Heartland Hatchery :(

[isis]

I wanted to let you know that I had an amazingly above and beyond experience with Heartland Hatchery. I drove to one of his chick days at a farm store after seeing the ad on craigslist and bought (way too many!) chicks. They were all healthy and I don't remember having any losses... which has never happened for me before! He answered all my (prob dumb) questions and helped me pick out what he thought were the strongest ones and most likely to be pullets on certain breeds. My Grandmother was with me and got a couple of guineas and he was just as kind to her. Besides that, what really set Alan (the owner) aside is this... I bought one single goose because I couldn't resist the cuteness. He sat on my lap the whole drive back, sat on my lap while I answered email at home/watched tv and was barely put down the whole day. Well, I had to go to bed eventually and the goose wasn't coming under the covers (haha) so I put him back in the box I'd taken to pick them up. That morning my boyfriend went to check on the goose and chickens and the goose had jumped up (which was saw him doing the night before and thought it was cute then...) but overnight caught his head between the flaps and hung himself. Needless to say I was beside myself that I had already lost my new pet... My boyfriend for the sake of anything to get me to stop crying called Alan and explained what happened and he said we could come down that morning and get another goose!

He's not set up as a store front to customers so that was REALLY nice of him to let us come. But he took me first thing to the box of geese and I picked out my new friend Then he showed me around and explained the different chickens and such and I asked about the awesome huge incubators and he showed me those and told me all about them, too. I prob spent an hour there just looking at everything. Needless to say I got a few more chickens too... who can resist! The boxes with the chicks were all well kept (and obviously had NOT been "suddenly cleaned" for company, that's the way they were) and the incubators had all the fancy gauges on them to keep the temp/humidity right. He even helped me figure out what was wrong with why I couldn't get my duck eggs to hatch (I had just barely figured out how to hatch chickens at the time).

But anyway, I'm sorry to hear that you couldn't get a hold of him. He says in his craigslist ads not to email, so he might not check that. And where he is at the signal is HORRIBLE, we kept losing him while getting final directions to his place so you might try calling again and leaving your number a couple of times in your message.

So, based on my experiences both times I would HIGHLY recommend Heartland Hatchery to anyone looking for birds. In fact I can't wait until he has a chick day a little closer to me cause I'm sure he no doubt remembers that lady crying over her goose... so I'd love to say hi, get a few more chicks, let him know that "Goose Goose" is doing great and thank him again.

 

[amazingpoultryf]

I have bought over 5000 chicks a year from heartland hatchery in amsterdam mo and have had NO problems from allen and I can count on one hand how many chickens that have died. Allen has fair prices on all of his birds and is a verry honest, and a pleasure to do business with and if you ever have any question on any thing related to chickens guineas or ducks he knows his birds and has no problem sharing his knoledge to anyone. I have also visited his hatching facility and he keeps it tiday and has showed us around. I go to his facility about 2 times a month and pick birds up he has became a lifetime friend of the family over the years of doing business with. Allen dose not do business over e-mail and has allways awnsered any phone call's that we have made to him usually within an hour or two of calling and we have never had to make more than one phone call to him to get birds.


Allen's correct contact info is as follows

Allen Meeter

cell 660-424-0408



if you have any troubles contacting him you can contact me any time and I will get you get you in contact with him or I can get you what you need


Amazing poultry farm
1120 N150th rd
Baldwin City Ks 66006
Brian King
913-416-3236
NPIP # 48-351

 

[ironjim]

I've had nothing but success with the chicks from Heartland. We got an awesome Royal Palm turkey from him two years ago. She made the greatest pet, until my son forgot to lock the coop a few days ago and she disappeared. That's how I found this thread, I was Googling Heartland to get his number.

 

[Jacque152]

We have bought chicks from Heartland Hatchery several times. We've gone out to the hatchery to purchase chicks and bought them on the "chick days" at Family Center.
I have never had a bad experience with chicks from Heartland Hatchery. The chicks have ALWAYS been healthy and stayed healthy.
I don't use the medicated chick feed because we usually buy goslings too and they can't be fed the medicated feed.
After raising chicks for the last 12 years, I would say the people who have had trouble with their chicks is more of there own problem with care for them.
Fresh water several times a day, plenty of heat from a heat lamp (or several heat lamps depending on how many chicks you have, clean litter, and plenty of feed keeps them healthy and growing no matter who you get them from.
And as far as the return email and phone calls. Alan is a one man operation. Give the guy a break.
Last time we bought 75 chicks and lost only ONE.
To rap it up, Heartland Hatchery is a great place to buy chicks.

