Cackle Hatchery reviews

[tbishop]

Here's an appenzeller spitzhauben from Cackle at 3 weeks. I'll go home and take pics of the buckeyes and columbian wyandottes I got from them as well.

I can't speak to it's show qualities but it seems to be a good representation of a fairly uncommon breed. The two I have from last year keep up with my barred rocks for laying...

 

[Deerfield Acres]

Posted this on another thread but wanted to add my $0.02. Ordered 25 White Rocks from Cackle and 25 from McMurray. Both shipped on 3/30. Cackle order included 5 pullets, otherwise all were cockerels.

All birds from Cackle arrived healthy. Only one from McMurray was not perfectly healthy and it was correctable. It was a wry neck chick.

Cackle sent a total of 7 pullets, balance cockerels. McMurray sent a total of 2 pullets, balance cockerels. I thought that was a good deal on both counts!

The major difference was in quality of the birds. Cackle's birds surprised me with how robust, substantial and fast growing they have been. They are wide bodied and have the wide stance and thick legs to support the body. The Cackle birds are really nice birds. McMurray birds were narrow bodied with thinner to thin legs. That said, both sets of birds were acceptable, with straight tails, toes and for the most part, legs.

I am happy with both sets of birds but happiest with Cackle's because they are of a quality I wasn't expecting from a hatchery.

 

[Rin]

Welp, so much for that. I just had them call and say for some reason they can't ship Cayuga to my state (Florida), that my state wont let them... yet Ideal has in the past (in fact I can order Cayuga through Ideal Poultry right now and they will process it and my local feed store JUST got an assortment this week from a different hatchery (I can't remember if they use Myer or Murray) including Swedish Flowers, Runners, and Khaki Campbell)?? There's nothing about this on their website or anywhere online. I also just checked the FL fish and wildlife website and the only duck breeds regulated here at all are Mallards and Muscovies. NOTHING ELSE IS REGULATED as Cackle claims. They say the only thing they can ship here is Peking?? No ty and may be true for them, but not true of any other hatchery.

Edit:
I just ordered 6 cayugas through my local feed store at a great discount anyway (I don't get charged as much on that shipping,) and they said they have never heard of a hatchery refusing to ship any breed of ducks to this state. Apparently they order from several hatcheries depending on what is available at the time (metzer, murray, one I can;t remember, and ideal which they are using with my request). Apparently, they can even get mallards shipped - even though those are actually regulated in our state. XD The regulations on muscovies I mentioned before isn't even about owning or shipping them but purely on their release into the wild. Which shouldn't be okay with ANY duck breed you are ordering anyway. You buy them, they are your responsibility and not the public's.

BUT I wound up reordering nothing but SF's through Cackle anyway. For all the fuss, I'm still very curious what they have to offer and would like to be able to review them beyond this strange law they made up. Honestly, I think they just said that because they didn't have any available or didn't want to ship so few so far. (see my most recent edit) When I asked the woman on the phone the exact regulation code as I was on the FL fish and wildlife website and could find no such regulation their answer was just repeatedly going "yeah.... yeah.... we can only ship peking into florida.... sorry...." ... that's.... not an answer to what I asked??

Edit (again):
I finally found on the Cackle website the following statement; "The White Pekin duck is the only duck that the state of Florida will allow us to ship into that state. The state of Florida does not want any other ducks that are similar to wild ducks shipped into the state." and, "Florida restricts ducks that are mail ordered into their state. Of the duck breeds we offer, Florida only allows the White Pekin to be mailed into their state. "

So while I retract my unfair statement about them making it up because they were possibly sold out/didn't feel like shipping to me, this is still inaccurate information. It is possible this was a regulation at one point (it had to have been at least 6 years ago as my feed store has been able to order other breeds in the 6 yrs that I have lived here and worked with them & ordered my own birds from abroad). It is most certainly not an accurate statement at this time.

 

[Red Bird]

There a hreat hatchery they gave all very healthy birds and they gave me one extra i ordered 5EEs 5Welsumers 3Barred rocks and 2RIRs they gave me an extra EE theyre currently one month old and beautiful the do all the thing a big girl does except lay eggs

 

[mrchicks]

On Wednesday we received 150+ chicks again. And 37 ducks. All arrived healthy and are doing great. Most of the ducks are gone already, and I will be ordering more of their Cayugas. They are stunning.

 

[RadicalHick]

This week we got Cackle's Weekly Special Bantam Pullet Deal as well as some pullet chicks and one cockerel of one of their sexed bantam breeds. The chicks came in good condition. One was a little unsteady on her feet on arrival, but she looks okay now.

