Ideal Poultry!

[ChickenCrazy4ever]

IdealisticRoo- That is one strange chicken you got from ideal poultry in that first picture.

Other than that shipping mistake they made, I really like Ideal Poultry.

 

[Eglyntine]

I posted a couple of pages back and it has been a month or so but I got quite a few PM's asking about what my chicks from Ideal that I ordered last Fall look like now. This is not all of them but it is a good representative of what I got from them and I am more than pleased. I get compliments all of the time on my flock, the colours of my chickens are so crisp, shiny and beautiful. I could not be happier with Ideal's stock of at least the LF chickens and I will definitely supplement my flock from them in the future. Here are some pictures:

This is one of my Black Australorp Hens hanging out.

These are some of my Black Australorps hanging out. I ordered 1 BA roo with my australorp order and due to my neighbour's cat he left us too soon. I went crazy looking for a replacement for him because at the time I had just finished with the chicks needing to be kept in the brooder and did not want to reorder for one bird. Luckily one of the 6 hens I thought I had turned out to be a roo instead. Yes a mistake from Ideal but I was SOO happy about it, sexing is not 100% and it is a chance that any chicken lover takes when ordering from ANYONE. He is HUGE & beautiful now. He is so big but his colouring is much different. Where my replacement roo has this beautiful forest green all through his feathers, Punch has this royal purple colouring that is mixed in with the black and the green that is just breath taking. Definitely not SQ standard but it is exciting to think how to emphasize that colour, so a good surprise. I do not really NEED two Australorp roosters but I am going to keep him and breed him with the two australorp hens that have the same colouring and see what comes of it.

This is Roderick, he is the love of Bertha's (my biggest buff orpington hen's life. She just adores him.

This is a closer picture of him, I wish my camera was working like it should, with the sun out he is so gold. It is like watching a gold bullion bar walking across the yard.

I have a couple of these pictures where I am trying to get all of the flock together and we all know how that goes. I even threw out their favourite treat of crushed up pretzels and they were not having any of it. I have Golden Laced Wyandottes, Silver-Laced Wyandottes, Buff Orpingtons, Black Australorps (all but 6 SLW are from Ideal), my 2 Barred Rock hens are from a local lady and I am going to keep 1 Rhode Island Roos Ideal sent as warmers to try to breed Black Sex Links. I have 4 Black Sex Link hens, 2 White Leghorns, 3 White Crested Black Polish that I kept for the boys that are from a Craig's sell and that is about it for now. I hope I am not forgetting anyone.

This is Bo, he is one of my pride and joys out in the flock. He has turned into such a gorgeous rooster and he is so nice too. He was in my first order from Ideal. He totally remembers perching up on my wrist when he was a baby and he still tries to do that when he is WAY too big to be doing that. I cannot help spoiling all of them. Mixed with my golden-laced wyandotte hens they are going to make beautiful babies I think.

Here is a quick picture of Breakfast and Dinner, two of my Ideal warmer bunch Rhode Island red roosters that are going to the grill next weekend. They were definitely a lot nicer to raise than those Cross X Broilers.

This is Picard, he is the Silver Laced Wyandotte rooster that we have decided to keep out of the 4 that we have. When we got him, one of the boys dropped him and he acted like he was not going to make it for days he just laid there but I kept praying and babying him and by the end of the week he was all better again. By then though, I had already placed an extra order with Ideal for another SLW roo and they sent me 4 at no charge. He turned out great and so did the others, which is why they are making it on my table instead of a freebie on Craig's list or a messy Cross X Broiler order. heh

Overall I am very happy, I did not receive one dead bird on arrival and all of the birds were super healthy and grew like rockets. The only deaths came from human intervention and Ideal even went out of their way to replace those free of charge when I totally expected to pay for the replacements. When you send out 4 million birds a year you are bound to make a mistake, there are bound to be deaths because of shipping problems, etc. There are bound to be mistakes in sexing, but when a company gives you a replacement or your money back with no questions asked that is pretty darn good customer service and not something you run into that often. It is sad that tragedies happen or mistakes but that is farming folks. One of the hardest and cruelest jobs out there is farming, but it is also the most rewarding when it goes right.

