The Ideal birds are just ok. Not great, but not as bad as some other breeds they claim to offer. Mostly, they are just too small. Not always multiple spurred, and not always colored as advertised, if you buy the blue wheatons, you could get a lot of various colors. Some have decent type, others, the type is somewhat lacking. If you don't care if they are not up to the standard, and you just want pretty birds to free range around, they would be ok. I want my birds to all be up to the SOP, but, they are not there yet...it may take a long time before they are!! I really think that the writers of the standard knew what they were doing, and that if these birds were up to the standard, more people would take them more seriously as layers, and eating birds.