Well, I'll try to do this one without making so many posts, LOL!
I'm hoping/planning to get some hatching eggs from good breeders this year, but I've never done shipped eggs before (will be my first time using an incubator, in fact, though I plan to put some cross-bred eggs through it before I get the expensive ones), so I'm not holding out any high hopes for getting birds by that route.
I have had a couple of bad experiences with mail-order chicks here -- one box of 25 all dead, and one box with only three survivors. So obviously I can't trust the P.O. to get that right, and am exceedingly reluctant to spend a huge amount of money on shipped chicks. I might be willing to try shipping older birds, if I could find someone not too far away to get them from. Can't see trying to send them clear across the country.
The Buckeye eggs I hope to be getting will be coming from Washington, so not too far -- I may talk to him and see if I could get a pair of young birds later in the year, too.
I figure, with the chicks from Cackle (the White Chanteclers) I ought to get enough decent birds for a good start, at least -- according to what I've been told, they did get at least some of their breeders directly from Greg Oakes. But if anyone has any ideas on any other half-way decent stock that Cackle has, preferably something that doesn't have a huge comb (not good in our area), I'd appreciate it, as I will have to add ten chicks to my order and I'd rather choose them than let Cackle select packing peanuts for me. I'll probably sell the extras anyway.
Thanks,
Kathleen
Then today it got cold and they started laying. 