 

[Caddy-Corner-Chick]

Thanks for those awesome pictures and your story.

I have ordered from Ideal a total of four times this year.

I agree there is a couple of my hens starting to look more roo-ish but they claim that right on their page that sexing is not 100% accurate and they do their best. When any of them died during shipment they supplied EXCELLENT customer service.

When I couldn't make up my mind which 3 Cochin Bantams I wanted, I let them choose and I ended up with a Red Frizzle Cochin (sooo cool), a Partridge (kmfx hen) and a White Cochin.

I will post up some pictures of them in a couple months They are only 2 weeks old right now for the Cochins and the Wyandottes.

My first order is 6 weeks old right now and are great little chicks.

 

[Eglyntine]

I think a lot has to do with what a PP said, there are some "breeds" that do not re-breed true and in some cases do not re-breed even remotely true but because of their colour/style they are popular. Unfortunately in the big picture, any new breed takes more than one person's lifetime to get consistency so most of these rares are really new, and not really consistent in reproducing themselves. So it will not matter what breeder or hatchery you chose you are taking a risk of not getting exactly what you think you are getting. I personally do not consider any "breed" a true breed that cannot reproduce themselves consistently without human intervention. I do not say this to start a post war or anything but for example, blue chickens. They are definitely unique, and fun to look at but when you re-breed them you have to do it a specific way and even then you are not guaranteed that you are going to get exactly what you think you are getting. And while disappointing it is definitely a risk but if you are into starting your own breeding program and you just want a baseline then it is a good start.

Hatcheries are trying to give ppl what they want, if they did not have this policy they would not be in business very long but we have a lot further road to go than say the breeders in Europe/Aussieland on getting the quality and consistency on our breeding programs on some of these breeds and with the lock down on shipping from overseas on birds we pretty much have to start from scratch whereas they have had 200+ years on us. Just look at Sussex, Orpingtons, Australorps, Wyandottes from overseas compared to ours. And usually the ones in this country that have breath-taking stock have somehow been able to introduce that overseas stock into their flocks. Most hatcheries tell you upfront, this is the type and standard we strive for, but we cannot guarantee that you will always get the picture perfect or even close to what the picture says because they cannot control every aspect of reproduction.

We also have to remember this is nature and it is not always cloneable. Just because we want an exact replica of a picture does not mean that nature is going to give that to us. Again disappointing when you really really really want what is in the picture but we do have to give these hatcheries and breeders some slack because they are trying their best to give us what we want. I do not think there is some evil chicken Czar sitting in the boxing room saying (in a maniacal voice, hunched over on his stool) "how can we ruin this customer's day today?"

I do know from my experience and many others I know that Ideal stands behind what they say they will do, and they are very upfront about the risks and instead of saying "Well our TOS says this so suck up and deal" they do go out of their way to try and fix or resolve the issue the best way they can. I have dealings with hatcheries off and on for over 20+ years now and Ideal definitely has one of THE best customer service staffs I have ever dealt with.

 

[BrahmaMama]

Very nice posts, Eglyntine.

I didn't order from Ideal this year (yet

) But I have ordered from them in the past, and was very pleased with the chicks I received, as well as the wonderful customer service-such a rare case in these days.

 

[IdealisticRoo]

Eglyntine - Thank you for taking the time to put up those WONDERFUL pictures!

My Ideal birds continue to thrive and entertain us, I currently have the following birds which came from Ideal:

2 Black Australorp Pullets - they just started laying and are already producing nice-sized brown eggs! (The matching rooster got eaten by a fox, but no sadness about that, he had developed an over-amorous nature and was banished to bachelor quarters, where he decided to start mounting a disabled Araucana! I was on the point of killing him or rehoming him to be a free chicken dinner on the Craigslist when the fox decided to help itself!)

A trio of OEGB - cute, crabby little things that pick on chickens 10x their size!

a Splash Blue Wyandotte bantam that lays nice sized eggs (for a bantam) and lays frequently!

