Hi there Lisa,
just ran across your post. I live in Kekaha on the westide of Kauai. It has been hit or miss with shipping eggs to Hawaii. You are supposed to get some kind of certificate to ship eggs to Hawaii. I personally have never gotten one. I have shipped eggs and they have gotten here, and I also have had some blocked and sent back to the shipper. It takes a rough ride getting over here to Hawaii and I have never gotten over a 50% hatch on shipped eggs, but have good hatch rates with my personal eggs. All of the eggs I've shipped have been from private sellers that I found on the BYC buy/trade forum here and a couple on
ebay. I try and stick to the west coast and southwest as it doesn't take as long shipping. And make sure they individually wrap each egg. Have them sent on Monday and they normally make it here by Thursday if it is coming from the west coast. Just last month I had 2 sets of eggs coming from different sellers. One made it no problem, the other got refused and sent back to the seller.
I would send away and get the breeds you are looking for and just keep a rooster around to have a supply of healthy fertalized eggs you can hatch anytime. I have a mix of RIR, austrolorps and barred rocks. I don't have a roo right now but just hatched some more RIR and barred rocks and am going to keep a RIR roo so I can make sex link chicks with the RIR and BR hen. The ones that got sent back were Delawares that I also wanted for sex link chicks.
If you want I can send you the email of people that I've had luck shipping eggs over here, but you are taking your chances.
You an also ask the local feed stores to bring in day old chicks and just make a deal with them to get a special breed and you will take half of them. My store buys chicks from both Ideal and Cackle hatchery. Most of the local feed stores bring in RIR, production reds and red or black sex links in the spring so keep an eye out for them or go in and and put your name on a list. Also I know the local 4H normally sell chicks at the county fair. Ours here always sell RIR and cornish chicks as fund raiser, that is how I got started many years ago.
Good luck & let me know if I can help any more.
Aloha,
Cory