Has anybody heard anything about whether or not he was ale to get rid of the CRD?
This question is over 2 years old, but for anyone who happens upon this conversation, yes, he was able to get rid of the CRD. I ordered 20 Speckled Sussex chicks from him in 5/15, and before doing so I asked him if he had ever had any health problems with his birds. He brought it home from a show, and it spread like wildfire throughout his poultry barn. He had to destroy over 500 birds!! Luckily he had lots of eggs in the incubator, or he would have lost his breeding lines. But last year he told me that he was NPIP certified, and has had no issues since that incident. He was a very nice person to work with, and obviously cares about his flock.
I was quite happy with the Speckled Sussex I obtained from him. Ordered 20 chicks at $7 each, he sent 24. All lived and were impressively vigorous on arrival. Ended up with 8 pullets and 16 cockerels, which was perfect because I was hoping for 6-10 hens, and a large selection of cockerels to chose breeding stock from before putting the rest in the freezer. He does toe punch them to indicate which breeding pens each chick came from, and I got at least one pullet and one cockerel from each of his 4 breeding pens. I have kept all of the pullets and 4 of the cockerels. They are not perfect, but they are really good. At 7 months old, my smallest cockerel (of the 4 that I kept) is 8.1 pounds. At 5-6 months of age, the dressed weight of the cockerels that I slaughtered ranged from 3.7 to 5.1 pounds, with the smaller ones being 2-4 weeks younger than the larger ones (those boys really put on some meat during their 5th month). A few of the culls were a little aggressive to their flockmates, but the 4 that I kept have personalities that are gently and will maintain calmness within the flock. None were aggressive to me, but I'm quite comfortable handling roosters and do not have young children for them to bully.
. Just google "Urban Chicken Podcast" and you'll find the webpage with the one hour audio interview as well as a blog post with photos of some of Tony's birds. Enjoy!
