Sunday, October 25, 2009

Buyer beware!

Just a quick post about the "buyer beware" part of an auction. I remember the woman who sold me Lucy and Melda, saying bird auctions were a lot of fun but there was a lot "buyer beware" on the buyers part. Some people are honest and there are good deals but I also found that it seemed to be a dumping ground for unwanted roosters. It was not so bad when people labeled their boxes as roosters, the thing that bothered me is the tricks some crafty chicken people try to play on buyers. Example, a box labeled breeding pair of chickens. It may have been a rare breed that people are looking for with a beautiful rooster and hen or pullet. However what the box really contained was an older rooster with a young rooster, making the young one look like a hen. I was stung twice, one box was labeled three pullets but when I took them out of the box, there was only actually one hen, in my excitement of buying I did not check closely. The roosters it turns out, have a slight colour pattern that the hens do not, so this was no accident. Also in my box of one rooster with two hens, turned out to be one hen, one rooster and one young rooster of mixed breeding, giving at first glance the look of a hen. I could tell in a few minutes of letting him out of the box that he was a rooster. Again I feel that this was done on purpose. I know some boxes of pullets went sky high in price, so I can't help wondering (and feeling bad) for those buyers when they open their boxes and realize that there rare pullets, are actually roosters made to look like pullets.

There was also a trick of putting an old hen in with young pullets, still I would not be as upset with buying an older hen than being stuck with an extra rooster or three. If you get the chance to go to an auction, then remember this warning.

This was the only thing that slightly ruined my first experience of an auction. I already had three roosters, I certainly did not want more. The 3 brothers have become aggressive with all the hens and that leaves me with no choice, especially they harass Gracie their own mother non stop and in doing so they have sealed their fate.


Another vid about my new chickens.

They are starting to be named. I will put of pictures with their names later. In the next vid you will see that Gracie and her family are not happy at all with the new comers, they do not mix in together at all, even after a week and you can hear their complaints to me about the "others".

Un-happy campers.

I'm in the process of buying more if I can get a good deal! ;)

4 comments:

John Going Gently said...

there are some bast*&rds around arn't there?
I have just returned a rooster to a guy who gave me an extra "hen".... but he took it back with good grace!!
interesting blog....

how many chickens have you got now steve?

Chicken Boys said...

I was going to take some roosters to auction just to get rid of them. No tricks. I was certainly going to label them as such. But I, too, have too many roosters. I have six silkie roosters and only two hens. Plus, I have some other roosters that Mike wanted to keep for breeding. But they, too need to go.

nobody-but-us-chickens said...

John: yes some people are always up to no good! There was no reason for it either becuse there were people there looking to buy roosters. A lot of roosters went for a good price, some were looking for breeders and some were looking for fresh chicken to add to their soup. I guess by saying they were hens, the rotten people felt they could get a better deal.
At the moment on the farm I have 17 in total and 4 hens at Dan's place. Chico and two of the girls belong to Dan.

CBoys: I see no problem with labeling the box roosters, I was even watchhing for some young roosters like a RRed or leghorn to mate with the girls. It was just the cheating on purpose that got me. Some people labeled boxes of young chickens as "unsure of sex" and I thought at least that was honest, a person had the choice of taking the risk or not.

WhatIfWeAllCared? said...

Such beautiful birds! Can't wait till I can get our coop built, finish stocking supplies and buy our first chickens!
Thank you for the videos~ I needed that.