Ideal Hatchery Questions

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I got eight breeds from Ideal and in Feb. A couple got weak but I put them by themselves and in the dark so they could rest and they recovered. All were alive when they arrived and I didn't lose one. Make sure you read as much as you can on chicks. I did however have them inside my office which has a temp of 70-80 most of the time.

Have chicks in here now too.
 
Does anyone know how the chickys would do to Missouri.

You may want to try Cackle Hatchery they are in Missouri. There is also Marti Poultry, again in Missouri.​
 
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Currently raising some chicks ordered from Ideal. Cochin Bantam assorted colors have done very poorly, close to 50% mortality rate so far. They do not have the instinct to eat anything except mash. They are getting a well balanced variety diet (to prepare them for free ranging), and about half simply won't eat enough variety. The other half gobble everything down and are doing fine.

We think it is mostly genetic - The white and buff Cochins had a much higher mortality rate than the blacks and grays. The Frizzles did worst of all - we have just one healthy one, two that are struggling, and the rest died.

Brown Leghorns have done better than some others, but we have still lost 2. Our Standard Americaunas are dropping fast - they are fed the same thing that the other chicks are, but they are just dying off, one after another. We've lost about 5 of them, with another one in trouble. The Bantam Americaunas seem hardier - we've only lost two of them so far.

The Buff Orpingtons we got from Ideal at the same time as the Leghorns and Americaunas are thriving - all but one that is a bit puny and probably won't make it. We haven't lost one of them yet though.

This experience has taught me that since the rates are varying from breed to breed, and since we can clearly see that some of the chicks simply don't have the instinct to eat a variety of foods, that the problems are likely genetic in origin.

When we put sprouts into the cage, about half the chicks would just mob them, and gobble them up - we put in enough for all of the chicks, and scattered them around so they were near all the chicks. Some of the chicks would just stand there looking at them and would not eat, and a few would actively turn around and put their backs to the food. This has been the pattern with the Cochins especially, when we put treats in, you can pretty much watch and see which chicks are going to go down next, by which ones are not eating the treats - and the same chicks have done this all along, so it isn't a matter of them getting sick and then not eating, they are getting sick BECAUSE they are not eating. You can watch their growth rate also, lower for those that don't eat the variety.

We'll be ordering more chicks in the spring. I'll be ordering everything I can from other hatcheries. The only ones I'll be ordering from Ideal will be the rare ones I just can't get elsewhere, but I'll have to order double the number we need, because of the high mortality rates.
 
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That's been my experience with them too, order double what you want.
I think you maybe on to something with the genetics, possible a lot of inbreeding or something. But have ahd a lot of their stuff die in 1-4 days, like yours, from never eating, or just being totally falling down on arrival. And yes, I am a seasoned pro at raising all sorts of fowl, before anyone suggest we have done something wrong
(I know there's a lot of Ideal fans on here). This is just the simple fact of what I and a lot of others have observed. I ship thousands of chicks every year myself with great results.
On my last order with them, which is truely THE LAST, I called in and specially requested they ship my order out Express Mail, (which is how I ship mine)
I informed them of the bad results I had been having with their stock, and that I felt the faster shipping would help the servival rate a lot.
They were polite, but said, no, gave along drawn out list of reasoning, they were best shipped Priority, even though they often take 3 days to arrive, they were guarenteed to arriva a live.
I told them that didnt do me any good if they were dead, I didnt need the money, I needed the chicks to be alive

Pretty much boiled down to, they just werent going to go to the trouble of shipping them express, even with me gladly willing to pay the extra fees for a safer 1 day arrival.
Oh well, live and learn

I again was only getting birds for color reasons for out crosses to other breeds. But IF you are wanting good birds, true to the breed and color, Find a private breeder for them, you'll be much happier in the long run, than a bird from any hatchery. They are bred for number and quantity, there is no such thing as quality control at these places, if it hatches, it ships. That's why if you look on any of the hatchery sites, it says something along the lines of
We make no promises as to the quality of these birds, only that they represent the breed.

Well, from a lot of what I got, that wasnt even close, and lets not talk about being true to the color sold. Like I said in an earlier post, that's been a joke.
And silkies are supposed to have 5 toes and a walnut comb, got some of the one year, 3 toes and single combed, with hard feathers in the tails and wings....ummm, that aint no silkie
 
We also got a chick that was blind. The eyes had no slit in the lid. Now, that is something that was visible, and they should have checked that before shipping.

If a hatchery says they will represent the breed, then characteristics not typical of the breed are something they should replace for. But if the quality of what you get in replacements is not better than what you got originally, replacements don't do much good.

Ours are dying at all ages (we have chicks up to seven weeks now, and it has not stopped yet). I MIGHT think it was a care issue, except as I said, some breeds are doing this, others not, so it has to be something to do with the breed since the care is the same between the breeds, but the mortality rates are vastly different.

