Best Hatchery to get ISA browns or other commercial brown egg layers

[West Central MO]

I am looking for the best place to get some ISA browns.

 

[briteday]

I want some too. Currently looking at Cackle or Ideal.

 

[Arrowhead07]

I got mine from townline and are extremely happy!

 

[brn325]

we also got our isa chicks from townline. they were healthy and they gave us extras. great hatchery

 

[smith2]

To my knowledge, Townline Hatchery in Zeeland, MI is the only licensed hatchery in the U.S. that sells the real ISA brown from Hubbard. I sent an email to the company about a year ago and got a call back from the home office in France. The man (heavy French accent) said that Townline is their supplier in the U.S. There may be others by now, but at that time Townline was the only licensed supplier. Several hatcheries have other, similar super layers like sex-links, golden comets, etc. I have tried several other layers, but none have compared to the ISA brown. These chickens lay like crazy, eat very little, and they seem to be affected very little by weather conditions. They do seem to get respiratory problems more readily than other breeds I have had in the past. They grow fast and lay great big brown eggs.

 

[briteday]

Quote:
Awesome information! I've been following this breed for a while trying to figure out how to obtain them. Maybe this will be the summer! Thanks for the info!!!

 

[West Central MO]

I am not sure who Hubbard is, but the ISA genetics line is owned by Hendrix-Genetics. I would guess Hubbard was consumed by Hendrix as they own over 50% of the genetics behind most commercial brown layers and probably white as well. I have spoken with the North American salesman for ISA and he said Townline, Murray McMurray and Hoovers hatchery all carrry ISA stock. The interesting thing is - they all call them different....but they probably are all genetically from the same line.

I researched a little more and Hubbard was indeed purchased by ISA and then Hendrix.....reading about Hendrix - they have very many nice lines of layers in which tons of research has been done.
If anyone else knows of a supplier of the ISA line of brown layers I'd be interested.

 

[smith2]

I wonder what MM and Hoovers calls theirs?

 

[smith2]

Quote:
I just found out. MM calls theirs Red Stars and HH calls theirs Gold Stars according to their websites.

 

[cmom]

Quote:
I just came across this thread on google. I realize it is nearly a year old. This is true. I have some ISA Brown chickens that came from Townline Hatchery in Zeeland, Michigan. My birds are now 1 1/2 years old and still great layers. I also have some Rhode Island Reds, but when they were 1 1/2 years old they had slowed down laying considerably. Now they are 3 years old and from 14 birds I get maybe 1 - 3 eggs a day from them but the ISA Browns give me pretty much each an egg a day. My ISA Browns arrived a day late but were in perfect condition. I did loose one recently to a predator as she got out and I didn't know it. Their minimum order of chicks someone could order was 25 chicks but now they started a minimum order of 15 chicks.
http://www.townlinehatchery.com/hatchery_order.htm

Before I originally ordered chicks from them, I did a lot of research as I wanted ISA Browns. There are Sex-link chicks (Red Stars, Golden Comets, Cinnamon Queens) that look like ISA Browns and are good egg layers too. This hybrid (ISA Brown) was developed for industrial-agricultural use as a commercial brown layer. ISA Browns produce 60% of the commercial brown eggs.