Fun experience with Mcmurray...

Zerlog

Chirping
Jul 20, 2015
69
18
86
Columbia Heights MN
Okay, so my story goes like this: It was April 2014. We had just picked up our first chicks from a feed store. They were 4 Black Australorps. We still have them, and they are very tame and laying well. Since we had a good first experience with chickens, we decided to order 4 more hens from Mcmurray hatchery. We ordered 2 buff rocks (not Buff Orpingtons) ,one barred rock, and one easter egger. We were ordering as a large group from 4-h, so someone just went to Iowa to get them. Well, they gave us 6 chicks instead, so we got 3 Buff rocks, one barred rock, one Black Australorp,and one Easter Egger. One of the Buff Rocks died a few weeks later
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, so we were left with 5. As they got older, one of the buff rocks started to crow. We realised he was a rooster,so we tried to keep him quiet. Then the barred Rock started crowing. Then the black Australorp. They were making som uch noise, we just had to drop the Barred Rock and Australorp at someone's farm. We kept the Buff Rock, though, because he was so friendly. We eventually found a wildlife rehab center that would take him and put him with a large flock of hens. So we were left with 1 easter Egger, and one Buff Rock (which we thought was a hen,because it looked exactly like one.) We left for a trip to see some relatives, and when we got back, it was like someone swapped it out with a rooster. We didn't know what to do, so we just kept looking for homes for it. Until, one day we got an Email from someone who had seen out old posters at a feed store. He wanted to know if we had any left (he wanted to start incubating) so we said we had 1 left. That day I was also preparing a barn for the rabbit show at the County Fair, so we just met up there. I was happy to get all the roosters homes, but not so happy with Mcmurray hatchery.

The moral? Don't order day-old chicks from Mcmurray hatchery.
 
I'm sorry you had to deal with so many extra Roos. Did you order pullets or straight run? If you ordered pullets they guarantee 90% accuracy on sex and will refund any roosters over that but straight run is luck of the draw and are not sexed before packaged. I have 6 three month old girls from McMurray and suspect that one might be a roo. Out of the whole order of 15 that I split with others mine is the only suspicious one (except for the extra chick they sent for free- that was was pretty much guaranteed to be a roo)

If you absolutely don't want to deal with roosters I'd suggest getting a breed that can be sexed by color as chicks- red or black star (also known as sex link)
 
I'm sorry you had to deal with so many extra Roos. Did you order pullets or straight run? If you ordered pullets they guarantee 90% accuracy on sex and will refund any roosters over that but straight run is luck of the draw and are not sexed before packaged. I have 6 three month old girls from McMurray and suspect that one might be a roo. Out of the whole order of 15 that I split with others mine is the only suspicious one (except for the extra chick they sent for free- that was was pretty much guaranteed to be a roo)

If you absolutely don't want to deal with roosters I'd suggest getting a breed that can be sexed by color as chicks- red or black star (also known as sex link)
No, we ordered day-old Female chicks
We are probably going to get sex-links next time we get more birds. I love roosters, but we just can't have them in the city.
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No, we ordered day-old Female chicks
We are probably going to get sex-links next time we get more birds. I love roosters, but we just can't have them in the city.:barnie


Well that's disappointing to hear! Have you contacted them about it? Hopefully they'll at least refund you which of course doesn't make up for the time and feed for raising the roosters but would be something I guess. I've had really good luck with ideal poultry. Healthy chicks, no losses even shipped to Alaska and all hens.
 

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