Posted on 03/29/2020 7:10:10 AM PDT by Rebelbase
For chicken hatcheries, the weeks leading up to Easter are always the busiest. Spring is in the air for people shaking off long winters spent watching Netflix under a blanket who had hoped to emerge into a world of budding flowers, green grass and baby animals.
While spring might be calling people to congregate outside, health authorities are saying the opposite. Many schools and businesses are closed, and states and cities are implementing “shelter in place” orders to keep cases of the new coronavirus from skyrocketing.
The combination of an enormous rise in unemployment, anxious free time for those not struggling with illness, and financial instability has created a number of strange moments in economics. Here’s another: For the next few weeks, baby chickens are next to impossible to find.
Apparently when times are tough, people want chickens. Chick sales go up during stock market downturns and in presidential election years.
Murray McMurray Hatchery, of Webster City, Iowa, ships day-old poultry through the Postal Service, and is almost completely sold out of chicks for the next four weeks.
“People are panic-buying chickens like they did toilet paper,” said Tom Watkins, the vice president of the company.
Down at your Tractor Supply Company, a national chain of farm stores, long lines snake out the door into the parking lot before the store opens on the morning of a chick delivery. Many feed stores report they are selling out of chicks almost as fast as they can get new orders in.
Some of these buyers are simply replenishing their flocks, having put in orders weeks or months ago. But many people who have bought chicks in the last week are first-timers.
(Excerpt) Read more at dnyuz.com ...
Unngh.
I am Spartacus.
A friend back in my hometown who raises chickens has said the same thing. Lines out the door at where she buys her chicks and supplies. She’s well aware of what it takes to raise and care for them. She’s also taught her kids how to do it.
I think people trying to get into this are afraid of running out of food, and they think it’s easy to raise chickens. They are utterly clueless.
Buy nuggets from Mcd’s!
Dont need heat.
Dont need to feed em.
They dont poop.
Dont have to wait for them to grow up.
They’ll never die.
Will last for weeks in their protective oil-soaked breaded armour.
Did people line up to buy dairy cattle?
One of my neighbors made a little McMansion chicken coop. Apparently it was a selling point for his house.
This story reminds me of people panic buying guns during this virus issue.
They don’t know what they are doing with chickens and guns.
Preppingh should be done months and years before a disaster occurs.
At my local Meijer, they sold out all their chicken products before the beef.........Probably because it was cheeper.......
I’m reminded of an old Soviet Union joke.... “Send a soil sample!”
I tried raising chicks once. Didn’t have much luck. I think I was planting them too deep.
Booooo.... lol
Completely coincidentally I bought 5 baby chicks by mail On Feb 19th, to replenish my coop. Guess I was lucky to beat the rush.
Very sad if people are killing them not realizing how to care for them (heat source).
“Did people line up to buy dairy cattle?”
I had mine shipped through the Postal Service. Now the mailman lady scowls at me. ; )
I’m reminded of an old Soviet Union joke...
= = = = = =
Guy leaves work in the Tundra and pushing a wheelbarrow and the new Gate Guard checks it.
Everyday for 25 years, the same routine and each night the guard goes over the wheelbarrow for contraband.
FINALLY guy retires and has a big celebration and leaves the compound and the gate guard says.
“COMRADE, I have checked you out 100 ways from Sunday and for the life of me, I can’t figure out what you are stealing. Please, other than that I have been nice to you, please, let me sleep at night, I won’t tell anyone!! What had you been stealing”?
“Wheelbarrows Comrade, Wheelbarrows”
It’s hard to find a good hen supervisor these days.
Cute little pink and green Easter chicks grow up and they aren’t so cute anymore. Neither is their care. I raised chickens, 100+ at a time, for high school ag class. N e v e r again.
OTOH, our cats would like it if we did furnish them with chickens.
I would love to have 2 chickens in my back yard (it’s legal here). But I know I would kill them within a month or two. Just from the textbooks I own, it doesn’t appear easy to me. My rural neighbors tell me different but they grew up with them.
:-)
Buy nuggets from Mcd’s!
= = = = = = =
Don’t they fall in line with hot dogs and sausage?
No matter how ‘good’ you may think they are you really don’t want to see them made.
Also, at an early age ‘back in the day’ one learns, NUGGETS from any animal weren’t meant to be consumed by humans.
(Think Schiff)
Yep. People can be so stupid. A few years back, I thought about getting some laying hens. Then, I did a little online research and decided it was too much for our lifestyle.
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