Local Purchasing Archives

Sources of Baby Chicks

Joseph Gendreau2021-11-15T22:54:25-08:00

From a disease, welfare and husbandry perspective, the best place you can source your fertilized eggs or baby chicks from is a farm or hatchery that is part of the National Poultry Improvement Program (NPIP). To be NPIP certified as a hatchery means that the birds on the farm are tested for various diseases possibly including Salmonella (it depends on which level of NPIP certification the farm/hatchery has) which can cause your eggs to be contaminated with a foodborne pathogen (aka it can get you sick). From a poultry health perspective NPIP requires testing for various other infectious diseases that

Don’t Wing It: All You Need To Know About Stocking Reliably

2020-09-22T10:23:00-07:00

Sunshine is here again! The threat of Virulent Newcastle Disease has been banished for now, so some of you may be thinking about welcoming chicks into your homes again. But where should you go to get chickens? Are all hatcheries the same? We’ll give you the inside s-coop here. Not all hatcheries are created equal While all fluffy chicks look adorable, they may not all be healthy and safe to bring home. For this reason, only purchase chicks from reputable sources. But not to worry! If a hatchery or other seller is a member of the National Poultry Improvement