to add to our homestead.
Our local feed and store, G and G in Burton, SC sells chicks too. The store manager, Ms. Hazel has a variety of chicks in each year and we like to support our local store. We buy chicks from Ms. Hazel almost every year. In addition to buying from our local stores we also incubate eggs from our current flock and occasionally order from a hatchery. We have ordered from hatcheries a good distance from South Carolina but prefer to order from those closer to the Palmetto State. We’ve ordered from Bob’s Biddies in the neighboring state of Georgia and found them to be suppliers of very good, healthy birds.
Additions to the flock are sometimes for the interest in a new breed we don’t have, to find out how good an egg layer it is and what benefits to the homestead it offers. Often, we look to help sustain a heritage breed like the Dominique. The Dominique chicken is known as America’s first chicken breed. Of course, we also look for breeds that are good egg layers. The first flock we ever had was a mixture brown egg laying hens from Murray McMurray.
This chick season we bought a breed we’ve had before, the Black Sex Link, and Ameraucana. We also selected a few new breeds, to include the Brown Leghorn, and the ISA Brown. In November, we received a brood of Rhode Island Reds from our friend, Beverley Brown who is a Clemson Extension 4-H Agent and farmer. She has a small hatchery and is a licensed seller of eggs and chicks. The Rhode Island Reds are now five months old and just began laying. They are a great addition to the homestead and the egg production. Our egg customers are very pleased with the quality of our eggs and the rich flavor. We can assure them that our chickens are well cared for using sustainable means. They are allowed to roam around and forage and they receive healthy feed and vegetable and fruit bits and peelings and the occasion treat of meal worms as well. Those are the things that keep our flock healthy and happy!