Has anyone purchased chicks from Hilltop Farms in California? *Do not buy from Hilltop Farms! Negative experiences are in the thread!!!*

[CaliforniaMountainChicks]

I placed an order for 8 chicks from Hilltop Farms here in Southern California. I’m wondering if those of you who have gotten chicks from them had a good experience with them? I chose Hilltop because they are local, Npip, and they had Russian Orloffs which I have wanted for a long time! I’m interested in knowing if your chicks were healthy, good quality, and anything else you want to add about them! If you could, I would love to see some pictures of the chickens that you got from them! I ordered 2 olive eggers, 1 Salmon Faverolles, 2 Russian Orloffs, 1 bbs Ameraucana, 1 lavender Ameraucana, and 1 mottled Java. Thanks in advance!

 

[chicken geek 367]

i have never gotten chicks myself but i know ppl who have and they all say good things, good luck!

 

[Pandaslovehugs]

When you get your chicks could you do a follow up on your experience? I’ve been eyeing this hatchery. Please and thank you

 

[violindmb]

I hope you have a better experience than I did since you live in state. I ordered hatching eggs in January with a request that I get them this week and I have been checking in to make sure that this request can be adhered to. I had all 3 of my emails since February ignored until I left a negative Google review only to be told they only had part of my order ready (I only ordered 12 eggs) and they had to move orders around to accommodate mine. Tons of excuses. They knew about my order since January and honestly I don't think they would have touched my order if I hadn't left a review like I did. I just needed some communication.

 

[CaliforniaMountainChicks]

When you get your chicks could you do a follow up on your experience? I’ve been eyeing this hatchery. Please and thank you

Picking up my chicks this upcoming Wednesday... I'll post some pictures and let you know how they are!

 

[Pandaslovehugs]

Picking up my chicks this upcoming Wednesday... I'll post some pictures and let you know how they are!

So excited for you and your new flock!!!

 

[CaliforniaMountainChicks]

Well so far I’m not having a good experience… I brought 8 chicks home, 2 died within 20 hours. Then my two orloffs died out of the blue a few days apart. Then my little lavender Ameraucana who I named Frankie (she was also $50!!!) just suddenly died last night… she acted perfectly fine and ran with the others and ate and drank but seemed small for her age. I have raised many batches of chicks before the same exact way and have never ever had a mortality rate this high. Batches before were shipped chicks and other than ones that arrived doa, I only had one death out of those batches. No signs of illness like coccidiosis. Each chick was eating and drinking and hanging out with the others before suddenly dying!! Now I’m left with 3, who are bigger and feathering in nicely and who will hopefully make it. I was supposed to go replace the two chicks that died within 20 hours tomorrow but now I’m not sure I want to do that because if all of these deaths.

 

[violindmb]

Well so far I’m not having a good experience… I brought 8 chicks home, 2 died within 20 hours. Then my two orloffs died out of the blue a few days apart. Then my little lavender Ameraucana who I named Frankie (she was also $50!!!) just suddenly died last night… she acted perfectly fine and ran with the others and ate and drank but seemed small for her age. I have raised many batches of chicks before the same exact way and have never ever had a mortality rate this high. Batches before were shipped chicks and other than ones that arrived doa, I only had one death out of those batches. No signs of illness like coccidiosis. Each chick was eating and drinking and hanging out with the others before suddenly dying!! Now I’m left with 3, who are bigger and feathering in nicely and who will hopefully make it. I was supposed to go replace the two chicks that died within 20 hours tomorrow but now I’m not sure I want to do that because if all of these deaths.

This is sadly the experience of quite a few people if you read their reviews. And when they ship chicks they ship 2 week old chicks so most die in shipping.

 

[Angie-Bob]

Well so far I’m not having a good experience… I brought 8 chicks home, 2 died within 20 hours. Then my two orloffs died out of the blue a few days apart. Then my little lavender Ameraucana who I named Frankie (she was also $50!!!) just suddenly died last night… she acted perfectly fine and ran with the others and ate and drank but seemed small for her age. I have raised many batches of chicks before the same exact way and have never ever had a mortality rate this high. Batches before were shipped chicks and other than ones that arrived doa, I only had one death out of those batches. No signs of illness like coccidiosis. Each chick was eating and drinking and hanging out with the others before suddenly dying!! Now I’m left with 3, who are bigger and feathering in nicely and who will hopefully make it. I was supposed to go replace the two chicks that died within 20 hours tomorrow but now I’m not sure I want to do that because if all of these deaths.

I am having the same problem right now. I’ve spent over $400 on 18 chickens. I have 7 left. They happily replace free of charge those who died within 48 hours but the ones that died 3 to 5 days later they said was environmental. I sent pictures of my set up and they didn’t understand why they were dying. So I went to replace them had to pay half price for the ones that died after 48 hours and of those 6, 4have died in less than a week (1 I didn’t end up replacing). I have been emailing and getting no response. They started off being very nice and friendly. When I picked up the replacements, they said they were having a bad year and this was happening to a lot of people. They are very nice people but they need to fix this. At this point I would not recommend hilltop Farms.

 

[CaliforniaMountainChicks]

I am having the same problem right now. I’ve spent over $400 on 18 chickens. I have 7 left. They happily replace free of charge those who died within 48 hours but the ones that died 3 to 5 days later they said was environmental. I sent pictures of my set up and they didn’t understand why they were dying. So I went to replace them had to pay half price for the ones that died after 48 hours and of those 6, 4have died in less than a week (1 I didn’t end up replacing). I have been emailing and getting no response. They started off being very nice and friendly. When I picked up the replacements, they said they were having a bad year and this was happening to a lot of people. They are very nice people but they need to fix this. At this point I would not recommend hilltop Farms.

I’m glad I’m not the only one who was having this issue!! I felt horrible for having 5/8 chicks die on me with seemingly no issues. I raised multiple batches of chicks the same exact way and never ever experienced loss like this before. I wonder what happened with them this year because all of the good reviews seem to be from last year and before. Im really hoping it’s not a contagious illness of some sort causing all of these chicks to die.