Favorite Hatcheries/ Least favorite Hatcheries? Opintions?

[GirlsHuntToo]

I have ordered from Mt. Healthy for the past 3 years. Had RI Reds, NH, Columbian Rock cross (excellent layers), Barred Rocks, Austrolorps. Excellent stock, good large birds. Five stars in my opinion.

Thank you and welcome to BYC!

 

[GTR]

I had a great experience with Heartland Hatchery today at one of their Chick Days stops. They’re only at the location for about two hours, so if you need a long conversation or a lot of hand-holding, it might not be your cup of tea. But the man running it took the time to answer my spouse’s questions, made some recommendations, explained a bit about his breeding program, and we ended up walking out with more chicks—and more breeds—than I had planned for.


We were told most of the chicks were only a day or two old. After an hour-long drive home, they’ve settled in and are now rubbing shoulders with my 6-day-old Whiting True Blues (WTBs), which happen to be my second batch of WTBs—and they’re little savages. We’ll see how these Heartland birds hold up over the next couple of days, but judging by their activity level, I don’t expect any issues.

The only issue Heartland caused is that I have my heart set on Barred Hollands and had been holding space for them. What harm could a couple dozen more birds cause?

 

[newchickychick]

Still new to chicken ownership, but so far I've really loved Cackle.
Our assortments have always been VERY assorted. In our batch of 10 rare specials we got yesterday, we got: 3 silver spangled hamburgs, 3 either dark aseel or black sumatras, 1 sicilian buttercup, 2 either yokohamas or phoenixes, and 1 gold spangled appenzellar spitzhauben!

In our first order of 15, we got: 3 Silver Duckwing Phoenixes, 1 Tolbunt Polish, 1 Gold Laced Polish, 1 Blue Polish, 2 Splash Polish, 1 Partridge Cochin, 1 Gold Laced Cochin, 1 Crazy Cackle Toppie (it's got the COOLEST mohawk so far), 1 Lakenvelder, 2 red shoulder yokohamas. 1 passed away as a FTT, but it would've likely been a black sumatra or dark aseel. There's a VERY healthy variety of likely pullets to cockerels - seems that most are pullets so far but a few cockerels. The Polish of course will take a while to tell, but we were hoping for a few cockerels from them! One cochin is looking like a pullet so far, and one's definitely a cockerel - something we also wanted! One of the phoenixes is a cockerel, but the other two are looking like pullets. So for someone who was wanting to start a breeding project, so far it seems like they do not dump a ton of cockerels on you. Granted, that could just be good straight run luck! Regardless, LOVE the varieties.

In our order of 5 assorted silkies yesterday, we got: 2 black, 1 white, 1 splash, and 1 buff!

We also got a surprise of 15 Bantams. Between Ideal's Bantams and Cackle's, as they were all mixed together, we lost a whole 4 out of 35. That is the most I've ever lost out of any batch (we've only ever had 2 FTTs before that). I don't know which they came from as I foolishly didn't keep track of what we got from where. Ideal's Bantams were ALL wobbly right out of the box but managed to perk up. One that passed away was indeed from Ideal. But I know shipping can be SO tough on Bantams. All 4 were all lost within 48 hours of receiving.
However, the variety from both were great! Out of 5 frizzle Cochin Bantams I bought from Ideal, 3 were frizzle. With a 50% chance of Frizzle passing down from their stock, I'm REALLY pleased with it! I was nervous we wouldn't get a single one.
Cackle's variety, albeit my inability to know what I got from where, was ALSO very nice. So though Ideal's arrived in a concerning state despite both orders arriving within 48 hours of shipping, and 4 losses out of 35 Bantams, the varieties were WONDERFUL from both Ideal and Cackle, but there was a VERY noticeable difference between the puffiness of Cackle's Silkies to Ideal's. Two from Ideal were difficult to even tell they were silkies at first glance. (Bless the extra toes + dark skin/beaks) But honestly we want to try to breed vaulted skulls out of our backyard stock while trying to keep the appearance as 'silkie' like as possible anyhow, so "breed standard" isn't an issue for us personally at all!

We want to keep a WIDELY varied flock. Our first order of chickens ever was 20 from hoover's ordered through TSC, and 10 were sexed pullets and 10 were straight run. It was for their "rare breeds." We got 10 barred rocks, maybe 11. We got a few olive eggers, one french copper marans or copper marans mix. One passed away as FTT. We've got two australorps I believe as well. 13 maybe 14 are cockerels out of 19 with 10 that were supposed to be sexed pullets. And most of the cockerels are barred rocks. It didn't feel like a great variety at all, and it felt like we were dumped with a bunch of barred rock cockerels. That's just bad luck of the draw, but it felt like it almost had to be intentional with only 1 of the barred rocks being a pullet. And 14/19 cockerels feels pretty high for having 10 that were supposed to be pullets. They're all VERY healthy though.

If I want specific breeds though, we've gone to TSC. So far cautiously watching all of our purchased pullets/premium pullets as our order from Hoover's has me pretty wary. However, not a SINGLE one has passed away after bringing them home. (And we're at... a lot of chickens. ) They've all been very personable too!
The ONE issue we've had buying in store from TSC is we got Turkens (and two non-NNs in the bin with them) and they turned out to be SOME kind of rapidly growing meat bird cross. It's disappointing as I really REALLY wanted Turkens, and I'm worried these will start to show signs of poor quality of life when they hit 8 weeks (they're 4 weeks and MASSIVE). However, this was something the workers said "we were told they were 'normal turkens' when sent from the hatchery, and when they even called to ask about the ones without naked necks, they were informed by the hatchery that 'their neck feathers hadn't fallen out yet' which we know isn't true." They've raised several complaints from my local store about mislabeling and are just generally extremely good about saying "hey this is how they came labeled but I'm not certain or I am certain that's not right." I know that's not how every store is, but the workers at ours really care about folks getting what they're expecting and seem very on top of making sure the chicks are healthy and cared for.

Long post, but Cackle is looking like my long-term go-to, and our local TSC at least is very wonderful about honesty with their stock and making sure the chicks are kept clean/well fed/healthy. Ideal had a great variety too which was surprising and nice - definitely seems like it's not a breed standard hatchery based on others' experiences, but for folks like me who just want fun chickens, it's another one I enjoyed the experience of.