 

[Emily2012]

We have purchased most of our chicks from Hearland Hatchery. From our Orschelans and from Chick Day events. We have had no problems with any of the chicks from them. Allen is great. I called him to see when his next Chick Day was going to be near our town and not only did he let me know the dates and places he even invited me to come down and pick out my chicks in person. When my husband bought chicks from him the first time with my youngest son Allen was nice enough to add an extra chick in the bunch for free.

I highly recommend the Heartland Hatchery. I am sorry that your experience was not so great though.

 

[nanceann]

We live in Amsterdam, MO. Moved here about a year ago from Linn Valley. We have gone back and forth on whether or not to get chickens. MDH saw an ad in the local paper for Heartland Hatchery. Since we are in the same area, and my husband is a disabled vet, Allen delivered the 16 Rhode Island Reds to us Friday afternoon. He's very nice, my husband likes him, and 14 of the 16 chicks are doing well. The 2 that didn't make it are because my husband didn't watch them closely enough around the labs. He got one of the dogs to spit one out, but the other was gone. The one that got spit out lasted for 2 days, but that was it. Not anything to do with Allen.

 

[coopervane]

I am a newbie chick owner and bought 12 chicks from a local farm store that Heartland Hatchery was at and I will be getting all my chicks from them. It has been 3 weeks and we still have all 12. No pasty butts or illness. He was very helpful and I will be a return customer.

 

[coopervane]

I am a newbie chick owner and bought 12 chicks from a local farm store that Heartland Hatchery was at and I will be getting all my chicks from them. It has been 3 weeks and we still have all 12. No pasty butts or illness. He was very helpful and I will be a return customer.

 

[CluckyCharms]

I saw this thread and had to post my own info on Heartland Hatchery. I bought my first ever chicks in April 2009 from a farm store in Paola, KS having "Chick Days" that were supplied by Heartland Hatchery. Out of 12 chicks, there were no losses - all were perfect, healthy and had no problems whatsoever. I've subsequently ordered and picked up chicks directly from him the last three years and I've never had any problems. They've all been bright-eyed, cheepy, with clean butts and straight legs. If you call him directly, even if he doesn't answer he always calls back. I did however try to email and it wasn't answered, so I'm not sure if he ever got it or ignored it, but every call I've made has been returned and when I've picked up chicks they've all been clean and perky and I was able to choose which ones I wanted from each breed. I'm doing guineas for the first time this year and they'll be from Heartland also.

I'd just wanted to share that my experience with Heartland (other than the email) has been nothing but positive. I'm sorry if others had issues with the chicks, but he's never sold me anything but clean, healthy birds and this will be my 4th year purchasing from him.

P.S. It looks like the domain for the website has expired, so I'm not sure what's up with that. The phone number someone listed above is correct and he has chicks, guineas, ducks and turkeys.

I called and got a bunch of info from him. They're NPIP and he was more than willing to give any references I wanted in addition to health history of his flocks. We're going to look at what he has tomorrow.

 

[midwest]

Our Heartland Hatchery story:
First a couple things about the other posts. All their ads that we have seen do say to call not Email so I won't hold the not answering Emails against him. With the phone calls, more often then not when we have called we have gotten his answering machine but whether we left a message or not he has always called us back and usually within the hour. We have also recieved calls to ask us about interest in surplus chicks he has had. One thing I did notice was that most of the posters that have had positive experiences with them look like they joined made that one post and none since. Makes me wonder.