I'm particularly pleased at the assortment of the 'weekly special' chicks, because they're very clear on the website that because you're getting a deal, you can't count on any particular distribution of breeds or even getting more than one breed in the batch. I think we got at least one of every banty pullet breed and color they offer. There are only 8 breeds/colors. They are: Cochin (red, golden laced, barred) OEG (barred, crele) Buff Brahma, RIR, and Barred Rock in bantam versions. When ordering, I asked if I could request more chicks from one of the breeds in the assortment if available and was told that they won't take requests on the assortments. I like the variety - my fear

For the ones where I ordered a particular breed, they marked the heads of all of the pullets in pink and the one cockeral in orange. It is hard to see those colors as different, particularly for birds under a red heat lamp, but when we handle them, the markings can be distinguished.

I know that these are hatchery birds, so I'm not expecting show quality. I actually like hatchery birds, because some of the chicks I've gotten from SQ stock had very fragile health and were not hardy in the winter, despite being from breeds that normally do well in these temperartures.

It's too early for me to say how accurate their sexing is. I hope they're accurate, because I'm very tired of trying to rehome roos.

 

[agriley]

I was extremely happy with the variety of breeds in the pullet deal too. I got the 5 pullet deal and got 5 different breeds even though I had reconciled myself (and my children) to the idea that they may all be the same. I got barred rock, Dominique, RIR, Buff Brahma and Red Cochin. I can't be sure of the sexing accuracy yet, but if it is anything like the assortment choices then I am expecting great things.

 

[Rin]

Chicks were shipped 5/20/15. I received 16 Salmon Faverolles on 5/22/15, 1/3 of them arrived fairly lethargic and "egg shaped" still, but none were DoA. Despite trying sugar in the water per their instructions; 5 died yesterday with 1 more clearly about to die today. The rest seem happy, healthy, and seemingly well recovered from the shipping ordeal.

Will see how their policy handles the losses.

Edit: They are closed today and not answering phones so I shot an e-mail; oddly instead of doing an e-mail form they sort of have you read a couple paragraphs telling you what things they want you to add in your e-mail (with the threat that they wont even read it if you don't do it right). A simple form would have made this less awkward (very very extremely basic HTML stuff), but w/e. I THINK I read correctly and included all the things they wanted. Hopefully this will satisfy their within two day requirement, but seeing as tomorrow is a holiday, they may not see it until Tuesday. Two days after their guarantee (which ended today). I'll try calling tomorrow anyway as not all businesses close Memorial day (and instead do sales and such).

edit #2: Welp, the 6th one died. We'll see if they'll reimburse for that one too even if it was not mentioned as dead in my first e-mail. It certainly is dead now.

edit #3: 6/1/15, they initiated a refund for my losses 3 days ago. Still have not received the actual refund to my bank account though. With them, we decided my chicks might have actually overheated during shipping due to the breed. It makes sense at least. This /is/ Florida after all (we go straight from "winter" to summer) and Salmon Faverolles are indeed a cold tolerant breed. Who knows

edit #4: 6/3/15, I received a refund for ALL of my losses. Even the one I was unable to inform them about until 2 days after their guarantee ended. Next time I post here it would be about how well their Salmon Faverolles turned out. For straight runs, even with losses, I ordered 15 and after loses got exactly 10 healthy birds (this breed can be feather sexed easily once feathers are present) I received 5 males and 5 females at this time. The survivors appear to be very sturdy and frendlier than my current Favs were when they were chicks.

 

[ConPollos]

My farm supply called to tell me that all of my 21 Cackle chicks arrived even though their order was short by 100 chicks. I'm picking them up tomorrow! I'll try to post pics of my 13 EEs, 6 Ws, and 2 BAs. I have the option of letting the store keep the BAs to sell along with the other BAs they ordered, bc I thought 2 of my 3 BAs were cockerells so I ordered 2 more BA pullets. But all my 3 BAs turned out to be pullets after all, 2 of them were just growing faster than the other one.

 

[Blackberry18]

Hey, I'm thinking about ordering from Cackle next year, and I was wonder how accurate they are with breed and gender, and how show-quality their birds are. I don't really want to order a straight run or purchase many chicks for verification. I'm hoping for Black Australorps, Light Brown Leghorns, and Buff Brahmas for the 4-H show; obviously hatchery birds aren't always good for shows, but I'd rather show all right birds and get blue ribbons than none at all