This article will cover:

• What is a Chick Flipper?

• What is wrong with Chick Flipping?

• How to recognize a Chick Flipper.

  • Quantity of chicks

  • Breeds of chicks

  • Sexed chicks

• What To Do If You Find a Chick Flipper?

  • Confirm your suspicions

  • Share what you have learned.

What is a Chick Flipper?

These are people who place large orders from commercial hatcheries, have the chicks shipped in, and then list them for sale at a HUGE mark-up on Craigslist etc. They don’t disclose that the parent flock is not theirs, nor that they didn’t hatch the chicks themselves, nor that there is virtually no difference between their chicks and the chicks at the feed store other than price.

What is Wrong with Chick Flipping?

Chick Flipping bothers me for multiple reasons.

1. People are buying feed-store quality at breeder-quality prices. This isn’t fair to the buyer.

2. The chicks are still being shipped, and if you don’t know why I object to that, here is the post you need: Locally-hatched Chicks vs. Shipped Chicks.

3. The flipper is clearly in it for the money only. Nothing wrong with making money; it’s rather necessary to staying in business. But a Money-Only motive creates a business model that doesn’t favor animal well-being.

Tonight I got a phone call from someone who was obviously savvy to this. She had two questions:

• Are the chicks from your farm? Mostly, I hatch some breeds from eggs from my friend’s farm as she has breeds I don’t. On my website, the flocks from my farm are clearly labeled as such: “a Flower Feather Farm flock”.

• Did you hatch the chicks yourself? Yes, every Tuesday.

She had no other questions, which was what clued me in to what she was trying to determine. Smart gal!

So, how can you recognize a Chick Flipper?

Quantity: A Chick Flipper will have lots of varieties available and lots of chicks in each variety. So many that if they were raising their own hens and hatching their own chicks, they would have made a substantial investment of time and money into this enterprise and would be marketing on something in addition to Craigslist.

Their farm would have a name, a business license, they would collect and remit sales tax (the state would have some record of them), they would have a social media presence with some history to it and/or a website with their own pics on it. Nobody is going to put in breeding flocks of 25 varieties with large enough flocks to have 30+ chicks available each week and only be visible on Craigslist. And they are not going to pop up over-night. This sort of infrastructure takes time.

Do you know how to ascertain if someone is using their own pics or someone else’s?
Here is a quick video demo.

Breeds: A second clue is breeds. A Chick Flipper will have the same breeds that the major hatcheries sell, which are the same breeds the feed stores sell. There are so many amazing breeds out there, 100s and 100s of choices. And it is very unlikely that someone would invest the time and money into developing large flocks of breeds that are available from any commercial hatchery. That would be foolish.

Sexed: A third clue is sexed chicks. Commercial hatcheries employ people who squeeze the freshly-hatched chicks’ tushies until their innards pook out enough to be seen (I am so not okay with this and you can learn more about sexing chicks here) and that is how they offer sexed chicks. Unless it is a auto-sexing or sex-linked breeds, small local farms and breeders (who are not going to squeeze their babies) do not offer sexed chicks. If you find someone offering a huge variety of sexed chicks, you have found a flipper.

What To Do If You Find a Chick Flipper?

Confirm Your Suspicions:

• Ask them if the chicks come from their farm.

  • If yes, what is their farm’s name?

• Ask them if they hatch the eggs themselves.

  • If yes, what is their favorite incubator?

• Ask if you can see pictures.

  • If so, use the Google Image Search trick above.

• Ask them which breed is their favorite and why?

• Ask them if these are show-quality or breeder quality?

  • If yes, ask them what makes them show-quality or breeder quality?

• Ask them if they are buying the chicks from a commercial hatchery.

Share What You Have Learned:

• Get a screenshot of the listing.

• Get screenshots of your conversation.

• Post your screenshots in your local Facebook chicken groups as a caution to others. Include a link to this Chick Flipper article if you like.

There are so many farms and breeders that are working hard to cultivate quality flocks of well-cared-for birds. Those farms and breeders need your support, the parent flocks have a better life, the chicks have a better launch, and the breed standards are upheld.

Say “no” to Chick Flippers and “yes” to Locally Hatched Chicks. To help you find them, check out the Flock Directory — a national listing — and for Washington State residents, Washington Poultry Peeps.