Back to our experience. We were looking for a few certain breeds and came across Heartland Hatcheries ads for their chick days. He didn't have but one breed that we were looking for at the time but did have some other breeds that we were considering so we contacted Allen. He was very polite took all the time in the world and we discussed availability and future locations that he would be at. He was to be in our area about a month from our first contact. We talked a few times before the big day came and headed to the feed store that morning with excitement of which breeds he would have.
When we got there we were like kids in a candy store. Cute little chicks all lined up in boxes and they were hopping from box to box. He went through what all of them was and My wife, daughter and I all discussed what to get. Of course we wanted some of just about everything but where limited on what we could afford. The amount added up quickly and of course we spent more than we would of liked but we all got a few of the breeds we wanted.
We got 20 chicks, and 5 guineas. They were happy healthy little chicks and off we went. We had every thing ready for them. Newly built brooder boxes in our spare bedroom. Lights with dimmer switches, waters, feeders, everything.
All went well and about a week later we hatched some eggs and had more baby chicks. At about that time the guineas were outgrowing everyone and the two banty breeds were begaining to be quite a bit smaller. Then my first mistake .... mixing chicks. We split our hatch into two groups. one group being a breed that we had really wanted and spent quite a bit for the eggs. They were all gonna be keepers. The second group was gonna be some that we were gonna let some go out of. We split the chicks from Allen into three groups, Guineas, bigger chicks and banties. we then but the banties with our group of keepers as they were a bit younger and about the same size as the banties.
Within three days things started going bad and it was all but over within 3 or 4 days. We lost 1 out of 5 guineas. 9 out of 12 of the bigger chicks from Heartland and all 8 of the banties. We also lost 8 out of 10 of our hatch that was with the banties. But none of the others from our hatch.
It was horrible for my wife and daughter as I carried out one dead chick after another day after day and really sad as the three that lived were all from my picks. BTW those three were supposed to be pullets and as of now one or two are cockerels.
I am usually not one to complain and understand things happen. A couple of days ago I saw Heartlands ad back up that they were coming back to where we had purchased our chicks. At this time my wife had given up on ever buying chicks again from anywhere period. I decided to call Allen and ask if anyone else had reported any issues or if he had any idea what happened. He seemed to be very helpful and we went over many possibilities with no answers. Looking back now I see that he was steering the cause to something we did wrong (mainly mixing the chicks which wasnt smart on my part but lesson learned) or just one of those things that happen.
He offered to "work something out" which I knew he didn't owe us anything as that is the risk with any living things and we knew that risk ahead of time but for a moment I had the idea that maybe we could end up with some new chicks of at least the breeds that my wife and daughter lost. And it would restore her faith in buying chicks and all would be good. He offered to get ahold of me after he was done at both locations for that Saturday and see what surplus chicks he had and I could get any of them for half price. He mentioned some of the breeds he usually has left and all were common egg layers. The breeds we had got before were banty and some of the more uncommon breeds. I mentioned that I wasnt looking for the breeds he mentioned and told him what the chicks were that we lost. He mentioned that those were the ones that he would have the least of and said I'll let you know what I end up with at the end of the day. I mentioned that I was close to the morning location and asked if I could come out first thing and pick some then and only the breeds we had lost and no more then what we had lost. He went back to the we'll see what I have left at the end of the day and that he would be coming closer to were we lived on his way home and we could meet in the next town over. He was to contact me at 3:00 Saturday.
Well 3:00 came and went and no call. I called him at about 3:45 and he said he had forgot to check for me but was stopping to deliever some to a gentleman in about 5 or 10 minutes that he would check and get back with me. That was the last time I talked to Allen and tried a couple of more times and left a message.
As I sat at home and browsed CL I saw a Heartland Hatchery ad. It said that in the last hour of his day at the second location that with a minimum purchase of 40 chicks that you could have them for half price. So his offer to us was the same offer as he had advertised to everyone except he dropped the minimum amount.
As I reflect on my day and the conversations we have had the last few days I am seeing it for what it is. We had a bad experience with this hatcheries chicks and he had gotten my hopes up by offering me a deal that he pretty much offered anyone else and in the end didnt even give us a chance to purchase any new chicks from him. He had wanted to make me think we had done something wrong in raising the chicks or it was some mysterious airborn illness or just some freak thing that happens. What I cant quite get past is the fact that we lost 17 out of 20 .of the chicks from him and 8 out of 10 of the ones we hatched that were with the ones from him but have lost zero of the ones we hatch that were not in contact with the ones from him.They were all raised the same. fed the same, watered as often, in the same room, exposed to the same things, etc etc.
I do not know what went wrong but that is our story for what it is worth.

As for the chcks we lost, They would start as lethargic then head turning, twitching, troubles walking, stubbling, falling over and trouble getting back up then with the ones I saw leg twitching and death. Most died within the same day as the issues started, And the three that lived look like their growth and feathering was stunted. Our week younger chicks and a few others that were two and a half weeks younger (which we have not lost any of either) have all out grown and out feathered them.

Edit for spelling