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Yes, you should have a splendid flock.

I've had good success with it. :)

A good reason to get twice as many as you actually want and sell the extras after you pick the ones you like best.

The best controlled study for chick health from a given TSC would be chicks shipped from the same hatchery to different farm stores in the same region, traveling for the same length of time in the same mail shipments. That would remove factors other than the quality of care at that particular...

When people say that TSC/Hoover's chicks are "low quality" they mean that they may have only a passing resemblance to the breed they're supposed to breed. No hatcheries routinely* provide birds strongly selected toward the SOP for that breed, but Hoover's has the reputation of the most casual...

It might have been the Ayam Cemanis that I was reading about having a lot of fertility issues.

Another thing that occurred to me overnight, I can't prove anything about this, but I have a hunch that longtime standard, common breeds are likely to be healthier than any recently trendy breed because of greater genetic diversity and longer selection. Any trendy breed is likely to have had...

This is an excellent point. It is unfortunate that some people are simply too sentimental to cull a problem bird and thus ensure that any genetic component to the problem ends there. :(

I think that whether people consider some of these birds "flighty" vs "active, alert, and mischievous" is probably a matter of personal taste. I like having a California White or two in my flock, but I don't think I'd enjoy an entire flock of them. Sort of like the difference between a dash of...

My Wyandotes are good flock citizens.

I have had only 2 health problems in my flock, Slowpoke here, and a crossbeaked EE (crossbeak is *relatively* common in EEs). As a generic recommendation, hatchery birds *ought* to be fairly vigorous because they breed for mass market in a competitive sales environment and can't afford...