Meyer Hatchery Chicken pics anyone??

[barnyardmommy]

I just want to share my experience with ordering from Meyer. My chicks left Cleveland Ohio at 8:49 pm Monday night, I got the call from my post office in Suffolk VA. at 10:30 Tuesday morning that my chicks had arrived. I had requested that my niece's 7 chicks be marked so that we could tell them apart from mine. The customer service rep. told me she didn't think they would mark the chicks, but she put it on the order anyway. The 24 chicks that I ordered arrived healthy. I was surprised that they had made a notation on the order slip that my niece's chicks were marked on their tummies with black marker. We were able to tell very easily which was my nieces chicks. We ended up with 2 Easter Eggers, 3 White Marans, 1 White Leghorn, 1 Welsummer, 2 Silver Laced cochins,2 Salmon Faverolles, 2 Partridge Cochins, 1 Light Brahma, 1 German Spitzhauben, 1 Cukoo Maran, 1Buff Orpington, 2 Buff Brahms's, 1 Barred Rock, 1 Gold Laced Wyndotte,1 White Cochin, 1 Speckled Sussex, my meal maker was listed as a Dominique, and they thru in a free Blue Cochin. Would I order from Meyer hatchery again? You better believe I would. Nothin but happy......

 

[trsturself]

Just found this site with some interesting info; fermenting, molting, egg storage, homemade feed etc.
Does anyone here ferment feed? Just curious about it. I think I'd be afraid of mold forming and not realizing it and killing all my chickens. LOL. But would like to try it. Seems
like it's so good for them.

http://www.gardenbetty.com/backyard-chickens/

I ferment feed. I tried it with the pellets but it stunk and got moldy too easily. I'm doing it with whole grains now and it works great. That's their main feed now. I keep a 2 gallon bucket in the run by the garbage can full of seed. I keep water in the bucket, scoop some out, scoop more in. It's ever rotating and they chickens love it. They don't waste any of it and it goes a lot further.
I order my seed in bulk from Azure. After all is said and done it costs me $.39/lb for mostly organic food. There's a few things I'm not picky about organic (like lentils) and other things I am (like corn and wheat).

They also get table scraps and will eventually they'll be free ranging again. At the moment I don't have a way to keep them out of my garden and I have too many sprouts coming up to let them in there. I threw them some grass clippings and I've been throwing dandelions to them. They love them.

I'm so far behind with these posts, you guys have been busy. I did start out my chicks with fermented feed when I first started, but it was hard to find a good location for it to ferment and it does smell as well. I may try again in the future, but for now I just free feed. I do understand the benefits and how you save on food costs, etc. I think it is great for those that do ferment, maybe I'm just lazy and stick to the simple way? Who knows. Thanks for the link, I'll check it out.

trsturself: Since you deep litter, do you even need the poop boards at all? I do not use them so their poop just falls into the deep litter. I throw scratch under the roosts every few days and they just stir it up. No problems.

I agree with everyone to set up a way to collect eggs from the outside, hook up one of those roost boxes to the outside. I think someone said to combine the coop areas, that would give you more room too? That is awesome that there is already something set up there. That is weird that netting, wonder what they were thinking with that? You have plenty of time even after you move your chicks in, maybe use the coop how it is now and you can see where to put stuff once you get your daily routine with them established. I always find good ways of changing things up as I work with the chickens, things that I never would of thought of before. Not sure if I make sense?

Shipped Eggs: I have never gotten any shipped eggs from anyone. I always read that there were no guarantees when you get shipped eggs. Maybe the Meyer's person you talked to thought that you were talking about ordered chicks? I know that they do guarantee live chicks if they die in shipment or the 1st 3 days or something like that. My understanding with shipped eggs is that there are too many variables involved to guarantee anything. If your eggs got scrambled during shipping, you would have ended up with no growth at all.
I never had a problem with Meyer's, their customer service has always been nice to me. I am not defending them at all, just speaking from my experience. I am sorry that you've had problems.

I don't need the poop boards. I don't use them now. I'm too lazy to clean something like that.
I'll see what I can figure out when we move in and have lived with it for awhile. Right now I'm thinking of taking the window above the current nest boxes out and putting the nest boxes in that spot. I'll have to add a door to the separate area though.

OK, I didn't know this chicken thing would be so heart wrenching.

Mrs. Puff just died in my arms tonight.
She was acting perfectly normal this morning. Eating and drinking. She ate wet mash from my hands as
usual at about 10 a.m. I went out at about 4:00 to fill their food and do my mid-day cleaning of the run and
she was laying in the corner. When I went over she didn't get up and I picked her up and she went limp
in my arms. I brought her to the garage to sit with her and figure out what to do and I could tell she was dying.
She passed about 10 minutes later. I Have no idea why. She had no bare spots on her like 3 of my others do,
she had no lice or mites. No egg stuck, no wounds, crop had some food in it, comb was pink and I think she laid an egg
yesterday.
What can kill a chicken so fast?

So sad and I'm afraid to wake up to more dead chickens tomorrow

I'm so sorry Nancy! Maybe it was something internal like a bad heart or other problems that weren't related to illness. I hope so and the rest of your girls are ok!

 

[chickadee5002]

Well, someone snatched it up because its not available anymore! Yes, I'm stalking the Meyer's site every second now! When is your hatch day Christine9? I will keep my eye out for you as well...

