Bad Experience w/IDEAL Poultry Hatchery: Normal Occurrence?

[dstinett]

All 20 of mine are 5 days old. All doing well. No pasty butt, no health issues. I'm so pleased with Ideal

 

[candicebzb]

I've never ordered from ideal hatchery, but having checked their prices against Cackle Hatchery I've found them to be more expensive. I've never had a problem with them. With one exception all of the shipments have arrived healthy and alive. The one time that all fifty chicks arrived dead was during the heat of summer, I blame it on the post office for not handling them properly. Cackle Hatchery replaced them immediately, no questions asked. The are on the web www.cacklehatchery.com.

 

[FredB]

I have ordered from multiple hatcheries, and IDEAL is the only order that did not have any dead birds. Their customer service worked with me to figure out which chicks were which breeds. I could not be more pleased with IDEAL. Thats just my experience, I am sorry you had a poor one. It always hurts to lose chicks.

 

[dealfinder500]

I have ordered 8 batches of birds this year from 3 different hatcheries. I had no problems with any of them, and not a single dead bird until my last shipment, which was from Ideal. But it appears it got sent to the wrong post office and was driven over special, and apparently the postal worker put the box on the front seat with the air blowing on them... and I lost quite a few.

But that was the only problem I had with any of my orders, and Ideal was very quick to ship replacements (which I should get tomorrow).

I love Ideal and I will continue to order from them.

 

[Varglet]

I just got my Bantam Special order of 10 chicks this morning. They threw in 4 extra males (3 RIR, 1 turkey). All were alive and healthy, even the lady at the post office said they looked really healthy, and she surprisingly gets a lot of chick orders going through. I'm very happy with my order from Ideal, though a couple less Cochins would have been better.

 

[ESofVA]

I ordered 2x from Ideal and I will be keeping to that hatchery as long as they have what I am looking for. In the past I have also ordered from Cackle (my 2nd choice) and The Poultry Hatchery. When I first started ordering bantams I had a very difficult time keeping them alive. I tried everything I could think o with them still dying off 1 after another. Then I realized that they couldn't eat the chick starter...most of the crumbles were to big to to get in their beaks and swallow. I started running the chick starter through a food processor until it looked almost like flour and that seems to work great. After they get a bit bigger I quit. I have had very few troubles since.
If you have your chicks vaccinated you aren't supposed to feed them medicated food until about 1 week old.
We live in the Eastern Shore of VA. Very agricultural with 2 Tyson and 1 Perdue chicken plants. Many poultry farms with multiple sheds which hold about 40,000 to 60,000 chickens each. A friend has 10 sheds which is pretty normal. When the floors are ready to be cleaned out, the litter is sold to the grain/tomato/soybean/green beans/potatoes, etc. farms for fertilizer. The 150+ acres (that is a mini field of cropland) that adjoins our mini-farm, (growing soybeans this year) was fertilized yesterday with big trucks scattering chicken litter as it went. Dust flies off that. Chickens in those sheds do get diseases, but not very often. A few chickens die in the sheds, some are accidentally killed when they are caught to be put on the tractor trailers and they leave those. So, we have litter with a few dead chickens mixed in, spread about 10 feet from my chicken pens.
There are thousands and thousands of farming acres on the peninsula.
I either vaccinate or have my chicks vaccinated for several diseases.
Sorry for rambling...I just meant to offer a LITTLE info and look what I did...

 

[gritsar]

Every healthy, thriving chick/duckling/gosling I've had (with the exception of my call ducks - private breeder) have come from Ideal. I have ordered dark brahmas from them in several orders and nearly every one of the darks is as close as you can get to BQ without actually going to a breeder. Wish I could say the same for the hatchery I got 15 dead (out of an 18) chick order this past Monday. I never should have gone with another hatchery just to get one particular breed. Ideal will get all my chick orders from now on, no matter what.
My oldest Ideal chickens are now 6 1/2 years old, still healthy, still lay several eggs a week. My pair of geese grew quickly and have the best personalities. The goose hatched out 10 healthy goslings in her first year. The runner ducks are not the walking crowbars that you would get with breeder quality, but are healthy and thrive.

Bad shipments occurs happen with every hatchery, but are not the norm for Ideal.

