REALLY Disappointed w/ Hatchery

[oliviad51]

I have ordered guinea keets from murray mcmurray and they all turned out great. Also, My Pet Chicken is a good website to order chicks off of. I have had 2 batches of chicks shipped to me and all turned out well.

Don't give up. It may be (as many others have mentioned) a bad shipping experience. I'm not sure though...I hope your little chickie gets better and the rest continue to do well.

 

[ChickieBooBoo]

I'm sorry for your loss but that really isnt that common when ordering from a hatchery, shipping is very hard on chicks and the weaker ones just don't make it.

 

[Minniechickmama]

Didn't read through the whole thing, but have you tried PolyViSol? Do a drop in its beak once a day, the stuff without iron though. Sometimes it will perk up the lagging chick.
As for the toe curls, I used a pipe cleaner, like are used for crafts, and it worked perfect. In about three days she was straight toed and it is a lot better than trying to just use cardboard or tape.
I wouldn't get terribly discouraged. I know how you must hate to lose chicks, but the reality is that a lot more could end up DOA considering the stress of the trip. Especially now with the weather turning to winter up here in the MidWest, you can't expect them all to make it. Personally, I have done very well with MM and would recommend them to anyone not looking for show quality birds. That said, I have gotten some pretty decent ones from them on a couple of breeds.
I would keep track of you losses and when and why, and if you feel you have lost too many, give them a call. Whenever I have had to deal with them, they have been very good to me.
Good luck.

 

[Saroco]

I'm SO sorry...

 

[abhaya]

shipping is hard on the littleones sorry for your loss. I try to get my cicks local where I can pick them up. I would rather drive an hour than get them shipped. But that is just me I know they can be shipped just fine I just dont like the idea

 

[Mervin]

When I first got chickens, that was something I was concerned about. I ended up having the feed store (a local store) order them for me. Basically they just made their normal order and tacked some extras on for me. I ended up getting first dibs so to speak. I got a phone call and went in and picked out the best looking chicks. They were vibrant and vigorous and no pasty butts. Also, I didn't end up paying for shipping. You might pay a little more per chick (probably not), but it really evens out in the end.

If you can find an independent feed store, befriend those folks. Generally, they have more "boots on the ground" knowledge and they'll go out of their way to help you get what you want. They want to keep you coming back to them for feed, fencing, etc. Even if they don't do chick orders, they might be able to help you find a local source. Heck, you might be surprised by what you'd find tacked up to their bulletin board.

 

[Mervin]

I also have a question related to this...For anybody who has nursed a weak chick back to health, what has its long-term health been like? Has been more susceptible to other health problems, Cocci., prolapse, etc.? Have they laid well?

I have a bird that was a really strong, vigorous chick. When they were about two to three months old, she was making her way to the top of the pecking order. Somebody, I believe it was the soon-to-bee alpha roo, tore some feathers out of her back and the others sort of piled on. She lost a lot of feathers and was a little skittish, but not necessarily in shock. I dressed her wounds and nursed her back to health. She took a very long time to come into lay and remained somewhat skittish until I had to dispatch all of my roos. She has since regained her vitality, but she still doesn't lay worth a darn. Her hatch mates are laying machines though. I'm just curious about other folks' experience with the recovery of injured birds.

 

[Sir Birdaholic]

I've ordered from several different hatcheries over the years. One sends weak chicks, another keeps putting off the order until a later date, one cant sex the chicks, the other won't anwer the phone or contact me at shipping time, so I only go through breeders or hatch my own.

 

[Robert Blosl]

my local feed store gets chicks from idea Hatcheryl. He has had high losses, but its not the fault of the hatchery. Its the number of hours the chicks are in travel from the hatchery to our post office. I use to ship four week old started chicks and had no losses then about two years ago i was loosing about 20 percent of my chicks. Average travel was four days.
So I started shiping overnight express. Never lost another chick. They can go with out feed for a few days but they can dehydrate so quick after 48 hours in the box.

If you have a breed you want there are many breeders on this web site that will sell you eggs or chicks that are vigorous and are more true to color and shape.

You also get a better quality of chick more true to breed or the pictures that you see on thier web site or catalog

About 1 % of the people are changing from hatchery type chickens and going with people that have old time breeds such as the old fashion Barred Plymouth Rocks and Rhode Island Reds.

A fellow on this site just got some very nice Columbian Plymouth Rock Large Fowl a trio and will be sharing these pretty birds with others over the next two years as he builds up the numbers. Another excitting breed is the New Hampshires which was imported from Germany. They are just like the ones we had fourth years ago. We just about lost this breed as the quality went way down in color and shape. Nothing wrong with hatchery chicks but some do have problems with the shipping and the post office.

I prefer to go with priviate breeders who have been breeding them from smaller matings. bob

 

[Ridgerunner]

Sorry for your problems. If they were sexed, you would think that they would catch the curled toes and not ship them, but if they are quickly grabbing straight run chicks off a conveyor belt and putting them in a box, it might not be as noticable as you would think. Curled toes is probably a genetic defect and the spraddle legs is probably a physical accident. I think it is strange that you would get 4 in one shipment. With some hatcheries shipping over 100,000 chicks a week during the busy season, you are going to see some problems, but what happened to you sounds like bad luck. If McMurray or anyone else shipped that many injured or misformed chicks regularly, they would be out of business.

The weather this time of year can be hard on shipped chicks. Even if you are in a fairly warm area, you don't know what route those chicks actuallty took to get to you. You'll see the number of posts about chicks having problems during shipping go up this time of year. Some post office employees are pretty good about handling chicks and some are not. Just a fact of life. You'll also see a spike in the number of posts about shipping problems right after a holiday. Despite how things are supposed to work or how they should work, a lot of post office employees take time off at the holidays and things just don't go as normal.

I'm not saying your problems with the sick chick is due to shipping. I've had chicks I've hatched not make it through the first 24hours. Some just are not equipped to make it. As others have mentioned, keep it warm and feed it liquid and food. It may make it and it may not.

As an aside, unless you have a really compelling reason to breed it if it does make it, a chick that had those problems would not make it into my breeding flock. I'm not saying to kill it. There are plenty of other reasons to keep a chicken other than breeding, but I would not want those weak genes in my flock's gene pool.