09/01/2026
This! People are always asking why we ask so much for our birds! This is the reason why! People don’t know how much we invest into our birds the time, the supplies. If you don’t want quality birds then buy them from a hatchery! Frita stated this perfectly! ❤️
🐣 A Little Something to Think About When Shopping for Chicks… 🐔
I often hear people question or complain about the price of chicks and chickens when they’re looking to add new birds to their farm or backyard flock. I completely understand wanting to find a bargain — we all do! But I wanted to share a few things to think about the next time you see that $5 chick and wonder why a breeder’s price is higher.
This is today’s receipt from the feed store. This feed will last us approximately two weeks — unless I hatch a boatload of babies, and then we’ll be making another feed run much sooner! 😂
And this receipt doesn’t include:
🐔 Feed for our Seramas and Kiki Rikis
💊 Supplements we add to our feed, such as Flock Armor and The Healthier Chicken Supplement, which can add around $30 to a 50-lb bag of feed
🪹 Nesting pads
🐣 Puppy pads and other brooder supplies — another $40 from Tractor Supply today
🏡 Housing, coops, fencing, heat, electricity, bedding, waterers, feeders, incubators and all the other equipment required to raise healthy birds
And then there’s the biggest investment of all…
❤️ TIME.
Most coops of any decent size can easily cost $1,000 or more. We shop around, look for the best prices we can find, and modify or expand our setup as our budget allows. We’re constantly reinvesting into our birds and our farm.
So yes, you may be able to walk into a big-box store or order from a large hatchery and find a $5 chick.
But here’s what I want you to ask yourself:
👉 Do you know exactly what that chick will look like when it matures?
👉 Will it actually develop the breed characteristics you were expecting?
👉 Was it carefully selected and bred for those characteristics?
👉 How much individual attention did it receive?
👉 Can you contact the breeder later and ask questions about its genetics, growth or characteristics?
Sometimes that inexpensive chick turns out to be a bargain.
And sometimes… you get exactly what you paid for.
Please don’t send me or my fellow chicken friends pictures at 6 weeks or 6 months asking why your “Bantam Cochin” from “XYZ Store” doesn’t have feathered feet, doesn’t look like a Bantam Cochin, or isn’t developing the way you expected. 😬
There is a HUGE difference between simply selling a chick and raising, breeding and standing behind your birds.
I know our Cozy Cochins chicks may cost more than chicks at a big-box store, and honestly, I’m okay with that.
Because our birds receive time, care, attention, selective breeding, proper nutrition and — most importantly — a whole lot of love. ❤️🐔
When you purchase from a small hobby breeder, you’re not just buying a chick.
You’re supporting the time, work and dedication that went into producing that chick — and you’re getting someone who genuinely cares about what happens to that bird after it leaves our farm.
So the next time you’re comparing a $5 chick to a $15 or $20 chick from a breeder, don’t just compare the price tag.
Ask yourself what you’re really getting for your money.
Because sometimes the cheapest chick isn’t the cheapest chicken in the long run.
Sometimes as hard as we try as breeders we have failures too. Just in the past two weeks we have suffered losses. We ask ourselves what did we do wrong? Some of the time the answer is unknown. But we work harder to do better next time. We recently lost 3 of our silkies reserved as next years breeders and all we can blame is the heat. We added more fans and spray to cool the coops daily now.
🐣 You deserve to have the best possible start for your backyard flock — and we work hard to provide exactly that.
— ❤️ Cozy Cochins
