is ideal poultry good??

[chickenbottom]

yes they charged a small order it was 43.52 total i believe without any extra add ons to it like clipping the comb or the beak

 

[Trollkiller]

I have ordered from them once, the birds arrived healthy and on time. The reason I went with them was the website totals the order (except for the air mail) before I have to give my CC#.

 

[WalkingWolf]

I ordered from them and received my order very quickly(one day). Small order all chicks arrived alive and well. Of the 15 roos they sent for warmth, that my wife would not let me cull, 2 are pullets. She is still not happy with me that I named the remaining 13 roos "Stew".

I will be ordering from them again, I found them helpful and courteous on the phone and more than willing to help a newbie out with info. I won't be ordering to small next time as I don't have room for the extra roos they send. I will split the order with my neighbor, it's the least he could do for getting me into this addiction.

 

[Edfewlass]

Quote:
If you don't mind me asking, did they charge you a small order charge for not ordering at least 25?
I'm curious because I want to order from them in Feb, but only about ten chicks.

I just ordered 10 from them the charge was $8.00 for small order

 

[araucanasmom]

I ordered 8 assorted silkie & 2 assorted frizzled cochin bantams and received them today with 15 extras. They tell you they might include a few males for warmth, but 15? Next time I will get the insurance.

I just had a silkie die on me and I counted the "packing peanuts" again there are 16!

 

[chickenbottom]

lol

 

[WalkingWolf]

The only way they can ship in cooler weather is by using enough packing peanuts to keep your order warm. You can increase your order to not need them. Or use a shipper that uses heat packs instead which I think they charge about $25.00 for the heat packs. We got 15 also BUT of those 15 I know count 4 pullets. Kinda glad my wife would not let me cull them.

You can raise and eat the peanuts, sell them, give them away, or cull them on delivery, which is what I had intended. You can also ask Ideal not to send you any. But then you take a chance of losing birds in transit.

I love my chickens, but anybody into raising them must understand that at sometime some will have to be culled. Even though we are new to this and I explained it over and over to my wife she still has a hard time with it. She won't let me hunt anymore either.

 

[araucanasmom]

Quote:
I live with my Vegan son and my daughter and I can't bring ourselves to eat chicken after raising our pullets. I guess I'll have to ask my ex if I can rent part of his backyard to raise the peanuts until I can sell them.

 

[LeeLeesFarm]

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I will state my one complaint:

I ordered 11 frizzles last June, knowing that some would feather in with straight feathers and some, of course, would be roosters. I expected to at least get a couple frizzle hens from the lot.

The problem I experienced is that this hatchery did not care to mate one straight feathered parent to a frizzled feathered parent. My chicks had two frizzled feathered parents who mated, because all except one, of my chicks feathered in FRAZZLED.

I had naked boys .... I culled one because he was so bad, and gave the others away,
I gave the 6 straight feathered birds all away, because I only wanted frizzles, and of the 3 frizzle hens that I received only ONE has healthy feathering. The other two have no feathers on their wings at all .... just little featherless sticks.

I still love my girls, as they are backyard pets, and I've handled them enough that they are sweet personalities, however, it makes me a little sad to see such gross feathering on the two. It is sad that a hatchery would have the nerve to sell such gross quality.

I don't know if this is a problem with frizzles, from any hatchery, but IDEAL is no place to order frizzles.

I will give this one positive remark ..... I emailed Ideal after culling my one roo, attached a photo of his baldness, and wrote the same story to Ideal that I just wrote here, and they immediately refunded my entire amount spent. No questions asked.

So, yes, I did get my money back.
But, how disappointing, that I did not get healthy birds.

Lee

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[Trollkiller]

Quote:
To me that counts as great customer service. As I understand it the hatcheries buy their eggs from breeders. Sounds like they got a bad batch from a breeder and would not have know of the problem until the birds started to feather.

I want to thank you for including the whole story. Most of the time when people have an issue with a company they rarely have the integrity to tell the whole story.