Ordered Ducks, received warming chicks??

[Gray Farms]

They'll be layer breeds. Layer breed cockerels make great fryers at around 3 months. And great baking/crock pot birds at 6-8 months.

 

[Faustina14]

Okay, haha! Thank you for the help. For now, I plan to raise them and see what I get. Hens I’ll keep, and roosters, I’ll rehome. Predictions on when I’ll be able to sex them? Maybe I’ll be lucky and get all hens!!

 

[Gray Farms]

At around 6-8 weeks they can typically be sex. Chances for one to be a pullet is small. For all to be girls is astronomical. Don't get you hopes up.

 

[keesmom]

Interesting, Metzer only lists 3 breeds of chickens on their website. All are meat breeds, (Cornish X, Rolin S and Big Sur) and are white or red. Wonder where the black one came from.

 

[Faustina14]

I just talked with the Hatchery. They did not send me the chicks. They don’t even raise black chicks on their farm. They told me someone at the post office must have shoved the 5 escaped chicks in the nearest box and it was my ducks! Anyone missing 5 chicks from their order??

 

[Frazzemrat1]

I just talked with the Hatchery. They did not send me the chicks. They don’t even raise black chicks on their farm. They told me someone at the post office must have shoved the 5 escaped chicks in the nearest box and it was my ducks! Anyone missing 5 chicks from their order??

That sounds very suspicious. Was the box sealed properly? All of us who have ordered from a hatchery knows that if you only order a couple of anything that they're going to send extra as 'popcorn', and they're just to keep the intended original order warm enough to survive the trip. I would have been shocked if your parents only ordered 2 ducks (I think you said?) and didn't get popcorn.

 

[keesmom]

That sounds very suspicious. Was the box sealed properly? All of us who have ordered from a hatchery knows that if you only order a couple of anything that they're going to send extra as 'popcorn', and they're just to keep the intended original order warm enough to survive the trip. I would have been shocked if your parents only ordered 2 ducks (I think you said?) and didn't get popcorn.

Metzer is a waterfowl hatchery, not a chick hatchery though. They only have 3 chicken "breeds" and they are all meaties, and all are either red or white. No black chicken breeds.

 

[Frazzemrat1]

Metzer is a waterfowl hatchery, not a chick hatchery though. They only have 3 chicken "breeds" and they are all meaties, and all are either red or white. No black chicken breeds.

Interesting. I've never ordered from them...

 

[gator75]

That is an awesome story. Pretty sweet if you got 5 great egg layers in the mail as a surprise. The three black ones looks like sex link chicks. I see no white spots on the head!

 

[WVduckchick]

I just talked with the Hatchery. They did not send me the chicks. They don’t even raise black chicks on their farm. They told me someone at the post office must have shoved the 5 escaped chicks in the nearest box and it was my ducks! Anyone missing 5 chicks from their order??

Wow, that's amazing. Actually, I'm surprised a postal worker bothered to try to save them, if they had gotten out of another box.