Here we are then.
Sensible advice for new keepers on the website. It’s normal to show stock photos of adult birds on that sort of site. The supplier will have bought them in from a bigger commercial breeder of hybrids and will be offering them from sale from there. This is good in that the birds should have gone through the full vaccination programme, which would be less likely if she knew each bird individually, having home reared them. Prices are a bit strange in that theres quite a wide variation.
I agree that normally you would expect to choose, handle and examine pullets before purchase, check bums and eyes etc at least. You would also prefer to see the conditions they were being kept in.
But I also see that, with Covid, a seller would prefer to minimise the contact involved in passing the birds back and forth to buyers, even if masked. I notice she hasn’t got a page on her website about COVID precautions, which is odd nowadays. When I bought my new pullets a few weeks ago, it felt strange, ticking the breeds I wanted, adding them to my cart, and paying for them online, and them making a timed appointment to collect them. But I knew that, back in March, my seller had contended with unexpected, long queues of cars and people rushing to buy hens in a panic before lockdown, so the new methods were just intended to keep everyone safe, including her young family as they live on the premises. As I’d bought from her before I wasn’t worried about seeing the conditions in the runs, and as it’s normal for any seller to catch the birds for you, not easy in a big flock of nervous pullets, it felt OK for her to go into the barn and return with the next bird to show me. I didn’t handle them but she showed them to me and then when I was happy she put them in the box. On this occasion, I didn’t ask to handle them but I have no reason to suppose she would have refused. I would not have been happy if I had just been presented with a bird in a box which I hadn’t seen, and I can’t think this is what she means as it’s normal for a buyer to bring their own boxes and for the seller to charge extra if the buyer needs a box as well as a bird. Did she say this in an email, as there’s nothing about it on the website? I was as keen as my seller was to minimise contact but as I said, I had bought healthy birds from her before anyway. Here’s the link to where I got mine, which is a small family business. I think this is reassuring for both buyer and seller at the moment. https://www.staghillfarm.co.uk/home/Chickens-c35130032
Is this the only seller of pol pullets within reasonable driving distance at present? How far are you prepared to travel, for birds that are going to be part of your lives for several years? Personally, I would prefer to have a choice beyond this seller, can you do more research? It may be that she’s just not very good at building a website as it’s so basic, but I would want more detail on how she’s going to manage the handover, and I would want to see where the birds were being kept. Also, you need to enquire how many weeks old each bird is. They should be coming into lay by now at the latest so if they’re not at least 23-24 weeks old with red combs they probably won’t lay until the new year.
I put chickens for sale Notts into Google and lots came up in the Fallows Poultry area.
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=chickens+for+sale+Notts&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-gb&client=safari#istate=lrl:mlt&trex=m_r:1,m_t:gwp,rc_q:chickens%2520for%2520sale%2520Notts,rc_ui:2,ru_gwp:0%252C6,ru_q:chickens%2520for%2520sale%2520Notts,trex_id:UpXfbb
I don’t think you can tell the personality of any particular pullet when you go along to choose from a big flock of untamed youngsters, that emerges in time when they settle in, but if you choose a tame breed like a ranger or an Amber you should be OK. Not a leghorn, in your setup! And you were lucky with your bluebell - they are often shy and nervous birds compared with some breeds.
And of course, I expect you’ll need to sort out your security problems first, in any case?
19 Would you buy hens "blind"?
