Randall Burkley - any experiences with day old chicks from them?

[RM44]

Anyone ordered baby chicks from them? They seem to be super expensive (twice the price of the other hatcheries) but appear to have a very large selection and are still taking orders and hatching chicks for 2009. Anyone had any experiences they would be willing to share?

 

[lurky]

I love them

and they have very knowledgeable staff to answer questions if you ever have them.
I got EE bantams and they are almost 3 and still have them all.

 

[RM44]

What did you think of the quality of their birds? I'm looking for production oriented hens (RIRs, Australorps, and maybe some dominiquers and ameraucanas for variety). I want to get quality birds, decent size and decent genetics for egg laying and health.

 

[lurky]

I love the birds got, but they are not even a pure breed, so i dont know if it counts. But most hatcheries are not going to offer a show quality bird.
I imagine its always possible to get such quality, but not to be expected. I trust the people there for a healthy nice bird.
I would order from them if you dont have access to breeder.

 

[saladin]

It's actually the Randall Burkey company: no "l." saladin

 

[Cara]

I have a credit on my account for some free birds and I still won't do business with them. They drop-ship and were amateur-ish to deal with to put it lightly. The website said that my card wouldn't be charged until the order shipped. I'd asked for delivery in two weeks' time, so was a little worried when we were charged immediately, as we were going on vacation. I called them and was told they couldn't tell me anything about when they were shipping, and I should call them in two weeks' time.

I don't know whether it is still their policy, but when I ordered from them it was up to the customer to contact them to find out when the chicks would ship. Problem was, the only person who could give me the info was never around. When I finally spoke to him I checked that everything on my order was available. It turns out that half of the birds weren't, but they didn't think to tell me. My reason for ordering from them was that I could get everything I wanted in one place.

When the order arrived, it was wrong. I had even more chicks missing that they didn't have, and several wrong breeds and sexes. It didn't seem like they had used much common sense when packing; if the pullets of a certain breed are unavailable, wouldn't it be logical to check that the customer still wanted the roosters?

Basically out of an order of 24 chicks I ended up with seven that were correct, and several that I had to re-home.

ETA I'd highly recommend Welp or Ideal. Welp in particular are very helpful and have some of the nicer hatchery birds.