Ideal help! - Page 5

I think that's a far stretch to suggest that Ideal hatchery actually developed a new breed all on it's own from a collage of questionable quality birds from all sorts of mixed backrounds. a fact check may be in order here.

In addition to my previous statement, the buyer would also have to have an incubator and go through the extra trouble of hatching the eggs themselves. Whereas ordering from a hatchery, you get the chicks already hatched and ready to go.

They didn't develop them; not sure where they got their original stock from (haven't been able to dig up much info on that, but assume they imported their original breeders). At any rate, what I mean is that the Brabanter is a relatively rare breed in the states. I haven't been able to find any that didn't come from Ideal stock originally. Even the breeders on here got their first Brabanters from Ideal or from others who had gotten theirs from Ideal. Outside of importing, all the available Brabanter stock in the US seems traceable back to Ideal.

There's not much information on Brabanters in the US that I've been able to find, so my information is, by necessity, from the Brabanter and Spitz thread http://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=270338&p=1, where the general consensus seems to be that all the current US Brabanter breeding stock came from Ideal at some point in the past.

Now, there may well be breeders of the breed that don't come to this site or run websites of their own, but in my experience looking for Brabanters, it was either get hatching eggs from a breeder who started with Ideal stock or get chicks from Ideal and work on improving them just as the other breeders are doing, with the biggest issue being the Polish crest throwbacks that seem to pop up in a fair number of Ideal's birds and the lack of an actual US standard since it's not an APA recognized breed.

I gotta put my 2 cents in, because I LOVE Ideal Poultry and have ordered from them more than 10 times in the last year!

THE GOOD STUFF

Pretty friendly birds

99% survival to adulthood

CHEAP PRICES!!!!

A lot of varieties and colors to choose from

I won Grand Champion at the Colorado State fair with an Ideal Black Australorp pullet (in 1993)!


THE NOT-AS-GOOD

They are obviously high-volume and very busy, sometimes they make mistakes.  They make their mistakes right AS LONG AS you are nice and reasonable when you contact them!

I have gotten 2 cross-beaks, 1 with crooked toes and a Silkie with only 9 toes.  HOWEVER, this is the exception NOT the rule!  99.9% of the birds are fine.

They seldom put extras in, but most of the time, I don't have any die.

This time of year, they only have a few breeds available, HOWEVER, what is available are the best layers, SO if you were to order now, you will get chicks from hens who are good layers!

I DON'T agree with their use of cartoon pictures to sell birds, but most of my Ideal chickens have grown up to look very similar to the pictures.  I prefer how Privett Hatchery and Cackle Hatchery put pictures of their actual stock on their websites!  ( I have ordered from Privett, with VERY GOOD results, but have not ordered from Cackle.)



I would encourage everyone to try Ideal's birds, I have had very good luck with them.  However, I don't show anymore and my birds are just pretty pets that give me eggs!

[[[[..........haven't been able to find any that didn't come from Ideal stock originally. Even the breeders on here got their first Brabanters from Ideal or from others who had gotten theirs from Ideal.....]]]]]

Probably because you are asking in the wrong place.

Very few serious show breeders will check in on Backyard Chickens.  They are irritated by all the fluffy butt, chicken diapers, people who don't bother to learn anything before they buy chickens.  BYC is widely considered to be a waste of time.  So when you ask about anything on BYC, you get a lot of opinions from people who buy their chickens at the hatcheries and don't really know much of anything and don't think they should take the effort to learn.

x10!

Entirely possible: as I said, I haven't been able to find any other information through Internet searches, so there may well be others that I'm not aware of who have birds from other sources. However, since the breed isn't recognized by the APA and doesn't even have a breed club yet, I'm skeptical that there are many serious show breeders working on them. I know several people on here that are working on breeding them towards the European standard and trying to get others interested in the breed in the hopes of getting them recognized one day, but I think that day is still a long way off.

I wouldn't consider the site a waste of time. I've had chickens for years, but I learned a lot about various breeds and good timesaving coop cleaning ideas just in the last year since I joined the site.

oh yes, I agree, it isnt a waste of time, especially for new folks to the hobby, theres a lot that can be learned from the right people and I personally love the site.

But I do agree with what was said regarding the big time pro breeders (and I know many who are in this boat) . Many of them arent on here because they get tired of the chicken diaper folks. Meaning those that literally keep chickens and duck in the house and treat them as if they were a child. More often that not, these folks are extremely opinionated (right or wrong) and quite literally some of them are just plain nuts. There are many newbies that read a little then act like a parrot repeating everything as if it were their knowledge not even fact checking. Then the hatchery mob who think every bird is a show bird.  I know many of these pro breeders who have gotten on here or other sites , attempt to share knowledge of their specialty breed, many of whom have been working on them for decades, just to have their first  few post criticized by some of these types. Then they just get the well to heck with them attitude and as opposed to arguing, just leave.

That's what they meant, not that the site IS in fact a waste, couldnt be further off there

I can understand that, and I'm very grateful for the dedicated breeders that are around on the site for a number of reasons. First, they post pictures of their birds, which has been a great help in, hopefully, teaching me to better recognize what characteristics to look for in the birds I plan to breed. Second, they do know a lot about their breeds and are great with help on improving type, etc. I appreciate honesty, and the dedicated breeders are usually the ones who will give honest input about a bird's quality when asked. I have no plans to show at the moment, but I would like to try and work to achieve and keep quality in my birds. Fortunately, I have yet to run into any really nutty people in the breed threads I usually visit; on the other hand, I'm rather quirky myself, so I probably wouldn't be convinced of true nuttiness unless I saw poor dead "Clucky" stuffed and sitting on someone's fireplace mantle.

I think I've gotten the thread off topic enough , so to get it back on track, I had a good experience my one time ordering from Ideal, and I'd deal with them again.