Ideal Poultry: A look inside the hatchery!

[HaikuHeritageFarm]

Quote:
Thor was just a baby when that pic was taken, just shy of a year old. The hen in the pic with him, "Lil'Bit" was my smallest hen, my baby and runt, that was later taken by a hawk.

Here he is at approx. a year and a half old, with some of his girls:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/uploads/4810_xmas_004.jpg

And at nearly two years old - I weighed him at about the same time this pic was taken and he was just a few ounces shy of 13 lbs. (Most of my brahma hens weigh in the neighborhood of 7 to 8 lbs. A couple of fat ol' gals at 9 lbs. I found that the brahmas really didn't "blossom" until they were well past two.)

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/uploads/4810_endofapril_002.jpg

I need to get some new pics of the brahma flock. They will be 3 in April. Other than the loss of Lil'Bit, I have lost one of my Ideal birds, to a heart attack in the middle of a very hot summer.

I ended up not having the patience for Brahmas and don't know the standard well, but those are some very handsome birds!

I also really appreciate Terry chiming in, and I appreciate what Ideal does. I don't understand the way people are about hatchery vs. breeders sometimes. When you order straight run day old chicks or hatching eggs from a breeder, you're still only going to get a small percentage of show quality, top of the line stock. From hatcheries, it may be a smaller percentage just because the culling isn't as strict...but still, you can order more birds for the same price so I guess your odds even out. (In some breeds, I want call that a blanket statement.)

I love that if I'm having trouble finding something I want, I always have a good hatchery as a back up. And I love that when the breeders give up and move on to the next big thing, I can still turn to you guys for what I'm looking for. That kind of reliability and stability is so valuable in the poultry world, and it's a tremendous service to some of these breeds that I suspect might otherwise have been almost lost.

 

[gritsar]

Thanks for the compliment HaikuHeritageFarm.

I've always appreciated the fact that Teri is here on the forum, as a BYC member, to help whenever we need. I've PMed many times.

 

[EweSheep]

Sometimes what you see in breeder's more often than the hatchery is the consisency in the birds with more percentage of them would be more in the standard than the non standard. It is more like a cookie cutting pattern with the breeder than you do with the hatchery which you would get a wide range of conformation (some would look like the breeder's birds, some would look like lanky TB, some would look like the shape of a Leghorn, others would be pretty beefy, etc.)

It is like breeding horses for their trait they are known for.

I know Teri is good to work for and Ideal is by far the best hatchery I've dealt with alongside of Marti's Poultry.

 

[HallFamilyFarm]

Terri, thanks for coming on this thread and sharing your thoughts. It is appreciated.

The lone Buff Wyandotte Bantam pullet I "saved" from last years order took Reserve Variety at the following shows: Arkansas APA State Meet (Oct 2010 Pine Bluff, AR), 2010 Arkansas State Fair and the 2010 APA National in Shawnee, Oklahoma. I have her with a Superior Farms/Lou Horton line male. Hoping for some great birds out of them.

We had to cull all but 6 of the Buff ducks. Kept just hens. But have them mated to a Superior farms/Romig male. He took Best of Breed at the Arkansas State Fair. One of your Buff Duck females placed the following: Reserve Champion Waterfowl, 2010 Arkansas APA State Meet; Reserve breed, Arkansas State Fair; 1st young duck, 2010 APA National.

The pair of Brown Chinese Geese placed Champion Goose, 2010 Arkansas APA State Meet; Best of Breed,2010 Arkansas State Fair; and 1st young gander, 1st young goose, 2010 APA National.

Needless to say, we are satisfied. Not all were as good, but we culled heavy and won some. We also culled heavy in our own hatches from show quality breeders. It is nice to know Ideal culls using the SOP.

 

[annaraven]

My Sicilian Buttercup, Stella, is from Ideal, via a local woman who hatches and raises them to pullet. I was really impressed with how beautiful she is - comparable to the buttercups being shown at Stockton Poultry show.

 

[Kelly's Chickens]

So if Ideal breeds to the standard, can their chickens be used to breed with? I would be interested in seeing pictures of Ideal's breeders for RIR's, Buff Orpingtons and Amerucanas if that would be possible. Thanks!

I was going to try to "breed up" with my other hatchery RIR's but the best I have is below. I think I need some that are already closer to the SOP then what I have.

This is the darkest and heaviest hen I have. The only question about her is that when she moulted in Oct she stopped eating her feed. All I could get her to eat was oatmeal for over 2 months. She did finally go back to eating her regular feed at the beginning of Jan. Will this trait be passed on to her offspring?

This is the only RIR rooster we have. Should I order another one?

Neither of these are very friendly.
Thanks for your advice.

 

[ghulst]

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.

At Townline hatchery we have all are beeders on the farm except cornishX and turkeys. Plus we are bigger than all other hatcherys except Ideal. AL

 

[ghulst]

If you want to see some pictures from a large Hatchery go to this site. The pictures are about 6 years old. We have grown aboy 35% every year for the past 2 years.
http://www.townlinehatchery.com/photo_gallery.htm

 

[tinychicky]

the vid was more like a commercial than anything else

it would be very nice to see the breeding pens, not just the chicks and eggs.

 

[Chilifur]

As I posted in another "Ideal Poultry" thread, I have an interest in quality Houdans - but those two words together seem not to coexist in the US.

So I went looking for a few months and quickly realized that it was going to be either a very long time and a lucky chance OR I'd have to hit the jackpot and then import them if I wanted the original Houdan of good weight that wasn't blinded by their crest. I did look at every place I could locate that sold Houdans, but I eventually ordered from Ideal after talking to Ross about just what Teri stated: they do pay attention to the standard, to their breeding birds, and [most of all] were conscientious enough to actually answer my questions.

Now, my Houdan babies are due to arrive tomorrow and I have my fingers crossed that all goes well, however our weather here in California has been very wet and violent (for California). Since Teri also mentioned some of the degrees held by the Fuchs' - perhaps offering to assist their customers with breeding advice would be a nice service?