Excellent Hatcheries

[windnleavesfarm]

Give me feedback on where you get your chicks! Last spring I ordered from Murray McMurray and was not very impressed with the breeds. For example, I ordered blue laced red wyandotte's and they turned out to be white laced red instead of a nice shade of blue. So tell me and share some of your experiences! Pics welcome!

 

[Alexandra33]

Since blue does not breed true in poultry, it is possible to get splash or black in addition to blue.

In your case, you probably got the splash variation of BlueLRW.

But back to what hatcheries are good, I would absolutely recommend Meyer Hatchery. We've gotten 30-some chickens and 6 ducks from their wonderful facility, and are about to order more! Such friendly staff, healthy and beautiful birds, and a very clean building. I'll show some of the birds we've gotten from there:
Cookie, Sicilian Buttercup

Cheyenne, BlueLRW

Enya, an accidental, but nonetheless beautiful girl-Welsummer/Barnevelder mix

Alex, Golden Campine

Mairead, Speckled Sussex

Avalon, Silver Spangled Hamburg

Boo, True Black Ameraucana

Marseilles, Black Copper Marans

Arlene, Cream Legbar

Bali, Black Sumatra

-Alex

 

[windnleavesfarm]

Gorgeous birds! Thank you for sharing!

 

[Alexandra33]

You're welcome! Hope you find a hatchery you are happy with.

-Alex

 

[JetsChickens]

I have ordered from 4 different hatcheries. I really like McMurray and Meyer. I haven't had a chance to order yet from Ideal, but I would like to. I have also ordered from Welp and Sandhill.
I have ordered twice from Meyer and my second order for McMurray should come in this summer.

I really, really like McMurray's customer service, you aren't forced to order a minimum of 25 chicks and the birds I received from there were healthy. The birds seemed to be decent quality representations of their respective breeds. You could look at them and tell what they were supposed to be. I LOVE my black langshans I received from there, but their breed quality as far as what the physical standards are supposed to be, appeared to be lacking in both my males. One had more of an appropriate body build than the other, but the one that looked the most off of breed standard had a red/brown feather growing on his neck. Nice personalities though, I could carry one of them around and pet him, he was also a good flock guardian. I did order a couple more langshans from McMurray for this year so it will be interesting to see how the new ones turn out. I don't show my birds so at the end of the day, it's not the end of the world so long as the birds are healthy and free of genetic defects.

The other hatchery I have used the most is Meyer. I like them and of the 4 I have used, they have the best looking birds. I had one chick DOA with them, but it was a small order so is more likely to happen. They are more expensive for some breeds, but as I mentioned their quality is the best I have seen for hatchery birds so that is fine. The only things I disliked when dealing with them is that if you want to change an order, you can't online, you must call. If you cancel the order, you must call because if you cancel it online their system will still charge you for the order, but no birds will be sent. This forces you to call and then they have to manually go in to issue you a refund, the lady on the phone told me their system doesn't let them know an order was canceled so that is why it still went ahead and charged me. Doesn't quite make sense to me, but whatever, lesson learned, always call and cancel. The third issue I had was that with the DOA chick, I took pics and called, told them which breed it was (I had ordered two breeds with three of each). They said ok, they would refund me for the dead baby. They refunded me for the $4 chick, not the $20 chick that died. I called back, they said they would fix it and never did. I like them and I like the quality of their birds so I will order from them again, I just won't do anymore orders of chicks that are different prices.

Welp was cool, biggest issue I could see for most people considering ordering from them is they have a 25 bird minimum for orders and a 5 bird minimum per breed for most breeds (or at least they did a couple years ago when I ordered).

Sandhill I can't see myself buying from again. Half the breeds I got had some odd looking birds, not sure if all were genetic issues or improper incubation (which happens). The other half of the breeds seemed perfectly fine and normal hatchery stock. I think if someone goes with them it would depend on what breeds you order and if you can get feedback and pictures from people on here of what their birds from there looked like. I admire what they are doing with their breeding mission, but didn't care for how several of the birds came out. I actually have purged almost all the Sandhill birds from my flock by culling them or giving them away to other people who didn't care and just wanted egg layers.