ideal hatchery

I ordered 5 different breeds from Ideal and they all look just like I expected. I don't know anything about show-quality since I am new to chickens, but I think they all look great.

I have:

Buff Orpingtons
Rhode Island Reds
Ideal 236 White Leghorns
Danish Brown Leghorns
Ameraucanas (they're Easter Eggers which I expected, and lay pretty light green eggs)

I wish I would have ordered Light Brahmas...someday I will get those, as well as a few other breeds.
 
I just got my Ideal order on Friday. I was thrilled with it. By Friday night, 2 of my chicks were dead. I contacted Ideal and they promised to either refund my money or include them in my next order, if I wanted.

They were polite, helpful and very customer service oriented. I'm going to order from them again soon.

Laurie
 
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Is there anyway that you could post pics of the danish brown leghorns pretty please. I havent seen any in a while and I am thinking about getting back into them. LOL


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As far as ideal goes I love their hatchery. I have always recieved everything I was promised and most of the time more! They are very friendly and courteous.

In fact I ordered from them this morning
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LOL I would have rather bought from a private breeder- but Ideal is definately the first hatchery I considered.
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I'm not happy with the quality of Ideal's birds. Many of mine do not even come CLOSE to meeting the breed standard; for example, OEG's are supposed to lay tinted eggs and many of mine from Ideal lay white; Dutch are supposed to lay white eggs and mine lays tinted... not that I have a problem with THAT, the main problem are the colors, which in my birds are dull or runny or sometimes even nonexistant! I would like a beautiful ornamental flock with bold beautiful plumage. Mind you, some of the birds i get from Ideal are lovely, like my Black Sumatra, Australorps, Sebrites, Campine, and Buttercup, but most of the others, including almost all of my OEG's, Dutch, RS Yokohamas, and Silkie, fall woefully below the breed standard. And Ideal also mixed up several of the breeds I ordered.

I think I will try a different hatchery next time...
 
I've had 2 orders from Ideal - one in late Oct, another in mid-March. Overall I've been happy with them. The chicks arrived in good shape and were very healthy in both shipments. I like their EEs in particular - out of 8 of them, ALL lay green or blue/green eggs, no brown. Some of them also have tuffs in addition to muffs/beards.

I'm not so impressed with the sexing. Both shipments were ordered as all pullets. That's supposed to be within 10% accurate. Out of 5 BO, I ended up with 2 roos in the last shipment. And in the Nov shipment I got a male red SEXLINK instead of pullet - I thought was particulary 'lame'. Unfortunately there were some Cornish X so it took little while to be sure what the male sexlink actually was.

Overall, the sexing was accurate within the quoted 10%, but still....

I will probably order from them again. I order birds for layers though to sell as POL, and not for SQ.
 
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It really depends on the breed. It's kinda like going to a puppy mill as opposed to a show breeder w/ dogs. You get what you pay for, but you might also find better prices and selection, depending on what you want. I have a bunch of Orloffs and other assorted things from there right now, and they are NICE orloffs. So Ig it just depends on the breed you ordered.
 

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