Oh yeah! I mean, I know there's scammers everywhere but the website and everything led me to believe they were reputable and legit. I feel like the reviews on the website are fake. Their BBB reviews are SCARY bad. Just comes to show you gotta do your research! And I always make sure the people I meet up with locally accept payment during the meeting/once I have seen the chicks with my own eyes.
Great googly moogly. The unmitigated gall.
Ooooh smart!!! Ok I will do that. Def glad you mentioned withholding any opinions because I prob would’ve screwed my self that way! Ha.
Not good. I know you said you researched ahead but I'll ask regardless:So I am a first time chicken owner and I felt like I did a decent amount of research but obviously not enough as you’ll see….lol.
I was looking online for local hatcheries honestly but couldn’t find anything close to Dallas, just places hours and hours away. So I looked up some “big online hatcheries” and everything was waitlisted or just sold out of silkies.
(Edit; didn’t know Facebook groups were a thing as I barely use FB and wish I would’ve thought of this- as I found so many local people on there after the fact, that I’m getting more silkies from today!)
Didn’t realise people didn’t ship until march usually, another mistake I should’ve researched more.
Came across a website called Feather Lover Farms, and placed an order, totaling about $350 (what a rip off!!!) for 3 silkie chicks. (Literally internally screaming thinking about how much I spent now)
This was in late Dec. they were in contact with me a bit late Jan, early Feb. and then again late Feb once they had an idea of when my chicks would ship. They are in Cali. They shipped a week ago. Tuesday. The day the big blizzard hit in north cali. So…definitely unideal circumstances, kind of wish they would’ve waited. I upgraded my shipping. Paid like..$80 or something for overnight USPS. Took 3 days anyway. Had no tracking updates for the first 2 days, besides them being in Sacramento the first day. Finally get here and one was dead (they sent 4 I guess for extra warmth or as a bonus) and it was a pile of mush. Two of them seemed a little bit smaller than the 3rd, but nothing crazy. They were also a bit less active.
24 hours pass- 1 dies within 30 min of “flopping” over. Can’t walk can’t stand neck is floppy and very weak chirps.
12 hours pass- another one dies the same way.
Went from seemingly fine to just dropping dead so fast.
3rd one is now ALONE at this point and very distressed. I’ve emailed Everytime something has happened with a detailed timeline and explanation AND pics of course, to further prove it’s a bad situation. That was Friday.
No email replies since then. They were guaranteed, mind you. Nothing. So incredibly irresponsible imo….they also shipped with no heat packs or anything, which another seller told me was shameful.
I also paid for a “lavender silkie” which honestly I don’t know if any of them were lavender, they all looked pale yellow to me besides one which was def painted. The other seller that gave me advice told me lavenders have a “death gene” and that’s why she doesn’t breed them. If this is true, then it makes sense why they just died out of nowhere.
So I’m pretty much out of 300$ and I’ve had no contact with this seller. Which really makes me sad. I don’t know. It feels like they have no regard for these poor things lives. I also don’t even want them to ship me more chicks. I feel like they’ll ship me half dead chicks again or chicks that are just doomed to suffer and die.
Posting this that hopefully someone sees it online and doesn’t make the same mistake I did. Once I found the bad reviews, I had already placed my order and it wasn’t refundable so I hoped for the best and thought maybe the reviews were wrong….well, they were right
What's worse is people are paying this much. SMH
Some people think it's worth it. I know I paid 69 for each of my ketwa st run chicks if I remember correctly, and they were on sale. If uts something you're looking for, and the reviews on the site look great, it's understandable
Silkies aren't that rare to come by, not even show quality birds.
Just want to let you know, inbreeding or back crossing is a common technique breeders use to stabilize traits they want in their chicks. It's not necessarily a bad thing. Birds can genetically withstand a few generations of it with no issues. Issues come when the inbreeding goes on for too long and physical deformities start to show up. A good breeder knows how to avoid this, and how to introduce new stock as needed to mitigate/prevent such issues.From what I've read people are saying their silkies are *not* worth the price, or that they even inbreed...which is concerning. But again I only saw these posts after I had already ordered
The colors might be though
