My Pet Chicken?

[BlazeJester]

Chickens for Backyards is possibly the most expensive chick site I have ever seen. I would highly recommend MPC over them, if only because they have been in business for at least the three years I have had my wonderful barred rock girls, and have an established relationship with a very good hatchery.

MPC does borrow space/chickens from Meyer (my guess is whatever is in high demand that Meyer doesn't already have incubating, MPC will incubate there), and I have found Meyer to have similar shipping costs with lower chick costs. MPC is the only chick retailer that will give a guarantee on bantam sexing, though it costs a LOT. Something like $10/chick once sexed.

I have had no bad experiences with MPC. Both orders have been for 7 chicks, and last year I received an extra australorp as the "original" wasn't looking good and I'm guessing they didn't think she would make it through shipping. She did make it - so did a partridge rock despite illness - and all are excellent daily layers of medium eggs at 7 months old. The EE lays beautiful mint green eggs and the ancona is much friendlier and less flighty than I had assumed she would be.

My original flock of 7 barred rocks is turning 3 years old this week and they lay 2 XL/Jumbo eggs per 3 chickens each day. I have nothing bad to say about MPC in the least - never had a shipping delay, undesired substitution or shipping problem. I am located in the Southeast so I'm guessing the Ohio-ATL is a direct trip - everyone arrived in 2 days tops.

 

[ButchGood]

I ordered from MPC this year. The people I talked to on the phone were excellent as I made a order change and a March delivery instead of April. It was so warm this March I thought it would be Ok to ship. I received 16 very FAT healthy chicks. I could not believe how perky and curious they were after their 2 day ride through the USPS. When placed into the brooder they all found the food and water like they lived there. Now they are happy little 15 day olds. Testing their wings as they run.
I checked out the prices of other hatcheries and I found little difference. MPC had the most extensive list of breeds available. And they will ship as few as 3 in most cases. I would recommend MPC to anyone who wants to go the route of mail order chicks.
On a personal note, I would Never order chicks to be shipped during the colder months. IMHO its just common sense. Why would anyone ship these little guys at freezing temperatures, heat pack or not. If your going to go mail order go spring or early summer.

 

[Alesia]

wow my pet chicken might have a good selection but 150 dollars to ship 10 female Easter Egger Bantam is kinda nuts dont u think?

 

[dianehodges]

I got 6 Dominique Chicks, all girls the 1st week in March from My Pet Chicken All arrived healthy with a heating pad in the box Tomorrow they will be 3 weeks old All are growing like weeds Their instructions on arranging pickup from the post office and what to do when you get them was right on point I did not think the price was bad for quality birds Good Luck

1 veteran 1 dog 1 cat 1 rooster 2 hens 6 chicks

 

[brewmonkey]

We ordered 5 females and one male last year in March and all of them arrived healthy and alive. We got exactly what we ordered. No issues whatsoever.

 

[Kerrigirl]

I just got a shipment from MPC at the end of Feb. All chicks arrived in good health and all were the correct breed, except I ordered a Wilsummer bantum and ended up with some kind of Silkie Bantam. This is my first experience with chickens, and it has been good. I live in California and the chicks were hatched on Tuesday (it was a holiday weekend) and I got a call from the post office at 7:30 am on Thursday that they had arrived. In fact I ordered 10 chicks assuming that not all of them would make it, and they did! It looks like I even got a beautiful pure white EE pullet. I am assuming that they are all sexed correctly.

 

[BlazeJester]

MPC is the only hatchery to sex bantam chicks and it costs A LOT. $10/chick for sexed bantams, plus $40 more or less for shipping - it's possible the farther you are, the more it costs to ship. Your numbers sound right. I imagine they have one or two super specialized people who can sex the bantams - nobody else does it, so it cannot be easy AT ALL to do.

wow my pet chicken might have a good selection but 150 dollars to ship 10 female Easter Egger Bantam is kinda nuts dont u think?

