McMurray Hatchery- Our Experience :(

[BlessedChaosHomestead]

Sorry to hear it. I had a situation where i lost some from Meyer's but that was in October. I ordered 15 and they arrived cold. 5 looked dead, but I still put them on heating pad and gave them yolk water. I lost one, and the others got better. In the winter ask for a heat pad. Even if it costs more.

They add heat packs on their own.

 

[realsis]

We ordered a shipment of chicks from MMH on Fri, Feb. 16, 2024. (A week ago today actually.)
12 Bielefelders - Unsexed
15 Special Assorted Unsexed
1 Free Chick

On Tues, Feb. 20 I received the text they had shipped. So I started impatiently tracking them. lol

I did not receive these chicks till the morning of Thurs, Feb. 22.
I went to the post office & was chatting with my postal carrier & peeked in the box. Noticed a dead one, then what looked like more.
I quickly set the box down & popped the staples off one side to find a horrific scene. On first glance in horror it looked like 6 were alive, the rest were dead! Squashed on top of each other. The live ones picking at the dead ones!
My postal carried was grossed out too. But advised me to take pics. In doing so, I gagged as they were already smelling horribly. The drive home I had to roll the windows down on a cool morning.
Once home, we did an official count & we had 10 alive. One was dying; the rest dead.

These guys were STARVING. I mean they probably ate a cup of food within the first hour! We thought we were losing another one, but it was just weak. It started going down last night but has picked up since then & made it through the night.

Customer service apologized profusely BUT didn't try to make it right.
Our options were: 1. Re-Order but we have to pay for 7 more chicks to meet the minimum. 2. Wait till April to get the order as is. 3. Credit our card.
They initially issued us a store credit; we had to call back after we talked about it to get them to just refund our card as we didn't want this experience again plus having to order & pay for more chicks. (That potentially could die too.)

The circumstance we are in now, is trying to figure out what chicks we have as it literally looks like most of what survived where the assorted chicks, with 1 for sure Bielefelder male alive. Plus trying to find locally a breeder, that's NPIP/AI clean for the breeds we want.

This is my 2nd hatchery order ever. The first one was in Jan from McMurray for some Runner ducks. It went fine.
But as I found out then & with this fiasco coupled with it, I'm not pleased.
See McMurray sells itself as a family owned company. Tom's granddad started the hatchery, whatever the story.
You think you're getting chicks from THEIR breeding lines; expecting a cleaner line than say Hoover.
Except that is NOT the case that I have found. (Feel free to prove me wrong.)

McMurray sources their ducklings from Metzer Farms in Cordova TN. (Hoover may also, I haven't ordered from them.)
These Bielefelders & Assorted mix came from St. Paul, MN. NOT Iowa.
My cousin who ordered meat chicks from Hoover Hatchery, came in from St. Paul, MN also.
I've read that McMurray sources Turkeys from Privetts in New Mexico. And I believe Hoover does also.

I understand business side; it might make sense logistics/finances/etc.
But as a consumer this does not. Especially for McMurray, they should be transparent about this. If these are outsourced chickens, it should be clearly stated on their catalogs, that it's not a breed line from them.

So that's our story for those who care. This has left a bad experience for us on ordering from hatcheries.
Granted my local feed store got in 400 chicks today & of all those only 1 arrived dead! That's crazy! But from what I can gather via tracking, those poor chicks sat in St. Paul airport (for USPS) for almost 2 days waiting to be shipped out. No wonder they died. It's been cold there.

-A.

So sorry and what a awful experience! Shame on them for not making right on your chicks!! You and your family were tramatized to have to go through that! I know loosing only one is upsetting but to loose half your flock is more than disappointing! They should ship the number of loss back to you free! Now you've lost half of your new flock. That's unacceptable! It's also harder to try to make up for this and brood different ages together. I am so sorry they won't make this right. What a awful story. So sad.

 

[LuciferRoo]

I had an order of 12 chicks last spring and while they all arrived alive and none died in my care, that experience left a bad taste in my mouth.
I paid for dozen females and received 6 females and 7 males (got 1 free chick).
This year I found a local source and drove almost 2 hours to get them.
Much better experience.

 

[BlessedChaosHomestead]

I had an order of 12 chicks last spring and while they all arrived alive and none died in my care, that experience left a bad taste in my mouth.
I paid for dozen females and received 6 females and 7 males (got 1 free chick).
This year I found a local source and drove almost 2 hours to get them.
Much better experience.

Aren’t they supposed to refund/cover that??

 

[LuciferRoo]

Aren’t they supposed to refund/cover that??

I was too busy with other things to even notify them, plus it took maybe 2 months before I found out.
They did however send me a survey sometime later and I indicated that I was not happy and put into the comment section the reason why.
I never heard anything from them.
However from reading other people's comments, most likely they would just refund the premium between straight run and sexed females. It's really not enough money for me to bother. Those cockerels cost me a lot more in feed than that.

 

[Molly77]

I just received 1 dead/8 dying chicks from McMurray Hatchery. Took them 69 hours in transit. They sat in MN for a whole day, and NJ for a whole day. McMurray doesn't use USPS priority express, my local post office guy was very shocked by that. I would have paid for the fastest shipping available at any cost, but they offer no options. This was some pretty upsetting animal torture of these little babies. 48 hours after delivery only 1 is alive. I question the whole idea of ordering chicks online now, but would especially warn anyone off of this particular hatchery.

 

[Awaytome]

My Bielefelder order from MMH also went through MN. But I can't find any hatcheries located in Minn. I think there is a postal hub there where the hatcherys' shipments are directed to final destinations. My chicks were in the system for five days before I got them in WA state. Tracking indicated that the shipment started in IA and spent several days in MN before heading to WA. Two didn't survive. The routing seems crazy.

 

[TexasBlues]

That’s too bad. This comment probably won’t be accepted well by the byc community, but I think shipping hatchery chicks is extremely cruel.

 

[Molly77]

After this experience I totally agree with you. Maybe shipping a bunch together (25+) would be OK, but for a small number it seems like animal abuse. The box they arrived in was beat to hell, I don't even want to think about what this was like for them. I have one lone survivor from the shipment (after a week of very intensive care). This chick is doing great and is now integrated with 6 Buff Orpingtons I got from my local Agway. However, it is a week older and still a little smaller than the Agway chicks.

 

[friednotscrambled]

I can't recommend Cackle Hatchery enough https://www.cacklehatchery.com/guarantees-policies/