A good hatchery

[BlueGrassFever]

Quote:
Look for your local poultry swap-meet in your area, if you have one. There are many breeders with small businesses/farms on the side. Just talk to the vendors. You'll be surprised as to what they carry.

As mentioned, it beats the shipping costs of having 'em sent to your house and you're able to choose and see up close the chickens you'd want.

 

[patandchickens]

Hi lfoose,

reading thu your Q and the replies, I think there is confusion here as to whether you're wanting to buy female (pullet) chicks or whether you want started ready-to-lay pullets.

If you want day old chicks and just don't want males, most large US hatcheries sex most major nonbantam breeds, so you can get them practically anywhere you like and no they won't come debeaked unless you specificallly request it..

OTOH if you want mostly-grown-up pullets, like 15-20 wks old, that's what most of the replies are talking about. Few hatcheries carry them (although your local feed store might, by advance order) and the ones that do carry them only have a couple of breeds, usually leghorns and production brown egg layers. Shipping will be !expensive! relative to chicks, and I haven't heard of any hatchery that sells grown pullets not debeaked, because in order to economically and conveniently grow them to that age they are kept in, um, well-stocked ;> pens where cannibalism would be a serious problem if the birds had their whole beaks. (I am not supporting the whole system, just explaining why the debeaking is done. Note that debeaking means removing about 1/2 the top beak and about 1/3 the lower beak).

Hope this helps,

Pat

 

[OHChick]

Quote:
Speckled,

The ones I got from Meyer were beak trimmed. I gather that is the same as de-beaking in some circles but the 5 I got do not look like the photos I have seen of a de-beaked bird. Mine are all able to peck and pick up scratch from the ground and so forth.

 

[lurky]

lfoose.......check your PM

 

[s6bee]

I ordered my chicks from Meyer Hatchery and they are located in Ohio so if I read correctly, that's close.
I believe they sell pullets too. My chicks were healthy and they threw in an extra HEN!