Hatchery recommendations for both meat & layers?

[erinszoo]

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I may try Murray's next just to compare- we got these from Meyer but out of 26, 6 of them died or were DOA when we got them. I wasn't excited about that ratio but Meyer did refund us... but still.

7.5#! That's great!

We have lost a couple of birds from McMurray's too but never more than one within the first day. And our egg birds came from there too and they are great little hens. We had no problems of any kind with them. We lost a duck and a turkey from them ... not sure what happened with the duck but turkey's are notorious for being difficult to raise in the first couple of months so we didn't blame the hatchery for that.

I should also say that we aren't meticulous house keepers for our birds either. We believe in deep bedding so we just spread new hay over the old every so often. However, we do clean out feed and waterers twice a day.

 

[T-Amy]

That's good to know; I have my 'shopping list' already started from McMurray's & can't wait to try some of the chocolate egg laying Marans in addition to some others. I feel like we give our birdies really nice living conditions compared to a lot of others we've seen both in person & online & yet we still seem to lose one every month or 2 (we lost one of our Isa Browns last night)

whereas others that appear to live in squawler seem never go get sick.... All of ours are 'transplant' birds from other flocks but it makes me wonder what we may be doing wrong. My boyfriend said he thinks we should consider selling these at the sale & just starting fresh in a couple of months with new chicks. Ours can go inside the shed where it's dry, or they have access to 2 runs (one covered & one not) so it's hard to say what's going on. The only thing I'm wondering is if it's the hard wood shavings we're using instead of pine in the coop- I use organic cider vinegar or probiotics periodically in their water and they free-range 1-2x a week for a few hours.

 

[BirchHatchery]

Welp Hatchery By Far ive got about everythang from them i buy my leghorns locally tho

 

[erinszoo]

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I won't even venture to guess what might be wrong or right with what you're doing as I'm not there to actually know but we use hay and wheat straw rather than wood shavings. It's more expensive but if the birds eat it, and they do, it doesn't hurt them in any way and actually gives them something to scratch in when there's bits of wheat left in the straw. Our birds even pull it out of the rabbit hutches to eat. Sometimes birds can get things from wild birds but yours don't sound like they are exposed to that much. Ours range every day in the yard for a couple of hours but spend the rest of their time in the chicken yard. They love to scratch in our compost bins which have all the old mucky hay from the ducks and geese in it as well as leaves and kitchen scraps and they also love to eat cat food as a treat when they can run the cats off from their dish. We've never used vinegar or probiotics, although I know several people who do, just clean water twice a day. As a matter of fact I've never given any kind of meds or preventitives, not even medicated chick starter so I know my stock I got was very healthy to begin with ... or we just lucked out somehow.

Good luck and keep posting. I'm interested to know what the differences are too.

 

[T-Amy]

Thanks Erin---
You know, I may try the hay route. We don't have straw but I have access to plenty of hay... I didn't want to because of the clean up but let me do some pondering. I tried the deep litter method with the shavings & that gets HEAVY after a few weeks to take out the parts soaked in poo. Funny, some folks say they do deep litter & only clean it out once a YEAR! Yikes. Mine are poopin' machines...

 

[mstricer]

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Use the straw or hay, it clean be cleaned up easily with pitchfork. I get all my birds from Meyer and never had a problem. Yours should all be cornish if you got the Cornish Surplus Bargin.

 

[jessicayarno]

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Great points. I tried to give them yogurt one day (at 2 weeks old) & they wanted nothing to do with it. I think they need to be 'taught' to eat something other than their pellets. Can they eat the same 'treats' & goodies I give my laying hens? So just to confirm, they shouldn't free-range in the grass like my hens except for when they're in a movable or confined tractor?

Amy did you mix the yogurt with their food?? I did and they gobbled it down.. When I would throw them veggie scraps they would peck at them a bit and be done..

 

[naillikwj82]

we have used McMurray without complaint. Has anyone used purelypoultry.com

 

[BirchHatchery]

i have used purely poultry several times from leghorns to bantams good serivice

 

[yinepu]

we've gotten orpingtons from Cackle Hatchery and also Ideal.

The Ideal birds just didn't grow at the same rate as the Cackle birds and seemed to be smaller overall. They also haven't started to lay yet but the ones from Cackle have been laying for over a month (we got the birds about two days apart).
For the Cackle shipment we had 1 DOA (but they included 2 extra)
The Ideal shipment had 2 DOA (and no extra birds.. have ordered from Ideal a few times now and have never gotten extra birds)
When we processed the extra roos we noticed a big difference between the weights of the Ideal and Cackle birds with the Cackle roos averaging 1.5 - 2 pounds heavier.. yet all birds were fed at the same time every day and also ate the same food with both groups eating the same amount
The only difference I can see between them that would have caused such a difference is genetics

so for layers/dual purpose birds I prefer Cackle Hatchery


for meaties this coming spring we will be trying out Freedom Rangers