 

[Phyrst]

Hello. I'm new here but I've had chickens before. I had such a run of bad luck, I got out of the chicken business. Anyway, now I'm trying to get just a few chicks, bantam clean-legged breeds to keep a small flock for my own enjoyment. I can't find anywhere that has specific banty chicks for sale. Last night I was searching on-line and found MPC. They claimed you could order just 3 chicks with the shipping charge of $36. I thought I was in heaven since they had a large selection of bantams. Unfortunately to ship to my zip, I had to order 9 banty chicks at $10 each. I just couldn't pay that much! They claim that sexing banty chicks is an art. It's 90% correct. To be certain I get females they suggest I buy the Red or Black Stars. Those are large or heavy breeds, aren't they? I'm on the eastern shore of Maryland. Does anyone know where I can get say, Sebright or any of the Old English Game chicks. Or the Japanese Black-tailed White or Black-tailed Buff? Must be female! And to shorten a long story, when I had chickens before, I bought 9 female chicks, mixed lot of Barred Rocks and RIR from the local Southern States store. About 5 or 6 months later, 7 of my flock started crowing, Short time later they were fighting. I don't want to go through that again! Thanks for reading this. I didn't mean to make it so long.

 

[Phyrst]

Hello. I'm new here but I've had chickens before. I had such a run of bad luck, I got out of the chicken business. Anyway, now I'm trying to get just a few chicks, bantam clean-legged breeds to keep a small flock for my own enjoyment. I can't find anywhere that has specific banty chicks for sale. Last night I was searching on-line and found MPC. They claimed you could order just 3 chicks with the shipping charge of $36. I thought I was in heaven since they had a large selection of bantams. Unfortunately to ship to my zip, I had to order 9 banty chicks at $10 each. I just couldn't pay that much! They claim that sexing banty chicks is an art. It's 90% correct. To be certain I get females they suggest I buy the Red or Black Stars. Those are large or heavy breeds, aren't they? I'm on the eastern shore of Maryland. Does anyone know where I can get say, Sebright or any of the Old English Game chicks. Or the Japanese Black-tailed White or Black-tailed Buff? Must be female! And to shorten a long story, when I had chickens before, I bought 9 female chicks, mixed lot of Barred Rocks and RIR. About 5 or 6 months later 7 of my flock started crowing, Short time later they were fighting. I don't want to go through that again! Thanks for reading this. I didn't mean to make it so long.

 

[Nambroth]

Hello. I'm new here but I've had chickens before. I had such a run of bad luck, I got out of the chicken business. Anyway, now I'm trying to get just a few chicks, bantam clean-legged breeds to keep a small flock for my own enjoyment. I can't find anywhere that has specific banty chicks for sale. Last night I was searching on-line and found MPC. They claimed you could order just 3 chicks with the shipping charge of $36. I thought I was in heaven since they had a large selection of bantams. Unfortunately to ship to my zip, I had to order 9 banty chicks at $10 each. I just couldn't pay that much! They claim that sexing banty chicks is an art. It's 90% correct. To be certain I get females they suggest I buy the Red or Black Stars. Those are large or heavy breeds, aren't they? I'm on the eastern shore of Maryland. Does anyone know where I can get say, Sebright or any of the Old English Game chicks. Or the Japanese Black-tailed White or Black-tailed Buff? Must be female! And to shorten a long story, when I had chickens before, I bought 9 female chicks, mixed lot of Barred Rocks and RIR from the local Southern States store. About 5 or 6 months later, 7 of my flock started crowing, Short time later they were fighting. I don't want to go through that again! Thanks for reading this. I didn't mean to make it so long.

I'm sorry you had bad luck before! The reason that MPC has a high limit of 10 bantams to your location is that the shipping time-- that is, the time that the chicks are in transit. They are concerned that if they sold you less than 10 chicks that they would get too cold during shipping. They put a heat pack in with them but even with this, the fewer the chicks the faster they get cold. Buddies to huddle with=warmer chicks! Bantam chicks are just so small!

To my knowledge, MPC is the only hatchery that offers sexed bantams. I don't know of anyone else that does it. You can try asking in your state's thread... Is there anyone locally that would go 'in' on an order with you? That way you could split the cost and the number of chicks.Try Maryland's thread ("Where am I? Where are you!" forum) and ask if anyone would share an order with you, or even try posting on Craig's list. You might be surprised by people that also just want a few that would share an order with you. You live in a pretty populated area-- I bet you could find someone.

Red and Black stars are sex-linked large fowl. The reason that they say 'to be sure of pullets' is because the chicks hatch out as different colors for the males and females, thus when you order red or black star pullets you are 99.999% likely to get a hen! But they are large fowl, not bantams.

I hope this helps, good luck to you!