Do home hatched chicks grow faster than shipped chicks? I have my one little hatchling and it seems like she has grown SOOOO much faster than my shipped chicks did last year. It makes sense to me that they might do that much better... What is your experience?
I do not know I have only hatched eggs at home but I did bring my first eggs home with me all the way from Mississippi if that counts.
Quote:Could very well be the quality of the parents is better from the ones you hatched than the ones you ordered? Not sure.
If your home grown chicks are the offspring of the chicks that were shipped last year, it could be more of a reflection of the health of the parents than the conditions they're being raised in. Who knows how hatchery parent stock live..... (not well, if chickens live in similar conditions as the turkey breeding stock I saw in an episode of "How It Works")
I bought chicks last spring at Rural King. In October I ordered chicks from Ideal...I think they grew / feathered out alot faster, maybe it was because of winter???? Also it seems like they eat alot more too. They are different breeds, but all standard size chickens.
The chicks I hatched grew much faster and were fully feathered by about 3-4 weeks. The chicks that we got from the hatchery took almost 3 months to fully feather (the backs on some of the chicks stay fuzzy, they were mostly feathered much earlier). BUT, they are much different breeds. The slow, hatchery chicks were light Brahma and the faster, home-hatched chicks were SS Hamburgs, breeds with significantly different maturity rates and sizes. My home-hatched Serama chicks took longer than the Hamburgs to feather. In my case it likely has more to do with the breed, but thought I would throw it out there anyway
