Cackle hatchery's Hatchery Surprise- Anybody got this before?

[Jayzandra]

I'm thinking this is a Cochin.

A Polish



Don't know what this is.


I'm thinking this little cockerel is maybe a French Black Copper Marans

Maybe a Leghorn or White Rock?


I'm thinking Light Brahma?

Here it is again.


Both of these have feathered legs.

The little cockerel I think might be a FBCM.





The little black Cochin and a Royal Palm turkey.

Both of these have feathered legs

 

[Liddy]

USPS outdid itself getting my 104 chicks (2 Surprise Packages) to me in northern Maine from MO in a scant two days. The tracking info online kept saying it was a 3-day Priority Mail shipment but I got it in less than 48 hours of receipt of the box by USPS. Cackle, of course, did not send me the email containing the tracking # until about 7 hours after I got the chicks.

All chicks and poults arrived alive and healthy in appearance and activity.

No ducks, alas, but I can deal with that.

That's the good news. I was not ready with the brooders. The box spent 8 hours in the bathtub with a heater running, and the little critters were all lively when released into the brooders. Even the turkeys found the water and food, although their suicidal tendencies are expressed in repeated attempts to lurch out of the brooder door every time it is opened.

I set up a Mama Heating Pad in the two brooders (the third did not get completely enclosed until this morning...required another trip to town for hardware cloth, because what I thought was half-inch by half-inch was one inch by two, and thus unsuitable). Occupants of the upper level had no problem discovering the benefits of MHP. The lower level tenants did not, because whenever I popped them under, they squirted back out and insisted on forming a chick mat at the other end of the brooder, near the food tray.

This morning, I found dead chicks, squashed in the mosh pits.

It was most likely the sheer volume of chicks in each brooder. I had planned on +-30 chicks in each 2' x 6' space and a 40% increase is, IMO, too many. Another 8 chicks have required warming up in a small infirmary I set up. I actually put all of the chicks that appeared dead under a towel on top of another heating pad. After 20 minutes, four of them were breathing! I discovered another three that were sluggish and felt cold in my hand and have been cycled to the infirmary. Three have recovered enough to, after administration of additional electrolytes and probiotics, be returned to the brooder. Two more are on the road to recovery.

The total losses so far are 17.

I have tentatively identified:

4 Royal Palm turkeys
2 Blue Slate turkeys (one has perished)
22 Polish, 8 of which are blue and 4 of which are white-topped black
5 EE
4 Turkens

Still unknown are:
12 black/charcoal with black legs and white head dots and wing tips
More than a dozen yellow chicks, some splashed with gray and some without distinguishing marks
14 chipmunks
2 gray and black Polish

I've looked through all of the Cackle vids (excepting the ducks, peafowl, guineas, bantams, feather-legged chickens and game fowl) and have come up empty. I'll post some pics after I eat something and tend to the chicks in the infirmary again. One of those recovering got chilled from falling into the waterer. I may dab its feathers straight with a warm washcloth and blow dry it.

Good thing I took two days off from work. I needed yesterday to finish their accommodations and get them settled, and today to clean up the mess.

 

[carrielee765]

Y'all are cracking me up!!! Divorce?? Chicken rehab??? maybe I should go too.
My name is Carrie and I am proudly owned by:

• Silver Phoenix- 1 Rooster and 5 hens, and a multitude of babies running around
• Barred Rocks- about 8 young chicks
• Rhode Island Red- 2 roosters and 1 hen
• Buff Orpington- 1 pair
• Easter Eggers or Ameraucana (not sure)- 1 pair
• Game roosters- 2
• and soon I hope to have some Black Stars

Not to mention we also have 2 horses, 2 cats, 1 hamster, 2 white Peking Ducks, and 2 dogs!!!!

 

[dantesmom59]

Do you get males in this order? Can you request no males?

 

[littlekatzz]

Yes you do get males, all birds are sold as straight run only.. However I normally get only 25-40% males which is better then my hatching out my own eggs percentage lol

 

[Poultrybonkers]

Well my two beaked chick got stuck under a fence and died. Will never buy from this crappy hatchery again as they shouldnt of even sold it to start with!!!!!

 

[WPFarmstead]

Well my two beaked chick got stuck under a fence and died. Will never buy from this crappy hatchery again as they shouldnt of even sold it to start with!!!!!

I ended up with a cross beak so bad, I'm not sure how it survived. It went (for free) to a new home that only has a couple of hens, so it can be carefully cared for. There's a second cross beak which we will be putting in the freezer. It's not as bad. I also lost all 5 of my blue slate turkeys in just a few days. We won't be ordering from Cackle again because we had so many issues. They are just too far away for the chicks to arrive in a timely manner and we had a lot of weak ones simply not make the first week.

 

[Poultrybonkers]

I ended up with a cross beak so bad, I'm not sure how it survived. It went (for free) to a new home that only has a couple of hens, so it can be carefully cared for. There's a second cross beak which we will be putting in the freezer. It's not as bad. I also lost all 5 of my blue slate turkeys in just a few days. We won't be ordering from Cackle again because we had so many issues. They are just too far away for the chicks to arrive in a timely manner and we had a lot of weak ones simply not make the first week.

Was the scissor beak an easter egger? Because mine from there with scissor beak is an easter egger. Its still alive. If it gets that bad its getting processed.

 

[Liddy]

I have been losing chicks at a prodgious rate! I suspect it has been the weak that just can't hold their own in a crowd. Not sure any of them would have made it if I had fewer to care for, since I have had help and we've done what we could. It seems as though I'm finding half a dozen still, cold little bodies morning and night. I'm darned tired of this!

Is it the distance or is it the quality of birds? I have no idea, but I don't care. I'm not doing this again. It looks like I will have enough colored egg layers to keep me happy for a while, and the turkeys will fill the freezer nicely. I thought about this on my way to work yesterday morning...why do I have these birds? I figure my goal is egg production to sell, and breeding colored egg layers. I can do that with what I have at this point, and likely supplement my current flocks with local purchases. I see no need to put any birds (or me) through this kind of trauma again.

Now, to put me in a better frame of mind, here are some of the chicks I have that are thriving! I only know what a few of them are.

1

2 A little smaller, lighter in color


3 Maybe Polish, but not as well-defined head puff

4 White Polish, with a very well-defined puff


5 This one has a pronounced breast, it's not just a huge crop


6. I have about a dozen of these

7. From the cheeks and beard, I deduce this is an EE

8. Same for this one, although the head is a lot puffier than #7



9 I have one of these. Spangled Hamburg?

10 The turkey poult was obviously not a chick. Looks to me like Mr Burns!

I'll have to call another one Smithers.

 

[littlekatzz]

I have always been very pleased with my cackle birds. I got a new shipment in this last Friday and it came with 52 babies. Lost one polish and a turkey. But I got 6 turkeys, 4 bourbon red, 2 black Spanish . 1 khaki cambell duck and the rest chickens. I got some Marans, Easter eggers, Polish, salmon fravolles, Cochins, golden laced wyandottes, delewares, barred rock, Austria whites, and a few I have no clue on. I will be doing a third shipment I suspect soon