How to Choose Between Hatching Eggs and Live Birds

You’ve thought long and hard about your goals, ideals and means and you’ve decided you’re ready for livestock. You, like me, have decided to start with poultry. What next?

Well, the first thing you need to decide is if you’d like to start with hatching eggs or live birds. There are pros and cons to both options:

Hatching Eggs:

Pros	Cons
– Cheaper	– Straight run
– More control over flock personality	– Need an incubator & brooder
– Educational Opportunities	– Will have failures

Live Birds:

Pros	Cons
– Closer to egg production/ butcher age	– More expensive
– No incubator	– What you get is what you get
– Can choose sex	– Harder to source

Hatching Eggs

I decided to start with quail hatching eggs. The main reasons I made this decision are that I want to hatch my own eggs in the future so I need to invest in an incubator eventually anyway, hatching eggs are cheaper than adult birds, and, hopefully, I’ll have extra birds hatch which means I can be more selective about the personality of my breeders.

I almost committed to starting with live birds, but, a friend decided to gift me their hutch and with that expense out of the way, I could afford an incubator my first year. In addition to the free hutch, I also found a breeder that offered a chick starter package with a variety of hatching eggs and a number quail accessories that I will need for an amazing price.

I do not advise starting with hatching eggs to folks who:

Don’t own/want an incubator
Need to split the expenses of an incubator and hutch/coop over multiple years
Don’t have a plan for the extra males
Don’t plan to regularly incubate eggs and add birds to their flock

Live Birds

Starting with live birds, whether they be chicks or adults, is also an amazing option. Special note, if you want Cornish cross meat chickens, you actually need to start with live chicks.

In my opinion, the biggest benefit to starting with live birds is that you can choose the sex of the birds. For example, many suburban cities have laws that state a person can only have hens on their property, no roosters. By starting with live birds, it can be guaranteed that all of the birds will be hens.

The second biggest benefit to starting with live birds, especially if you start with adults, is that you won’t need all of the “baby” supplies. Chick set-ups can get very expensive very quickly because you need an incubator, secondary thermometer, brooder, heat lamp/brooder plate, bedding, and chick sized feeders and waterers in addition to the supplies you’ll need for the adult birds. If you start with adult birds you just need the adult supplies and if you start with chicks you won’t need an incubator.

I do not recommend starting with live birds to folks who:

Want to learn the whole life cycle of birds
Want to have extra birds so that they can be selective with who they keep in their flock

Conclusion

Whether you start with hatching eggs or live birds you will hopefully have a great time adding poultry to your homestead. The most important part of this decision is not which you choose, but that you do choose and just get started.

I wish you luck!

Additional Resources

Books I love:

I am an Amazon Associate and that is reflected in the below affiliate links. I will make a small commission if you purchase the below books with my affiliate link. That being said, please check your local or favorite indie book store for them! I’d much rather you support a small business than give me a kick-back.