 

[gritsar]

I ordered 2x from Ideal and I will be keeping to that hatchery as long as they have what I am looking for. In the past I have also ordered from Cackle (my 2nd choice) and The Poultry Hatchery. When I first started ordering bantams I had a very difficult time keeping them alive. I tried everything I could think o with them still dying off 1 after another. Then I realized that they couldn't eat the chick starter...most of the crumbles were to big to to get in their beaks and swallow. I started running the chick starter through a food processor until it looked almost like flour and that seems to work great. After they get a bit bigger I quit. I have had very few troubles since.
If you have your chicks vaccinated you aren't supposed to feed them medicated food until about 1 week old.
We live in the Eastern Shore of VA. Very agricultural with 2 Tyson and 1 Perdue chicken plants. Many poultry farms with multiple sheds which hold about 40,000 to 60,000 chickens each. A friend has 10 sheds which is pretty normal. When the floors are ready to be cleaned out, the litter is sold to the grain/tomato/soybean/green beans/potatoes, etc. farms for fertilizer. The 150+ acres (that is a mini field of cropland) that adjoins our mini-farm, (growing soybeans this year) was fertilized yesterday with big trucks scattering chicken litter as it went. Dust flies off that. Chickens in those sheds do get diseases, but not very often. A few chickens die in the sheds, some are accidentally killed when they are caught to be put on the tractor trailers and they leave those. So, we have litter with a few dead chickens mixed in, spread about 10 feet from my chicken pens.
There are thousands and thousands of farming acres on the peninsula.
I either vaccinate or have my chicks vaccinated for several diseases.
Sorry for rambling...I just meant to offer a LITTLE info and look what I did...

If you have your chicks vaccinated for Coccidiosis you should not feed medicated at all. The vaccine takes the place of the medicated feed. It does not affect the vaccine for Marek's.
We own an 80 acre farm and lease the pastures to a neighbor for his cattle to graze. This neighbor also owns commercial chicken houses and uses the litter on our pastures for hay growing. He knows I have a few strict rules concerning his use of the pastures - they are not allowed to dump the dirty commercial house litter on the five acres immediately surrounding my coops and they are to let me know a day ahead of time when they plan to spray the fields surrounding the coops so I can keep my birds out of those areas. This neighbor, along with another commercial chicken farmer neighbor, are courteous enough to keep their distance from my birds. They tell me they aren't afraid of what their birds might catch from their exposure to mine, but rather what my healthy birds might catch from those poor creatures they keep in the commercial houses.

 

[ESofVA]

I wanted to replace my Spitzhaubens which were stolen a year or so ago as half grown chicks. Ideal didn't have them so I ordered from Cackle which is where I got my first ones. I ordered 10 and got 11. They are now 3 weeks old and doing just fine. I have only had maybe 3 chicks fail to thrive from Ideal but that sometimes just happens.That is from 2 orders with a total of 40+ chicks. Not bad. A lot is not due to the hatchery, but how chicks are handled by carriers.

gritsar...I agree with your statements and I don't use medicated feed...I use vaccines.

Today we have been moving/storing anything loose around the yard expecting high winds from this hurricane/tropical depression that is coming our way. Wind has already picked up but not bad yet...supposed to start after 8 pm and it is now 5pm. My youngest dog has already brought 3 or 4 mostly decayed chicks (from litter spread over the field) into the yard. I don't know how old they were, because they grow at a different rate, but I would guess 3 weeks old maybe? Anyway, having to keep a watch on her! This is actually the 1st yr since we have been here (4yrs) that I have seen them spread on these fields but I do know they spread on most.

 

[RareDuck]

Ordered 25 feather legged bantams on the 25th shipped same day. They sent 27. One could not stand and had pasty butt and only lived 2 days. All the rest are doing great. They did not have a problem with the chick starter. They got Southern States non medicated for 6 days and started on Nutrena medicated yesterday. There are no poultry farms close by and I have never vaccinated. I am happy with my bantams from Ideal and the Black Sex Links I got last year. They have really great deals. They have a special on bantams for this coming week assorted cochins, assorted feather legged, assorted clean legged, and assorted hatchery choice for $1.10 each with assorted Silkies at $1.40 each. Surprise special full size chicks straight run $1.05 each pullets $1.55 each, barred rock pullets same, black sex link pullets $1.65 each, Ameraucana, production red, and RIR pullets $1.95 each, and Cornish rock broilers $1.15 each.