At one time I had a wholesale account with Ideal. They are good people to deal with. I once discussed Saipans with Monroe Fuchs. He said that he bought his from breeders at poultry shows.
Now if a known breeder of quality fowl is selling Saipans, people are naturally going to accept his word. Unfortunately, as Forkman said, most people don't know what true Saipans look like. So Monroe is selling impure birds believing they are pure. He is not intentionally being dishonest; he just doesn't know what true Saipans look like.
Cackle has a good reputation, but again, it's always buyer beware when shopping from a hatchery. I bought Standard Wheaten Old English Game from Cackle a few years ago. As the birds matured I saw that the pullets were not wheaten, but reddish-buff with red hackles. I questioned this, and was told that Cackle's strain is this color, and that they were pure Wheaten OEG. I can honestly say that they were n ot wheaten by any stretch of the imagination. What was that other saying? You get what you pay for.
Last I heard, Hazel Matthews was in a nursing home. Her nephew and other relatives are caring for her birds. She is in her seventies, and like all of us, her health is gradually fading. A short time before she went into the nursing home, she bought Saipans from the same breeder I got mine from. He is in his eighties and in poor health. He sold all of his Saipans except for a trio. Then his rooster died. I am trying to work things out so that when I head west on vacation next year I can give him one of my roosters as a sort of thank you for letting me buy some from him.
My "mystery chick" is growing very slowly. It's hard to tell if this chick I hatched earlier in the year is deformed, a mutation, or if the Saipan's ancestry is showing in this little guy. Right now he appears to have no comb or wattles, a small tail, and a different stance/posture. His legs and feet are white, and his face is a little pale. He is around five months old, and is not at all like the Saipans. For one thing, he is chirping all of the time. I have him in a pen by himself. I don't want anything to happen to him.
It is far too easy to lose a breed, and as they say, extinction is forever. I raised an old pioneer strain of Dominique for years. I gave them to a breeder in hopes he would conserve the strain. Instead, he sold them at a local small livestock auction because their combs were larger than the APA standard. This flock was from the late 1800's, and the last of their bloodline. So that is one loss. Another time I was laid off from my job and did some volunteer work for two college professors out of Georgia. I found wild hogs with mulefeet (solid hooves like a mule) at different locations in Florida. It turned out that their locations matched the route DeSoto took when traveling through Florida. Anyway, while I was doing this research, I located a young boar hog that was the last of hnis kind. He had wattles, was mulefooted, straight ears, and wiry hair that was tightly curled all over his body - almost like an Afro hairstyle. One professor named the breed Manatee River Mulefoot Hogs. I bred him to grade sows in hopes of saving the breed. I had sows that were as much as 7/8 pure. I took the family to Disney World one day, and returned to discover that the boar had broken down his pen wall, and bred to every sow on the farm. The heat and the stress must have been too much for him, so he was dead by the time I got home. There was no way to continue breeding for pure stock. The breed was gone forever. I did try to breed his offspring in hopes of accomplishing something, but I started having pigs born with open spines due to the inbreeding.
What I an getting at here is the fact that I have been personally involved, one way or another, with the extinction of a breed of goose, a strain of chicken, a breed of chicken, and a breed of swine. I am all too aware of the fragile nature of breeds, and how easily they might be lost. That is why I am trying so hard to save / conserve true Saipans, and other breeds of livestock I am working with.
I will have to agree that if someone is wanting Saipans, the easiest place to get them is from a hatchery. They will not be true Saipans, and the color or body shape might be wrong, but for someone new to Saipans, it is a starting point. Once they learn how to raise and care for these mongrels, they will have a better understanding of what is involved with raising the pure stock.
Hope some of this helps.
