Ideal Poultry: A look inside the hatchery!

[al6517]

Showing us the breeding pens and parent stock will probably not happen for obvious reasons, but for those who think Hatcheries like this sit at the right hand and don't care about parent stock, it won't make much difference. Hatchery Buyers are very loyal and love the lower standard of quality because it's convienant, and if those folks were shown the parent stock breeding barns they wouldn't know what they were looking at anyway, and wouldn't care either.

AL

 

[al6517]

Quote:
All large scale commercial hatcheries contract out their breeder stock, they just get the egg's delivered to them by their contractor and really only care that it just looks like a chicken. A chicken contractor has many many birds of one or several breeds, recieves their breeding instructions and quota's and incubating agenda from the hatchery, they just deliver the fertile eggs to put in those huge incubators and go from there as seen in the for public view generic video.

AL

 

[Ridgerunner]

Yeah, but my question is, does one breeder supply more than one hatchery? I see so many posts on here where people think they are getting genetic diversity by going to different hatcheries. I think that there are so many different chickens laying eggs in one hatchery that you get pretty good genetic diversity from the same hatchery, so that is a moot point to me, but I just wondered.

 

[al6517]

Quote:
I would venture to say that Hatcheries would stay fairly local with their contractors for ease and handling, or they could be mainly located in the south for the mild climate and then the egg's shippped in mass by independant trucks. Good question though but as far as genetic diversity most hatcheries probably follow some sort of model industry wide that enables them to meet several different scenerio's.

AL

 

[CountryPantry]

I don't know about all hatchery's, but when my uncle worked for McMurray they had many of their own breeders and supplied their own eggs. Some did come in from area breeders but most of the rare breed were their own. That was 17 years ago and of course much has changed in the industry. My uncle not only worked for them but also supplied true Rhode Island Reds to them for almost 20 years. We showed these birds and have many ribbons and trophys from them. Unfortunately the farm got sold when my uncle passed away and so did the birds. I did not have enough to save the farm at the time, but I did try. I miss it very much now.

 

[HallFamilyFarm]

It is my understanding that Ideal does have some of their own breeders. They also have poultry judges look over many of their breeds. Many of their Wyandotte Bantams came from Andy Anderson. Their Buff Ducks started from Roland Romig. Now what they have done with them since....that is another story.

I have heard of Ideal buying out entire flocks of exhibition poultry. Wonder how many they bought from Superior Farms. At least Ideal is trying.

 

[Steve_of_sandspoultry]

Ideal poultry is right here on BYC, all the big hatcheries monitor sites like this and you notice they aren't saying anything. What does that tell you?

Yeah, but my question is, does one breeder supply more than one hatchery?

Yes they do, the hatcheries buy from anybody that can supply their needs. It's a business after all.

Steve​

 

[mississippifarmboy]

Quote:
Ridgerunner, they're not supposed to.

Years ago we had a large multi-breed farm in Missouri and was one of the breeders that supplied eggs to one of the local hatcheries. I'm not naming names and it was many years ago, so their business practices might have changed in that time.
We had to be NPIP and I think alot of the breeders were supplied their chicks (Which eventually became their breeding stock) originally by the hatchery they sold eggs to, we didn't as we already had large established flocks, but I think the hatchery did sorta start some of the farms. I know we were called a few times over the years asking if we would be interested in raising X breed for them.
We had to sign an agreement to keep our flocks pure, keep our NPIP current, sell our eggs ONLY to this hatchery, and follow "Industry standards" of husbandry. We delevered our eggs to the hatchery once a week, they had to be marked on the trays as to breed, variety and date eggs were collected. Other's might have been different, but they bought all we delivered. I'm sure there were those who sold outside their contract, but the hatchery we dealt with had a rule of all breeders they bought eggs from had to be within I think it was 60 miles of the hatchery.
We originally started out raising to hatch ourselves and sold our chicks and started birds at auctions, flea markets, livestock clubs and shows, etc... Raising eggs for the hatchery was a sideline business that just got bigger and bigger.

I know Ideal has some at least of their own breeding stock because they have a breeding farm about 7 or 8 miles from the hatchery. Huge operation! The hatchery I dealt with raised like 5 breeds, the rest were raised for them by small breeders and farms.

I've often wondered if thing were still ran that way.

BTW, we raised chickens back then, not show stock, not breeder quality and definatly not up to SOP. That was never a goal. The goal was to sell eggs, and lots of them! I did have breeds I had my own little breeding strains going just for myself. I didn't show, but lots of folks did that I sold these "Special" birds to, and several won ribbons, trophies, etc... When I had extra eggs, they went in the trays with the rest of the eggs from the run of the mill breeders of the same breeds. When I see that someone won something with hatchery birds, I can't help but wonder if the egg sellers today do the same thing.

You have to remember also, this was before computers, the internet, etc.. Selling hatching eggs to the average person wasn't much of an option back then.

 

[WyandotteTX]

Use to live in Milam county, where Cameron is the County Seat. Been to the farm before, it is Massive in scope and size. They cannot let anyone onto the farm for obvious reasons of biosecurity. But even if you stop by the side of the road and look at it from the Highway you can see kind of how its all set up and run. I would be really surprised if they bred only from selected "pairs". Awfully hard to supply enough eggs to meet orders from such small matings. I would suspect the matings are relatively large just for the sake of numbers.

 

[Steve_of_sandspoultry]

Quote:
Exactly, just the sheer numbers of the chicks a hatchery ships means the buyer gets what they get. Very very far from the "exhibition poultry" that some promote.

Steve