Lol I did the same thing! And ended up with 10 more chicks than I had planned! I am picking up hatching eggs this Friday! Can't wait so excited e ! My broody is definitely ready for some real eggs

 

[chickadee5002]

OK, I didn't know this chicken thing would be so heart wrenching. Mrs. Puff just died in my arms tonight. She was acting perfectly normal this morning. Eating and drinking. She ate wet mash from my hands as usual at about 10 a.m. I went out at about 4:00 to fill their food and do my mid-day cleaning of the run and she was laying in the corner. When I went over she didn't get up and I picked her up and she went limp in my arms. I brought her to the garage to sit with her and figure out what to do and I could tell she was dying. She passed about 10 minutes later. I Have no idea why. She had no bare spots on her like 3 of my others do, she had no lice or mites. No egg stuck, no wounds, crop had some food in it, comb was pink and I think she laid an egg yesterday. What can kill a chicken so fast? So sad and I'm afraid to wake up to more dead chickens tomorrow Oh Nancy I'm so sorry. It is heart wrenching when you lose one.

 

[chickadee5002]

I just want to share my experience with ordering from Meyer.  My chicks left Cleveland Ohio at 8:49 pm Monday night, I got the call from my post office in Suffolk VA. at 10:30 Tuesday morning that my chicks had arrived.  I had requested that my niece's 7 chicks be marked so that we could tell them apart from mine.  The customer service rep. told me she didn't think they would mark the chicks, but she put it on the order anyway.  The 24 chicks that I ordered arrived healthy. I was surprised that they had made a notation on the order slip that my niece's chicks were marked on their tummies with black marker.  We were able to tell very easily which was my nieces chicks. We ended up with 2 Easter Eggers, 3 White Marans, 1 White Leghorn, 1 Welsummer, 2 Silver Laced cochins,2 Salmon Faverolles, 2 Partridge Cochins, 1 Light Brahma, 1 German Spitzhauben, 1 Cukoo Maran, 1Buff  Orpington, 2 Buff Brahms's, 1 Barred Rock, 1 Gold Laced Wyndotte,1 White Cochin, 1 Speckled Sussex, my meal maker was listed as a Dominique, and they thru in a free Blue Cochin. Would I order from Meyer hatchery again? You better believe I would. Nothin but happy......

Yay! And wow what an awesome assortment! Have fun with all those babies!

 

[MamaShell]

OK, I didn't know this chicken thing would be so heart wrenching. Mrs. Puff just died in my arms tonight. She was acting perfectly normal this morning. Eating and drinking. She ate wet mash from my hands as usual at about 10 a.m. I went out at about 4:00 to fill their food and do my mid-day cleaning of the run and she was laying in the corner. When I went over she didn't get up and I picked her up and she went limp in my arms. I brought her to the garage to sit with her and figure out what to do and I could tell she was dying. She passed about 10 minutes later. I Have no idea why. She had no bare spots on her like 3 of my others do, she had no lice or mites. No egg stuck, no wounds, crop had some food in it, comb was pink and I think she laid an egg yesterday. What can kill a chicken so fast? So sad and I'm afraid to wake up to more dead chickens tomorrow

How awful! I am so sorry!!

 

[IrishAcreFarm]

OK, I didn't know this chicken thing would be so heart wrenching. Mrs. Puff just died in my arms tonight. She was acting perfectly normal this morning. Eating and drinking. She ate wet mash from my hands as usual at about 10 a.m. I went out at about 4:00 to fill their food and do my mid-day cleaning of the run and she was laying in the corner. When I went over she didn't get up and I picked her up and she went limp in my arms. I brought her to the garage to sit with her and figure out what to do and I could tell she was dying. She passed about 10 minutes later. I Have no idea why. She had no bare spots on her like 3 of my others do, she had no lice or mites. No egg stuck, no wounds, crop had some food in it, comb was pink and I think she laid an egg yesterday. What can kill a chicken so fast? So sad and I'm afraid to wake up to more dead chickens tomorrow

So very sorry!!!

 

[NanaLynn]

OK, I didn't know this chicken thing would be so heart wrenching.

Mrs. Puff just died in my arms tonight.
She was acting perfectly normal this morning. Eating and drinking. She ate wet mash from my hands as
usual at about 10 a.m. I went out at about 4:00 to fill their food and do my mid-day cleaning of the run and
she was laying in the corner. When I went over she didn't get up and I picked her up and she went limp
in my arms. I brought her to the garage to sit with her and figure out what to do and I could tell she was dying.
She passed about 10 minutes later. I Have no idea why. She had no bare spots on her like 3 of my others do,
she had no lice or mites. No egg stuck, no wounds, crop had some food in it, comb was pink and I think she laid an egg
yesterday.
What can kill a chicken so fast?

So sad and I'm afraid to wake up to more dead chickens tomorrow

Oh no, I'm so sorry Nancy, that's terrible.

I think someone else said maybe it was her heart, I have heard of that before with some chickens. I think some just have internal issues that don't really affect them until they're around a year old.

I'm hoping it was just the issue with the one chicken, especially for her to pass away so fast.

How's everyone this morning?

 

[christine9]

Oh my goodness. I just check Meyers website every chance I can to see if anything new is available. This might start effecting my job...start? Lol. It definitely is.

 

[rnchick74]

I know this is off topic, but I just had a shipment of supplies for my brooder come in: premier 1 heating plate, nipple waterer, etc. I'm getting so excited! 2 months from today!!! WOOHOO!