The only hopeful thing in this, is that the ones that survive should be reasonably hardy. Though it is difficult to watch half of them just die.
 
My friend and I just split a shipment of Standard surprise pullets. They sent half of one breed that is extremely small. Most of them were crushed by the standard chicks. I contacted customer service and sent a picture like thy requested, still haven't heard back from them. We also specifically ordered from Ideal because they are in Texas, so the chicks get here in one day. For some reason, these chicks shipped out of New Mexico, and it took two days to get here! The small mystery chicks didn't handle it well, at all. If we'd known Ideal didn't have the chicks, we wouldn't have ordered from them! Would have saved a lot of time, trouble, and dead chicks.

Shelly
 
There were also some other odd things about our orders.

All of the first batch of chicks had wing feathers when we got them, they COULD NOT have been day old chicks. And some of them had longer wing feathers than others had - there were obviously two different aged chicks in the box, and the difference was fairly marked. The second batch were day olds, you cold see they had fuzz on the end of the wings. The first batch seemed to have about the same amount of wing feathers as the second batch did at one and two weeks. It seems pretty obvious to me that they sent 1 and 2 week old chicks.

The Bantam Cochins were the same size on arrival as the Standard Leghorns - suggesting again that they sent us older chicks than day old. The Cochins were NEVER as small as the Bantam Americaunas.

At seven weeks (or perhaps actually eight and nine weeks), the Bantam Cochins are barely larger than the new batch of chicks at three weeks.

We ordered an assortment of Cochins, which by description are supposed to be "any of the colors normally sold". We have all kinds of colors in there, most of them NOT ones that Ideal sells, and some that are not even listed colors for Cochins. We have splash and solid combinations, two colored birds that are not listed as available by Ideal, and some colors I've not been able to even identify. So it is obvious that whoever is doing the breeding is not breeding for true colors - this feels VERY much like someone is just throwing all colors of Cochins into a breeding pen and just sending out the eggs as assorted because they were too careless to control them properly.

There are about three rare breeds that Ideal carries that I can't find elsewhere. I will have to order them there, and hope we can then improve the breed by selectively culling. Sad to have to do that though. But I guess, if lots of quality specimens existed, the rare breeds would not need preserved.
 
Just wanted to add that I got my email back from their "expert".
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Shelly –

Many different varieties of chicks look like the one in the photo. We would need to wait until the chick reached maturity to effectively tell what breed it is. Thank you.

Ross Windham
Ideal Poultry Breeding Farms Inc.
1-800-243-3257 Ext. 5568


Real helpful. Luckily, there are people on the board that helped me figure out what the tiny standard chicks were.

Also, I asked why they sent them from New Mexico and didn't tell us. Silence. I said we ordered from Ideal because it took a day. Their response, "Well, we needed to ship from another hatchery". Lovely. If I'd known that, I wouldn't have ordered. Why say you have the special, when it is coming from another hatchery??

In response to the poster who said there were older chicks in the order...ABSOLUTELY! The tiny chicks (we think they are Hamburgs) had wing and tailfeathers. Yeah, they're two days old!
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Just be careful. We went with Ideal for their Customer Service. Hasn't been great, although she did decide to credit me for my DOA's. If there is a hatchery in your state that has birds you want, get them from there. Make sure up front that they are shipping from there and not from another state! If they are, then pass.

Good Luck!

Shelly
 
From your Friends at Ideal Poultry -

As you all may know we take great pride in our name and the services we provide our customers. We are a family owned and operated business and have been successfully providing poultry since the 1930's. We invite everyone to call us with technical questions and are willing to help any time we are open for business. I will answer many of the questions you have outlined in this thread and if you need further information please call us, we will do our best to provide you answers.
All of our Poultry is shipped by the USPS. We do not receive any recourse from them when a customer receives deceased and or stressed chicks, we refund or reship at our cost. We feel confident in our shipping practices but do not have control over how the shipments are handled once they leave our hatchery and in between the customer. We want everyone to receive live poultry because that is what they ordered.
We do not sell any chicks older than a day. We ship the chicks as soon as they are hatched. We do breed to be able to feather sex which will cause fast feathering and may be what you are seeing. We do not have the facilities to house chicks until they are ordered. We hatch for each week and sell all each week.
We strive to make each and every order correct. Human hands that are not exempt from mistake are shipping your orders. We do our best and if there is a mistake, we will make it right. We also guarantee our sexing on each order to 90%. We do not guarantee show quality on any of our poultry. Our prices do not reflect show quality prices. With the exception of a few hybrid breeds, all breeds are purebred.

To Shelly -

I am sorry for your experience. I did not speak with you on Friday and your email had nothing attached but a picture. I did not know of your situation and your email did not state it either. It would be appropriate that you explain all events that led to my response before posting it on the internet. Also, we and Privett Hatchery who shipped your order are not hatching Hamburgs at this time.

Thank you.

Ross Windham
Ideal Poultry
 

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