Best Hatchery?

[Farmer22]

I am considering ordering chicks from an online hatchery and was wondering which one was best. I have looked at Ideal Poultry and Efowl. Are there better ones? Which would be the best for shipping and service? Help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Fluffnpuff]

I don't know which hatchery is best. The only one I've ever used in McMurray. I've order 25 chicks from them every year for 4 years and i am satisfied. I had 1 shipment that was all dead but that was due to a postal employee that went into rage over having to deal with a box that made noise. Murray promptly replaced by order at no cost even though it wasn't their error.


There was one instance that was weird. In my county there are 4 different big agri egg factories with the nearest one less than a mile from me. A shipment of 1000 white leghorns was accidentally shipped to my address. I assume it was meant for one of the factory outfits. I called them and reported the error and they actually let me keep the 1000.

 

[wren]

The best hatchery is whatever one is closest to where you live. Why? Because the shipping time is less. This is true even if you pay extra for faster shipping.

 

[Farmer22]

So would Ideal in Texas be close enough? What about the Ohio hatcheries?

 

[wren]

Ideal is way too far! Ohio is closer... Hold on I'll look this up

 

[Farmer22]

Thanks for the help! What about Meyer in Ohio? Opinions?

 

[RareDuck]

My birds have always arrived in VA in 2 days no matter where they came from. Last year I got birds from MO, TX, and CA and all arrived alive. The best birds were the ones from Ideal in TX. They all lived thrived and are now starting to lay eggs. I love everything about them. They are Black Sex links but one maybe something else. She was a red headed chick with pink legs and is mostly orange with brown dark gray and a bit of black and has patterns on her feathers. The rest were black and now have varying amounts of red or orange. They are very pretty and very sweet.

 

[Farmer22]

What was it like ordering from Ideal? How many did you order? Did they send extras?

 

[wren]

Okay okay! Lol! I looked up large day old chick places. Meyer would be the best for you based on your location. www.meyerhatchery.com/

You have gotten lucky in the past with your orders! If I were you, I would not order from any other hatchery unless it was even closer then Meyers. Why? Because the chicks could get delayed. The best or worse chicks really comes down to how long they sat around waiting to be delivered and transit.

Meyers seems to be the closest major hatchery for you. There might be smaller hatcheries in your state and local breeders not far from you if u r interested.

The healthiest I ever received was a group where I requested that my local major mailing hub call me when they arrived there. They called at ten pm. I drove an hour and a half to go get them. Because I did that they got food and water earlier. Which was better.

 

[RareDuck]

I ordered 15 birds from Hoffman in PA because they were the closest and the birds were sent from Ideal. I ordered the end of August and got no extra birds. Ideal takes Paypal. Ideal has a high percentage of good reviews. Delays can happen no matter how close the hatchery is according to the posts I have read. My birds from CA 3,000 miles away arrived in the same amount of time as the closest in MO. The temperature and how the PO handles the birds are the most important things. Ideal adds extra males for warmth when it is cold. I would not order birds till the weather warms up. TX is usually warmer than OH and baby birds need to be warm.