2 Silkies - A BEAUTIFUL White girl that doesn't lay yet, and a UGLY Partridge that has a boy comb and wattles and is quite possibly the DUMBEST chicken I have ever seen, but lays 5 eggs a week!

a Yokohama Cockeral who is going to be gorgeous!

a Phoenix pullet who is already beautiful

a SILLY BBR Cubalaya pullet

a Barnevelder pullet

an Exchequer Leghorn Pullet - Amazing Black / White color mottling!

a White Jersey Giant Pullet

a pair of Golden Laced Polish - STUPID, ugly birds, but that is hardly Ideal's fault lol

I am sure there are at least a few more that I can't remember right now, but they are all pretty! If you want to see pictures of any of them, email or post on this topic and I will post pictures! Please DON'T PM me, my PM box is always full!

I had a White Cochin Bantam and an Ideal 236 production mix, but they were so pretty that a lady recently HAD to have them so she paid me $20 each for them!!!!!

She also HAD to have the Dominique, the Buff leghorn, the Golden Campine, a Spitzhauben and several other birds, all of which she gladly paid $10-15 each, because they were SO beautiful! I sold them this week, they were ALL 10 weeks old (except the White Cochin, who is 6 months old).

I had SO much fun and made money last winter, buying assorted pullets from Ideal and reselling the ones I didn't want! Of course, that sort of behaviour is how I ended up with 80(-ish) chickens, but WHO'S counting!

 

[yoie]

I too am very happy with Ideal. This was my first time with chickens and kept hearing good things about Ideal on here so I went with them. They had great customer service, I called to place my order and a few breeds weren't available for when I wanted my chicks so they helped me pick out a few different ones. I am really happy about how they are turning out, and have gotten two orders from them this year! My first group is now 2 months old and looking awesome! My second group is only a month old but they are looking beautiful too. I only had one die a few days after shipping, but out of 20 chicks I found myself lucky. I even kept one of the packing peanuts which turned out to be a beautiful Blue Cochin Roo named Krull (by my hubby). My second group was bantam chickens and a guinea. I feel lucky since out of the 7 bantams I only got two that look like boys so I am really happy! Well enough of me talking about my beautiful chickens here are some pics of them!!!

In this pic there is my Black Australorp, Naked Neck, Barred Rock, and part of my Norwegian Jearhon I got from Ideal. (the white one is a TSC chick)

Closeup of my Barred Rock Hen Willow, she is a really sweet bird

My Rooster Krull a Blue Cochin packing peanut! In the far back is my EE Squeakers from Ideal too.

A group shot of them, most are from Ideal

And here is one of my bantams, he is one of my favorite ones, despite it being a boy this is Thor!

 

[Eglyntine]

I love the packing peanuts, and I know for some it is a bother but for my family that is extra food on the table (as long as it is not a bantam heh).

IdealisticRoo: Those Australorp boys can be aggressive but the more you handle them the better they get and at least with my experience, the minute you take off the spurs they are sweet as cream. But they are pretty virile as you have seen. I have a huge soft spot for the Australorp and I was really pleased with Ideal's stock. Again not perfect but a really GREAT start. I definitely know what you mean about ppl being taken back by my Ideal birds. We live on a pretty busy street on a 1/3 acre parcel. It is one block over from an elementary school so you can imagine how busy it can get with ppl walking and driving by. There literally is not a day that goes by that someone does not stop to carry on about how beautiful my birds are. I *cough* only have 50 as of right now but since all of my Ideal girls started laying around the 16 week mark I decided to set some eggs after two of my other girls went broody so that number is about to increase here pretty soon.

I love pretty chickens like the next person, but I want beauty and functionality too, I most assuredly got that with the birds I picked up from them.

 

[GotGame]

we just got the 24 chicks my wife ordered from ideal, their customer service has been awesome, as we decided to change the order once, and they were just fine with it, no biggie...all 24 were fine and seem to be thriving, and all but 1 are colored like they should be...cant tell roo from pullet yet..

 

[Albanydog]

Quote:
Idealpoultry,

What is this rooster?

How about these, what are these?