Good hatchery for dels?

[ConchRepublic]

We're looking for a good hatchery to buy Delawares from. We're looking for 40-50 straight run birds. What hatcheries would be better, both price wise and quality wise? We are not buying them now, but maybe in the next couple months in the hatchery we have has them in stock.

So far we've looked at Ideal, Welp, and Meyer.

We're not looking for "True" Dels, we do not mind if they have Columbian Rock in them, although we would like to have some who DONT have it, but might get those separately later.

SO, does anyone have ideas on a good hatchery who isn't too expensive for birds but also give decent quality? These will be layers and culls will be meat.

 

[briteday]

I have dels from Privett (last year's pullets) and they are pretty nice. They definitely are the friendliest birds in my flock, the very first ones to jump into my lap when I have time to sit and play with the flock. Out of 3 girls one looks very columbian, the other two not so much. I'm not impressed with the size of their eggs compared to the size of the birds and how much they eat. But they do lay an egg almost every day. And you would get a good meat bird out of them as they are quite large. I will know tomorrow a bit more on their genetics as I have a bunch of their eggs hatching and it is always interesting to see if hatchery birds will breed true. I mated them with an RIR roo in hopes of getting sexlinked chicks. We'lls see. They should start hatching tomorrow, Friday the 5th.

 

[biomistake]

Ccough up the dough and go to sandhills... hatchery dels just are not all that well put together. OOOOOorrrrr go to ABLC and look on the free advertisement page to see if any breeders are within a couple three hours drive. Trust me they will be worth it, mine were.

 

[ConchRepublic]

Quote:
I don't really want to cough up 150-200 dollars for birds who are just for eggs and meat. At 2-3 years they'll all be in the pot anyway. We will be hatching some fertile eggs to keep the population up though, but that will be at 1 year, those we might take one or 2 breeder birds to add to the genetics.

 

[purelypoultry]

We have Delaware chickens available. Ours are of hatchery quality, but I think you will find our price to be very competitive.

 

[biomistake]

In that case I would hop over to this thread and see about getting some eggs from these folks as they have some very nice birds. Yes there is some hatchery stock in there but a lot of breeder stock also and the prices will be very affordable.

*they love their dellies* I also understand not wanting to or not having the equipment for hatching little ones out. The reason I do not like hatchery delawares is to meet demand some hatcheries may put a delaware rooster over new hampshires or even other columbian pattern hens which is not a good practice in my opinion.

I am not trying to bash any hatchery in any way but it does happen.

 

[jerryn]

conch I ordered delawares from Welp last year, I don't show birds--just like them. The Delawares I got from them are real nice, they have the greatest personalities you could ask for. I have 4 hens and I kept 2 roos. --actually my favorite rooster wouldn't cut it in the show circuit so they tell me. His tail feathers are mostly solid dark--the other one has a barred tail but that doesen't mean much to me. any way I'm using the 2 roosters to breed my New Hampshire, Barred Rock, Buff Orph and the Del hens to produce some cross bred brown egg layers and what should be reasonably decent growing broilers. I was pleased with all the chicks Welp sent me. we set 148 eggs a week ago---the first hatch of 27 out of 40 are doing great. most of the chick are light colored a few of the New Hampshire cross are light red.