Chocolate Eggers from hatcheries?

[TheNewMrsEvans]

I want to order some Wellies or Marans to get pretty eggs, and hopefully a lot of them...has anyone bought these breeds from hatcheries? Please give your critique...

Should I bother or just wait until I can order some hatching eggs from a BYCer?

 

[ninjapoodles]

Quote:
I got cuckoo Marans from McMurray last year, and while I got a couple of decent roos, I got nothing in pullets I'd ever allow to reproduce. In just a handful of birds, I had multiple leg/foot deformities, and I understand that a couple other BYCers had the same experience with this particular breed and hatchery.

There are tons of people here who will have other varieties of Marans hatching eggs in the spring, and I'm betting that the prices are going to "self-correct" about that time.

 

[flyingmonkeypoop]

The maran hen I got from Ideal laid normal brown eggs. To me she looked like a white legged production rock.

 

[CHICKEN little 1]

I had the same problem as ninjapoodles . Ordered 5 Cuckoo Marans fro MM. 4 out of 5 were roos. All the roos had crooked toes. Kept only 1 roo. He only had 1 slight crooked toe.

Good Luck on your search!

 

[gumpsgirl]

In my experience with hatchery birds in general, I've never seen anything to impressive and usually with a lot of defects. Hatcheries breed for mass quantities, not perfection or quality.

I personally would wait to get eggs from someone here on BYC and hatch them yourself. That way you know you will get what you want and expect.

 

[Henrietta23]

I have Welsummers from Ideal. They lay well and their eggs are pretty but not as dark as I hoped they might be. I'd take a picture but I'm not sure which eggs are theirs and which are the barnevelders'.

 

[TheNewMrsEvans]

That's what I figured...even worse deformed!!!???

I'm nervous about getting shipped eggs because they get scrambled and they aren't cheap...plus i am going to build an incubator, no experience, try a few mutt eggs, then hopefully try them...we'll see if the mutts eggs do ok.

 

[Opa]

I ordered welsummers from Estes Hatchery in Springfield Mo and have been very happy. I ordered 18 straightrun and 12 were pullets. They have all grown up healthy and now are laying beautiful dark terra cotta eggs with light speckling or a lighter brown with larger dark speckles. They appear to look exactly like all of the pictures of welsummers I have found, so I would order from them again.

 

[hcammack]

I ordered 2 Cuckoo Marans from Meyer hatchery and both turned out to be beautiful hens and lay fairly dark eggs!

 

[Harley's girl]

I have a cuckoo hen from a hatchery. (Not sure which one, I bought her from a lady who got them from a hatchery) Anyways, she does not lay good. And the eggs that I do get from her are darker than a regular brown egg. But nothing super dark. I can always pick her egg out from the others. Good luck to you.