Do hatcheries have their own chickens or do they order in egg?

[ging3rhoffman]

I was wondering if the Hatcheries have their own chickens that they use or do they have the eggs shipped in to be incubated?

If i ordered 2 silver laced wyandottes will i get from their own stock or will they come from other farms and i could get 2 different quality of chicks from the hatchery?

I have used Meyers and Mt Healthy. Just wondering how that works.

 

[WalkingWolf]

Ideal has their own breeding stock for chickens. I am not sure about the other hatcheries. I do know that Ideal does supply other hatcheries with eggs.

 

[Sitka]

In my understanding few of the large hatcheries keep their own breeding flocks.

I have seen several posts on BYC where people say, somewhat critically, "I heard Murray McMurray [or whoever] does not even raise their own birds!" as if this is a bad thing. The hatcheries mention breeders in their catalogs and I've never understood why some people think it is somehow dishonest or bad for the hatcheries to not raise their own birds (I'm not talking about the OP, it just reminded me.)

 

[Baybrio]

I listened to several interviews that the Chicken Whisperer had on his web radio broadcasts. From those interviews it seems that some of the hatcheries raise their own breeders. One of the hatcheries owns the breeders but hires local farms to raise them. At least two of the major sellers of day olds do not even hatch them themselves, they "drop ship" from other hatcheries. One of the hatcheries also mentioned that many of the major hatcheries occasionally work together to fill orders.

I was very surprised at the variety of business models in this industry. Not critical, just surprised!

I guess the only way to know is to ask when you order. Some folks say "all" hatcheries do this or that. From the interviews I listened to it is clear that no two hatcheries run the business in exactly the same way.

 

[hikerchick]

This is a tad off topic, but I have always wondered what it smells like at a hatchery. Based on my one experience hatching eggs, I imagine it's not like flowers.

Has anyone ever toured a hatchery?

 

[Katy]

I doubt with all the bio security measures in place now days it's even possible to get a tour.

There is a turkey hatchery breeder farm near where I live. They used to give tours to the school kids...not anymore. You can't even get in the gates now.

 

[Brunty_Farms]

Quote:
I have toured Myers Hatchery here in Ohio, after being a regular customer I got to know the owner and a couple of the workers there. I asked to help one day and found myself a cool summer job.... just on hatch days. Too far of a drive to come every day. It was an awesome experience.

Lol... Well to say the least it smell like an incubator... but 10,000 times worse.

They do a good job at keeping it clean but all of those little fuzzy butts stink the place up. The worst part is when they pull the chicks from the hatchers and sort through the chicks pulling out the good chicks from the bad eggs. The bad eggs... dead chicks... and shells go into a big bin and until they move it.... it stinks really bad. After they are all sorted and ready to be sexed it's not bad.

What's worse over the smell is the noise. I would go to bed after working in a hatchery and hear chicks in my sleep... lol. Just imagine 50,000 chicks,ducks, turkeys, and other various fowl.... chirping because they are calling for mom.... No mom answers.... so they call louder!!


To answer the OP, most hatcheries don't raise the birds. They sub contract their breeders to growers (local farmers) and pay them only about $1.60 / dozen. Guinea eggs are as high as $.50 / egg. Same with duck eggs.

When it comes to commercial strains they get all of the eggs ordered in. It's too expensive to keep a broiler breeder flock. This goes for turkeys, sex link layers, and broilers.