Is it possible that Ideal Poultry is scam artists?

[JacinLarkwell]

SOME Red Sexlinks have a white tail. But SOME Red Sexlinks have black tails and do look like Rhode Island Red or New Hampshire Red or Production Red. Ideal Poultry sells some with black tails and some with white tails (according to the descriptions on the website).

The whole point of a sexlink is that they can be sexed at hatch by the color of their down. If yes, then they are a sexlink, no matter what color their tail is. The gene that controls black vs. white tails is not involved in making them color-sexable.

4 Of my first birds were the black tailed red sexlinks. I actually didn't even know white tails were an option until a few years ago

 

[Homestead poultry]

Potential scenario with Ideal Poultry posted for a family member who needs advice:

We decided that we wanted to raise baby chickens. We ordered 30 baby chickens from Ideal Poultry. We paid extra for them to be all pullets but they were also on sale. I don't remember the exact price but it was around $1.00 off per bird so they were around $3.50. For the sake of me not remembering, we are going to say they were $3.50 each which is very close to accurate. Weeks later, they run the same sale and we purchase 60 more. It did not take but a few months for use to realize that they were almost all roosters. We contacted Ideal Poultry who said that it was impossible to tell until they were at least 16 weeks old. They told us, if we did get more than 90% roosters, they would refund the difference between the price of a rooster and hen which is roughly 75 cents per bird. I was not happy. At 16 weeks old, these are clearly 95% roosters--both sets of them. I contact Ideal Poultry. They will not refund any money. Even I paid full price for the birds, it would be less than $1 per bird for a refund. I got them on sale for the same price that the roosters were originally so I get no money back. I ask for a replacement of birds and that is not their policy. Apparently you agree to this policy when you buy birds from them. I bet that it has cost me $20 per bird to raise these babies for them to be all roosters. I have fed them medicated chick starter at $25-28 per bag. I have 90 chickens and they are 95% roosters. They are not selling very well even at $5 each and we are slowly giving them all away--minus the few hens. We feel like we have been scammed: they were able to sell us almost 90 roosters and get full price for them from us. We are out tons of dollars on feeding these birds. We are so upset that we are considering consulting a lawyer after the holidays. Not sure that it would do any good but we are at least going to get his advice.

An experienced person can tell the difference between roosters and hens at day old and a hatchery has 90% accuracy usually I've never had problems with ideal however they seem to be very good and reputable

 

[NatJ]

An experienced person can tell the difference between roosters and hens at day old and a hatchery has 90% accuracy usually I've never had problems with ideal however they seem to be very good and reputable

That is generally the case. I have not had big problems either (an occasional one that is mis-sexed, but that was it.)

But there is always a possibility of a person mixing them up after they have been sexed. I read of one person who ordered 25 cockerels each of many breeds to compare how they grew for meat-- and got 25 pullets of one breed instead! That messed up their experiment, because pullets grow slower than cockerels, so it wasn't a fair comparison for that breed.

For the situation at the beginning of this thread, I suspect the same kind of error, sending an entire box of sexed chicks that are the wrong sex. Ideal does not seem to make that kind of mistake very often, but even once is a big problem for the person that gets the wrong chicks.

 

[Ponyiqandhens2]

I bought 10 pullets From ideal, and 9 of the 10 received were actually pullets. That is acceptable, imo, as human errors happen.

FWIW, there is a locally owned feed and seed that I go to for a lot of things. The chicks they sell spring and fall are purchased from Ideal. When I told them in the summer that is who I was ordering from, they said that was a good source.

I am coming to this late,but most hatcheries only guarentee a 90% accuracy rate,BUT while Cackle goes into detail about different breed ( they have a 90% guarentee,but under each breed they discuss that some are harder than others) they discuss some breeds consistently are only accurate for 65-75% while others are much higher

Meyers does a pretty good job with standard breeds,but I have found that on the bantams its probably closer to 75% but they happily refund the amounts.
IF you go online and read some of the detailed pages ( not just the basic idea) but the more scientific about vent sexing ,its really a miracle that any hatchery guarentees pullets ( but all clearly state 90%)

If you truly cant risk a rooster it's much better to go with sex linked breeds or auto sexing breeds like welsummers, cream legbars,welbars ,rhodebars, biefelders, barred and cuckoo colored anything.
https://www.cacklehatchery.com/22-autosex-breeds-of-chickens-and-geese/