What I want from the BIG HATCHERIES-- or ANY HATCHERY!

What I really want, and think I can echo most of the urban-chicken owners, is for them to START SEXING BANTAMS !!!  I have heard from Ideal and McMurray, and a zillion others that I called that they can't sex bantams because they are so small.  Well, that is just not true.

Mypetchicken.com sexes bantams, and has a thriving business catering to the pet-chicken-keeper and urban chicken owner by 1. Sexing Bantams and 2. Shipping small quantities by using heating pads to keep them warm.  In the spring I ordered 8 bantam cochin females and got them, all healthy, and 7/8 of them were female!  (there was one roo, but that is close to the 90% sexing rate for standards!)

We are willing to pay more!  These are pets!  I paid $10 a chick for my bantam cochins, and would happily order more from mypetchicken.com (great chicks, great service) but they do not carry some of the cochin varieties that I want!     


So, sex those bantams, ship them to us in smaller numbers-- even shipping as few as7 or 8 would be great for a lot of us (thank you Ideal for shipping by minimum price, rather than by 25 chicks!)

For those who are looking and find what they want at mypetchicken.com-- order from them!  But for other varieties, why doesn't everyone get on board with sexing bantams??????

Yeah, silkiechicken, I agree.  There has just been such a big movement in the last couple of years-- and tons of press-- about urban chicken keeping, and keeping chickens for organic eggs and pets, that you would think more would jump on the bandwagon.

Many of us are unable to order a straight run and then just "cull the roos".  That is not our mindset, (and who wants to pluck a bantam cochin for the 3 bites of meat you would get from them anyway?????).  They need to realize that it would be totally worth the effort, since you can charge much more for them.  For heaven's sake, a cat got my chicken, we took her to the vet and gave her antibiotics twice a day for 10 days!!!!  These are the type of crazy people you are dealing with, here!!

There are certainly the people ordering for food, for yearly replacement pullets, and when/if we have a few acres someday, I'm sure we will do that too--- but right now we want sweet, small pets that lay eggs = bantam cochins!!  And we can't/won't kill 50% of them just cause they are boys--- (isn't being a boy punishment enough!  geez! !

Fluffy chicken mama-- This time of year mypetchicken only has a bantam assortment.  In the spring they have the individual bantam breeds-- and quite a few of them.

serendipity--I would LOVE LOVE LOVE to keep ordering from them, but I love our cochins, and would like a huge variety of colors and they only have 3 cochin varieties-- black, mottled and barred.    All of which we already have from them!

hinkjc--  Thanks for the info.  So far we have not had any problems, but it seems like the answer I get doesn't involve the birds health (imagine-- a big hatchery actually CARING about the birds health :o :mad: Don't get me started on that topic!)  The answer I repeatedly get is "Nobody sexes bantams!  It's impossible!"  I would imagine that if some standards could be feather sexed, than the bantam versions could be as well.  I happen to believe that they believe that it is "not worth the time and effort" to find/train someone to do that, which is the point of this post, to try to convince them otherwise!  Are you listening Ideal Poultry???