Castlewood
Songster
TL;DR: DON'T DO IT. Two recent necropsies show we have Mareks disease and respiratory illness in our flock, and investigation/tracing proves it came from Blue Star. If you are in the Central Texas/Austin area, get your chicks from Tractor Supply, Callahan's, or if you really want to buy from a hatchery/breeder, check out Seabreeze Hens in San Leon (which has great *real* reviews for a reason) or Ideal Hatchery in Waco. Blue Star knowingly sells sick birds to people who don't know any better, as stated by SO many reviewers across multiple platforms.
It's hard to think that we, as complete noobs, didn't pay attention to the red flags that in hindsite are so obvious. Plenty of others have left reviews that clearly state the same major issues we ended up having--but we also saw the 5-star reviews and chose to give Blue Star the benefit of the doubt. The grounds at Blue Star leave much to be desired (which we now can see), and Mary's way of conducting business, while it has a certain charm, was/is questionable.
In August 2019 we bought pullets from Mary Ann Fordyce at Blue Star--at a premium price, of course. Of the five pullets (6-8 weeks old), one looked ill almost immediately, but because we were so ignorant we didn't know better; we called her our "emo bird" because she was "chill" and "aloof" and just liked to sleep. (HINT: this is *NOT* normal chicken behavior!) At the time we introduced these birds, we had only three healthy laying hens who had come from a friend's very healthy flock (her flock is still thriving). Within THREE WEEKS, one of our healthy layers died a terrible, traumatic death complete with swollen sinuses/eyes, pussy nostrils, and wheezing; two weeks later "emo bird" was dead too.
We went back to Blue Star in March 2020 for another batch, because a) we'd bought and lost so many birds at this point we were down to three; b) we were enticed by the "special breeds" we wanted and Mary had; c) we believe in giving second chances; and mostly d) we were impatient for older pullets and all Tractor Supply/Callahans had were chicks. Dumb dumb dumb. My partner told Mary of the issues we'd had and she was terribly apologetic; she gave him four "free" birds as a makeup gift--but the price paid for the six might as well have been for all ten. OH, I nearly forgot to mention that when he called before going out there she said "either bring canned goods or the price of each bird will go up" because this was at the beginning of the pandemic. We didn't have cans and again, paid premium price. (We are dumb.) Two of the babes were sneezing the day after we brought them home, so we quarantined them from the 8 others immediately and somehow they pulled through. Now it's August and they're both dead, along with five others from that batch. Two of the remaining three now show the same symptoms and we're expecting to lose them, too, although of course hoping we won't.
We had our last two dead birds necropsied (you can do this through Texas A&M DVML clinics for a small fee), which show they died of Mareks disease, an incurable, untreatable virus that can live in the environment for years. The only way to combat Mareks disease is to vaccinate day-old chicks, or purchase vaccinated chicks, and even then it only helps to increase the odds they'll be able to fend off the deadly symptoms.
Of 15 total birds we've gotten from Mary/Blue Star, five are still alive. And two of those are unlikely to make it.
It's really, really hard to believe Mary would not know she has illness in her flocks. At worst, she DOES know and sells them anyway. At best, she is selling very weak birds. On her website there is now a multi-paragraph "disclaimer" attempting to explain the bad reviews "trolls" have left on social media. The fact that she feels the need to go on the offensive re: the bad reviews sadly points to the former as the more likely reason.
Don't be dumb like us and regret it later. Heed the poor reviews and BUY YOUR BIRDS ELSEWHERE.
It's hard to think that we, as complete noobs, didn't pay attention to the red flags that in hindsite are so obvious. Plenty of others have left reviews that clearly state the same major issues we ended up having--but we also saw the 5-star reviews and chose to give Blue Star the benefit of the doubt. The grounds at Blue Star leave much to be desired (which we now can see), and Mary's way of conducting business, while it has a certain charm, was/is questionable.
In August 2019 we bought pullets from Mary Ann Fordyce at Blue Star--at a premium price, of course. Of the five pullets (6-8 weeks old), one looked ill almost immediately, but because we were so ignorant we didn't know better; we called her our "emo bird" because she was "chill" and "aloof" and just liked to sleep. (HINT: this is *NOT* normal chicken behavior!) At the time we introduced these birds, we had only three healthy laying hens who had come from a friend's very healthy flock (her flock is still thriving). Within THREE WEEKS, one of our healthy layers died a terrible, traumatic death complete with swollen sinuses/eyes, pussy nostrils, and wheezing; two weeks later "emo bird" was dead too.
We went back to Blue Star in March 2020 for another batch, because a) we'd bought and lost so many birds at this point we were down to three; b) we were enticed by the "special breeds" we wanted and Mary had; c) we believe in giving second chances; and mostly d) we were impatient for older pullets and all Tractor Supply/Callahans had were chicks. Dumb dumb dumb. My partner told Mary of the issues we'd had and she was terribly apologetic; she gave him four "free" birds as a makeup gift--but the price paid for the six might as well have been for all ten. OH, I nearly forgot to mention that when he called before going out there she said "either bring canned goods or the price of each bird will go up" because this was at the beginning of the pandemic. We didn't have cans and again, paid premium price. (We are dumb.) Two of the babes were sneezing the day after we brought them home, so we quarantined them from the 8 others immediately and somehow they pulled through. Now it's August and they're both dead, along with five others from that batch. Two of the remaining three now show the same symptoms and we're expecting to lose them, too, although of course hoping we won't.
We had our last two dead birds necropsied (you can do this through Texas A&M DVML clinics for a small fee), which show they died of Mareks disease, an incurable, untreatable virus that can live in the environment for years. The only way to combat Mareks disease is to vaccinate day-old chicks, or purchase vaccinated chicks, and even then it only helps to increase the odds they'll be able to fend off the deadly symptoms.
Of 15 total birds we've gotten from Mary/Blue Star, five are still alive. And two of those are unlikely to make it.
It's really, really hard to believe Mary would not know she has illness in her flocks. At worst, she DOES know and sells them anyway. At best, she is selling very weak birds. On her website there is now a multi-paragraph "disclaimer" attempting to explain the bad reviews "trolls" have left on social media. The fact that she feels the need to go on the offensive re: the bad reviews sadly points to the former as the more likely reason.
Don't be dumb like us and regret it later. Heed the poor reviews and BUY YOUR BIRDS ELSEWHERE.
