The only hatchery birds I've had personal experience with were from My Pet Chicken, and I was very pleased with them. They sell all those breeds, and I don't believe they make a habit of shipping roos as freebies. Plus they are located in CT so having chicks shipped from them to NH is not as hard on the chicks!
I've gotten Speckled Sussex from Mt Healthy in the past and have been happy with them... although it was a couple of years ago. I always push folks to find a local breeder first, but a feed store is your second best choice, in my opinion. Also, just because you buy sexed females from the feed store doesn't guarantee you will get females... it's not the feed stores fault, but there are many factors that lead in to this. When we first got into chicken keeping 5-6 years ago, we got some Dominiques from the local feed store and they were marked as male and female from the hatchery.... one of the marked males turned out to be a female and 2 of the females turned out to be male..it happens...no guarantees. Also I have seen folks in different stores pick up chicks from the "female" bin, play with them a bit, and then (unintentionally, I assume) put them back in the "male" bin... welcome to the world of chickens.
IIRC MPC is a drop shipper and doesn't actually have a hatchery in CT... however I have heard pretty good things about them as far as healthy birds.
Really? I had no idea! The box I got from them was post-marked CT, so I guess I assumed they had their own hatchery! Well, you learn something new every day.
