Hatchery or Breed?

[loralei]

Hey y'all! I am now on my second batch of chicks. Yep! I confess... I am a chick-o-holic!

The first batch was from hatchery "A" and I lost one chick a day for the first 5 days! My second batch from hatchery "B" arrived this past Tuesday and all are doing splendid! With the hatchery "A" batch there was always a crisis! Pasty butt, near drownings, one had a ruptured air sac (that ended badly and broke my heart!).

First Batch:
5 Cuckoo Marans... still have em all!
5 Buff Polish... got all of these too!
6 Golden Laced Polish... only one made it!

5 Golden Wyandottes... 4 made it!
5 Araucanas... 3 made it!
5 Blue Andalusians... got em all!

Second Batch:
9 Wellsummers... one is my new roo!
8 Buff Opringtons
3 Cuckoo Marans

The second batch seems smaller than I remember but they already have cute little feathers on the tips of their tiny little wings! But most impressive is no crisis yet! I know! I know! It's only been 2 days but are some breeds just heartier than others or is it a hatchery thing? Or maybe something I haven't even thought of?

Thanks!
Laura

 

[TexasVet]

As a rule, I get the best results when ordering from the closest hatchery. In your case (and mine) that would be Ideal. Being shuttled around in the mail system is very hard on chicks, so the shorter the shipping time, the better.

Kathy, Bellville TX
www.ChickenTrackin.com

 

[silkiechicken]

There's tons of factors so it is hard to say. Distance traveled, the parent stock, the breed, how the hatch went, how long they were in the mail, how the weather was during their trip, how many were in the boxes, how the postal workers that day were treating the packages... and so on.