Are all hatchery birds pet quality?

[goldielocks]

I love my hatchery chickens from Mt Healthy and Meyers Hatchery. They are not only beautiful they are healthy and all are laying eggs. I have bought from a breeder and the birds were not well. I've went to a couple of chickens shows and you could tell some had lice and mites...you just bring that stuff home to you chickens. Also breeder like to overcharge and act like their chickens are something more than chickens.

I hand raised my chickens from day 1 and they are all sweet and love to sit on my lap. I get compliments on them all the time and everyone loves the eggs.

Here is a pic of my SLW from Meyer Hatchery...he gets compliments all the time.

Look at my Hatchery girls, all waiting in line to lay an egg. Anyone want to tell me whats wrong with my Hatchery Chickens? I didnt think so.

 

[ginbart]

Quote:
Well I can tell you whats wrong with your girls.

Their not at my house.

They are beautiful.

I didn't think about the lice and mites, maybe I won't take them.

 

[goldielocks]

Thank you very much. I am very please with Meyers Hatchery . Mt Healthy also, my EEs girls are from both Hatcheries. I love their eggs. See.

Quote:
Well I can tell you whats wrong with your girls.

Their not at my house.

They are beautiful.

I didn't think about the lice and mites, maybe I won't take them.

 

[goldielocks]

Since you are from Virgina you might be better off ordering from Meyers or Mt Healthy, you might get your chicks quicker. Im just so happy with mine that i recomend those hatcherys. I think the hatchery that you are talking about is in MO and it could be a long ride for the chicks. Yes,McMurry is from MO.
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[kagedgoddess]

chic, i would say if you are just looking for local ppl, ask at your local feed store. i used to work at the one round here and know lots of chicken farmers who sell chics. one thing, as far as i know, its state wide, you have to purchase 6 or more chicks. after 4 or 6 wks you can purchase only one if you want, but its called the Easter chicken law or something. McMurray fills orders for VA and i Believe Ideal does as well. try and pick up a "valley trader" in the spring there will be ppl advertising day olds for $1 they usually dont want 25+ chicks from the hatchery and are selling the extras. Also check in with your 4-H poultry club person, they can tell ya where to get the chicks your looking for i figure. we have breeders here for BLRW, SLW, GLW, cochins, orpingtons, polish, etc etc. but i m not near roanoke. its just amazing at what is nearby when you start talking chickens, lol!
that all said, i have chicks from tsc, i got 4 golden comets and 2 rirs.i didnt know what comets were, but they were cute. my rirs turned out to be roos, but they were both pretty and not production reds. and i love my birds. i got them cuz i wanted chickens and that is what was available.
good luck.

 

[EweSheep]

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Sorry McMurray Hatchery is from Iowa, not MO. Cackle, and Marti's are the only two hatcheries I can think of from MO.

 

[the4heathernsmom]

I have both from breeder that I paid out the wazoo for and hatchery. They lay eggs lots of eggs pretty colored eggs weird eggs sometimes and I have a few that go broody, from the hatchery and that are not even a broody breed. To start out with do like I did and check craigslist check with local folks ask around and get what you like in color etc and go from there. It grows on you and you will want another and if you have kids like me they take over your chickens anyways and then you get into funky chickens with spots and polka dots and chocalate eggs and green eggs. Don't let all the breeder talk make things complicated for you. Start out small with a few and go from there you learn a lot from this site and read. Learn along the way and enjoy what you are doing rather than make it complicated and unenjoyable. I tell people right up front what we have where they came from and some I just don't know but you can tell by looking at our birds they are healthy no bugs well fed and semi tame. Most people around here want eggs so that;s what the kid's do and we have purebred and mixed. Different strokes for breeders to improve their breeds but to me in my situation would be way too concentrated and take the joy out of it. But I would soon go broke if every bird on my place was from a breeder and also hubbyless lol no offense yall.

 

[Krys109uk]

The original question was "Are all hatchery birds 'pet quailty' ?" The answer is not all but the vast majority.

I think people are talking of two different issues here.

People who have hatchery birds are feeling offended on behalf of their pets....& that's understandable. All chickens can be lovable. (heck I've had some great crossbreeds with great charaters) All sorts of birds can be reliable layers, nice friendly pets. We all now that. But is it necessary to call these birds a certain breed? They are loved whether they are representative of their breed or no.


But when one is talking of breeds, actual breeds which have a standard, the hatcheries do not do the actual breeds any service by selling birds which are not representatve of the breed. A breed needs to have certain characteristics; without those characteristics a bird cannot really be called that breed. But the hatcheries take liberties. The best example is the ameraucanas....how many hatcheries sell EEs as ameraucanas? And how much trouble does that cause? And frankly many of the other birds coming from hatcheries are just as far as their supposed breed. Why sell birds as something they are not. The buyers love them whatever, so why call them a breed?

People here who know what a breed is supposed to look like.....how often do you see pics of birds which are supposed to be your favourite breed onbut it is so far removed from what the breed is supposed to look like, that it is misrepresentation to use the breed name?

Nobody has a problem with cross breeds but surely we ought to call a spade a spade.
Nobody says cross breeds can't be pretty, loveable or good layers.

 

[Pathfinders]

Quote:
I agree with that. And I will say that hatchery birds can be wonderful, lovable, great birds to own. Still have some from my original hatchery order all those years ago (I'm sure they no longer lay, but those old girls are the queens of the layer flock.)

I think my biggest problem with hatcheries selling things they define as specific breeds matches what Krys says. I can't tell you how many times I've seen some poor kid bring his/her hatchery birds to a show, only to have them either do poorly or even be DQ'd because of faults that they didn't know the birds had. They thought they were buying birds that were good examples of a given breed, when they most assuredly were not. The EEs that are sold by hatcheries as Ameraucanas are a good example, as are the Dutch. Various hatcheries sell colors of Dutch that are nowhere available in purebred birds in the US, and which are obvious crosses with OEGs.

I called one of the big hatcheries once and had a long talk with the owner. His contention was that since he bought the birds from a "breeder" they had to be purebred. Never mind that the original source had crossbred the birds with OEGs (this was well-known at the time.) The hatchery owner told me "After four or five generations a cross bred bird is now purebred" which is just not the case, IMO.

Crossbred birds will have faults that can crop up for many, many generations. And putting colors into a line of birds that don't exist even in the country of origin, doesn't make them purebred birds. Yet hatcheries can and do sell such birds as examples of a given breed, and those new to birds buy them thinking they can eventually show them and do well. That's what I find most disappointing about this sort of behavior by hatcheries. When some poor 4-H kid who buys them thinking they are getting birds they can show (not knowing any better), and finding out later that the birds they've cared for and grown to love cannot be shown anywhere, because of one fault or another. That to me is the biggest problem with hatcheries, when kids get disappointed because the hatcheries aren't clear that their birds aren't going to compete well at shows. And some hatcheries even make it seem as if the birds will do well! Granted, perhaps at some small fairs they will. But at any state fair, or large county fair (not to mention sanctioned show), such birds will not do well, and a kid goes home disillusioned and upset.

So please don't get me or others here wrong, I don't think anyone is saying that hatchery birds are bad to own (as long as you know what you're getting into), or that anyone who buys them is some sort of second class citizen, that's NOT at all what we're saying. What we're saying is, when a hatchery misrepresents what they have, people who don't know any better get hurt, and that makes us angry. Does that make sense, I hope?

 

[CHIC]

Well said, I think that is how I am feeling. I had no idea that hatchery birds were sub standard. I didn't know that I would have to advertise them as pet quality because I thought they would be nice birds.