Ideal Hatchery Question??

[serendipity22]

Just had a shipment come in from Ideal this morning. They were shipped out yesterday. Everyone arrived healthy and completely adorable. I ordered 10 welsummers, 6 Americaunas, and 3 BSL's. I got one extra chick.

I'll see how they do for the next 48 hours but I'm 100% satisfied so far. Wouldn't hesitate to order from them again...


In all honesty, the worst shipment was some guinea keets that I received about a month ago. There were 3 dead in the box, 2 died within 10 minutes of being taken out of the box and 3 more died within 12 hours. I have never lost so many birds and contribute it to being delivered in hot day time temps and cold night time temps. That shipment was from Meyer and they refunded my money for the losses. With all of Meyer's other deliveries, I'd only lost one bird, total. I think it really depends on the weather that they're shipped in.

As far as the chicks not being breed specific from Ideal, can't help with that one...

 

[PoultryDune]

We ordered Ideal 236 hens, and they are great layers. They are fairly small (less feed per egg) but stand their ground with other hens in the pecking order.

 

[MyKidLuvsGreenEgz]

Thinking about ordering from Ideal Hatchery ... anybody recently ordered from them (especially black australorps, bantam silkies, bantam easter eggers) and been happy with what you received?

 

[ajablu]

This is an old thread but I see your post is from yesterday so I will answer. I did get Silkies from them but that was two years ago and the quality was not nice. Most didnt have feathered feet and some had no crests. You can ask them about this if you want Silkies.
Maybe they improved their Silkies since then. We found that many of their breeds are healthy and good layers but not as big and nicely built as birds from breeders. It depends on what you want. Most of the birds from them were nice friendly birds . We bought the standard size EES from them and some some layed brown eggs as well as pinkish, green and blue. The EES were a little more high strung I think than some breeder birds but one of them did like to sit on my arm and eat from my hand .
Their bantam Cochins, OEGBs, and D'uccles were friendly and some were pretty nice quality for pet birds. They have great customer service and have always made things right if an order was messed up or we had DOAs or lost chicks right after arrival. We also bought a Pullet special from them and were very pleased with those. It was really cold when they shipped but we only lost two and the others all grew up healthy and are good layers. We did find a period of time when we had heavy losses in the chicks but they credited us right away and were very nice about it. Not sure what was going on then or if we had some rough postal workers on their route here, but since then we had good orders again with strong healthy birds. We did have one time the box was smashed down on one side when they got here and most all of those banties were dead so I think that group had shipping trauma. I am placing an order with them now for Feb. shipping. I also need to get a new incubator . It's that time of the year Getting the urge for chicks again!

 

[draye]

My brother ordered some from them back early last year, they shippedthem out earlier than expected and lost about 12 or so this was in Feb., contacted hatchery and they credited his account because he was going to order more a little later in the year. His next order came in April or May and all chickies did well, I think they put in a few warmers 3 or 4 maybe (Barred Rocks). Over all he was happy with his chickens.
I ordered some that came in September, they did not turn out so well. Shipping was fine, but when about 2 months old I started losing them, never figured out what caused it. Don't really know that it had anything to do with the hatchery tough.