Is it possible that Ideal Poultry is scam artists?

[NatJ]

Welsummer are an auto-sexing breed (different feather pattern/shade) so this seems unacceptable to me…

Ideal Poultry is selling day-old chicks. Male and female Welsummer chicks do not look drastically different at hatch.

 

[aart]

Ideal Poultry is selling day-old chicks. Male and female Welsummer chicks do not look drastically different at hatch.

They do, but the characteristics are not always all that clear.

 

[NatJ]

They do, but the characteristics are not always all that clear.

That would be why I said they are not "drastically" different. I am not saying they are identical, just that the differences are not going to be obvious to people who are handling many different breeds of chicks and are not experts on any of them.

 

[AinaWGSD]

That is super frustrating and i agree with that number of misidentified cockerels they should do something more than refund the difference. Ir sounds like a serious quality control issue and i sincerely hope they are at least addressing it internally. But they don't fall under the legal definition of "scam" and unfortunately legally they aren't required to do more than what they state in their guarantee and refund policy.

If you feel strongly that they have done you financial harm it would be a good idea to talk to a lawyer, but by purchasing from them you are agreeing to their policy of only refunding the difference between bullets and cockerels which is stated on their website. So it is very likely that legally you're stuck with the situation.

Super frustrating, but unfortunately it may be the best you can do is to leave a bad review and simply not buy from them again.

 

[clarina_belle]

I ordered from Ideal Hatchery the first time earlier this year. It was not the best experience. They did ship healthy chics, but substituted all of my 9 red rangers for black rangers without my permission or any type of notice. It was the first time I had ordered rangers, so I wasn’t sure if their color would change. after about 7 weeks, I sent them a photo asking what chickens they shipped me because they were the wrong color, and were not developing as I thought rangers should. They seemed annoyed that I actually wanted what I ordered, and said it was the same chicken, only a different color. They refunded my money. Then I noticed that my Rhode Island Red “supposed” female looked strange. They shipped a male. When I emailed them I got no response. This RIR was to replace my egg layer that died. Now I had a rooster that I had no use for, could not keep, and had to get rid of. The other 12 chics (Delaware females) in the order were fine. So, there was a problem with about 40% of my order.

I usually order from Meyers. I will continue to do so. Meyers has a 100% guarantee on the sexing of their chics. The only reason I ordered from Ideal in the first place was because my Meyers order was damaged in shipment by the USPS, and I could not get replacement chics soon enough. I did not read Ideal’s sexing policy prior to ordering, and had no idea that they would substitute chics without my permission.

 

[LuciferRoo]

These businesses should know that such behavior will lose them business.
After reading this thread, I certainly would not order from them.

 

[fancywyandottes23]

The only issue I’ve run into with ideal is that I ordered red sex links, and they sent a mix of production reds and Rhode Island reds. All pullets though. But they definitely will fill at their discretion if they don’t have the stock.

 

[NatJ]

The only issue I’ve run into with ideal is that I ordered red sex links, and they sent a mix of production reds and Rhode Island reds. All pullets though. But they definitely will fill at their discretion if they don’t have the stock.

How do you know they sent the wrong kind? Based on what I read in their descriptions, some of the Red Sexlink types would look exactly like that.

 

[fancywyandottes23]

How do you know they sent the wrong kind? Based on what I read in their descriptions, some of the Red Sexlink types would look exactly like that.

If they state they look exactly like production reds or hatchery Rhode Island Red in their breed description of sex links, then that’s just a gimmick to be able to offload more of their production reds etc. They literally have pictures of their take on red sex links, and they sent me couple different breeds that looked exactly like their pics of the aforementioned breeds. They definitely weren’t sex links.

 

[NatJ]

If they state they look exactly like production reds or hatchery Rhode Island Red in their breed description of sex links, then that’s just a gimmick to be able to offload more of their production reds etc.

The point of sexlinks is that they can be sexed by color at hatch. Production Reds and Rhode Island Reds are not color-sexable at hatch.

If the chicks can be sexed by color at hatch, then they are sexlinks, no matter how they look as adults.

The common white-tailed red sexlinks are the result of one kind of cross, but not the only possible one. It is genetically possible to set up a sexlink cross where the females look exactly like a Production Red, and the males are Silver Columbian or Delaware colored (and according to the text descriptions on Ideal's site, they do have both of those, although one of them then has a photo of a white-tailed red hen and the other has no adult photo at all.)

They literally have pictures of their take on red sex links, and they sent me couple different breeds that looked exactly like their pics of the aforementioned breeds. They definitely weren’t sex links.

Did you get any males? If you had no males, then there is really no way to tell whether your chicks were actually sexlinks (males look different) or Production Reds (males & females are colored alike.)

But does it really matter? If they lay the same, are correctly sexed, and look almost the same, is there a reason to want one instead of the other?

Do you remember which of their sexlinks you ordered? I remember them listing red, brown, and gold (although how they picked those names I can't say.) One of them has a description that mentions the white tail, one has a photo with white tail but description says black tail, and one has no photo but the description says black tail.

You might be right that they made a substitution, but for SOME of their sexlinks it would be impossible to tell for sure.