Anyone ever purchased a meat package of chicks from Ideal?

[RubberChickenLubber]

Just wondering what quality the chicks were and how many made it to maturity? I may get the 100, would consider the 200, but cannot find anyone to process and will have to do it myself.

 

[Cara]

I bought Cornish Rocks from them, but just 5 not one of their package offers. When they arrived they had only put 4 in the box but charged me for 5. One died the following day, although it looked fine when it arrived. The three that are remaining are huge, I don't know how much the male weighs but I can hardly lift him with two hands. They need to be dinner but are so sweet and gentle, and now they are this big I don't know what would be the most humane way to kill them. My husband usually breaks their necks, but I don't know how well that would work on such a large bird. I think we might have to shoot them with a .22

 

[suburbanhomesteader]

Just chop their heads off. Unless you get a perfect shot, shooting them may not be humane.

I bought 20 Cornish Xs and 10 black broilers from Ideal. I had one black broiler fail to thrive, and died with a week of arrival.

1 Cornish flipped on me at about the 4 week mark (which made me nervous that they were all going to do so!).

However, when all was said and done, I ended up with 28 birds in my freezer. 2 of the Cornishes made it past Round 1 of butchering and were 12 weeks on the day of processing; they were over 10lbs processed.

I would not buy Black Broilers again; the Cornishes I got had good meat texture and grew fast. The broilers took an extra 6 weeks, and the hens were still almost a pound shy of the Cornish weights.