Hatchery Chicks

[Cluckingitup]

I ordered 25 female black australorp chicks from Myer Hatchery (?Forks, Pa) and I received 26 live beautiful little ones. They were hatched on August 05, 20. I was hoping for 25 female chicks, but I have my suspicions that I may have a few males. This is my first time ordering from hatchery and was hoping after getting 2 roos out of 6 from Tractor Supply last year (supposed to be all female) I would actually get what I ordered. My question is, in general how accurate are the hatcheries? My son wants a roo so one will have a home but I still have one Sapphire Gem roo that is 1 1/2 yr old so I don't know how they would get along. I suspect I have at least 3 maybe 4 roos. I know they are only 3 1/2 weeks old so I am still hopeful that my extra chick is the only roo!! They are stinking cute, and still petrified of me! What are your experiences? TIA

 

[LadiesAndJane]

Congratulations on your chicks! If you got an extra "free" chick, chances are it is a male. The others should be around 90% accuracy to be female if that is what you ordered. So, just playing the odds, you have a chance of 2-3 boys out of the remaining 25. Good luck!

 

[Jenwisp]

I believe there's a 90% accuracy rate for hatchery chicks.

 

[feather13]

We ordered 16 chicks (and one free one) from McMurrays Hatchery and all 17 arrived alive. One died a few days later of possibly internal issues. We had to rehome 4 Polish who were being pecked on, so now have 12. We ordered all female and only one of the remaining 12 is a cockerel. They were day old chicks and hard to sex, so we either had good luck or this is common (this was our first mail delivery order).

 

[BirdsBeesTrees]

If you have 25+ hens you can usually keep 2 roosters if you wanted to. Some roosters are mean though so only time will tell.

 

[Cluckingitup]

If you have 25+ hens you can usually keep 2 roosters if you wanted to. Some roosters are mean though so only time will tell.

I am splitting this batch with my son. This will be his first batch of chickens. I am going to keep 8/9 of the girls and he will take the rest. My current rooster has 4 hens and 3 are really getting feathers tore up. The top hen even chases my rooster around so he is pretty calm, and has only crowed ONE time that I have heard! The dominant rooster was taken by racoon but that was over a year ago, and he still doesn't crow. I have 2 coops but was hoping to let them travel between the two eventually without separation. I will just have to wait and see...

 

[Cluckingitup]

Thanks everyone for your input. I can only imagine how difficult it is to sex day old chicks! Here's hoping to only 2 and it gets along with my current roo. I also thought I was just going to be able to keep my 1st 6! I guess not! My son is already talking about adding more......

 

[JacinLarkwell]

80-90%

Some hatcheries, don't remember which ones, will give a refund for any birds over that 10-20% that are male.

They won't take the bird back, but will give a credit or something. I don't have the catalogs with the information with me

 

[Crazy Fun Chicken Lady]

80-90%

Some hatcheries, don't remember which ones, will give a refund for any birds over that 10-20% that are male.

They won't take the bird back, but will give a credit or something. I don't have the catalogs with the information with me

My Pet Chicken will refund sexing errors if reported within the time frame. I LOVE My Pet Chicken. They have the most amazing customer service.

 

[TJAnonymous]

Well, good timing on this post.... I have owned chickens off and on for 10+ years. I ordered from McMurray Hatchery years ago and never had a problem with them. Unfortunately, I had to move so I gave them away to my daughter's horse trainer.

About 3-4 years ago, I got that itch for chickens again so I bought 6 BO from my local feed store. These chickens became my spoiled little pets and all of them thrived.... All were female as advertised.

This past February, I bought a new farm and got to my first experience with the Chicken Brady Bunch. I combined my 6 girls with about 20 RIR/BO chickens from the previous owner of my new farm. In April, I picked up 6 EEs from TSC to add to the merry bunch. They were advertised as Straight Run. I ended up with 5 roosters, 1 hen. *sigh*

But then critters struck and I have lost about a third of my flock since May. I decided to go ahead and order from McMurray again with the hopes that my new girls would be at laying age come spring. I ordered:

5 Buff Orpington females
5 Ameraucanas females
5 Blue Andalusian females
5 Black Australorp females

My order shipped from IA this Tuesday and I picked up the chicks from the post office yesterday. I was very disappointed and saddened to see that 7 of my chicks were dead. All 5 of the Blue Andalusian and 2 of the Black Australorp were literally squashed in the corner of the box. The box did not look damaged so I assume that the box somehow got tipped in transport and the chicks all fell into one corner were the ones on the bottom were suffocated and crushed. I called McMurray yesterday afternoon and they promptly agreed to ship me new chicks... They are throwing in 1 free "surprise" chick with the order (same as they did with my original order).

**Fingers Crossed** that all my chicks arrive in tact this time. :{