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I know you were at the NEBC show. A lot of birds there were bought from sandhill. The quality on some birds were exceptional!
If your going to buy from a hatchery, do it from sandhill
Sometimes what you see in ONE show does not mean they are exceptional. Even a local show which one or two breeders of a popular breed would win everything across the board and when they go to another show, most likely "National Regional poultry show", they may or may not win as much as they did locally or smaller shows. Judges pick out the BEST of the two different birds of the same breed in the only class they have even when the winning bird will or would not win successfully at a "national" poultry show.
For example, I remember one lady going to a show, bought "Best of Breed" rooster and he was the only breed shown under ONE breeder. So that breeder won most of the ribbons under the breed category. The roo himself was not the greatest specimen, got some faults that I would never use for breeding but this lady insist that her roo WAS the best in the show and the breeder SOLD her the roo! Now most breeders will NOT sell their best roo, they would use him for breeding and when they have enough of his offsprings, they may consider selling him later. Alot of the members of the club was disgusted with this lady thinking she got the BEST roo but really she does not and tried to have the "breeders name insert" lines. There is no such line nor she will succeed. The roos faults were these, his comb was too big and too beefy, his tips were too triangle-y, too much black stripes in neck feathers and body shaped like a Leghorn when this breed supposed to be a "brick shaped". She went on bragging that the APA president said about her roo that he is good.........what does he know???!!! The breeder refused to say where his birds originated from, even she refused to say or even ask the breeder where his lines originated from. So I take it, that the roo is hatchery bred unless I hear it from the breeders mouth or emails personally from him. There were NONE!
So Sandhill is not perfect but still, too many people felt cheated because the way the birds did not look like the standard, too many flaws and faults. Personally his Faverolles SUCKS and I will announce it to the world......they simply SUCK! The birds are getting more like the hatchery colors and types and I was glad to get rid of them all. Just worthless, IMO! Same for their Polishes. I've never seen so many cross beaks, narrow legged, crooked or bent toes right from the get go. AND they refuse to refund or replace....too bad! I've ordered thru them at least three times I've remembered and shared orders with others, I am disappointed with the rare breeds but their American breeds like the Buff Orpingtons, RIR, Barred Rocks, Dominques, NH , Australorps are better. With that price, I can get it from a private dedicated breeder and be much happier with the quality and vigor and I do not have to do alot of work to correct faults which the breeder has done it while breeding his birds.
The decision is yours, yours alone and if they come out like the standards, you got lucky. If not, your loss and hope you can either use them for egg laying purposes and pet only.
Sandhilll USED to be good until the past five to eight years, they sort of went to the wayside about the culling and standards on the breeds. IMO, he is NOT a preservationist, just another breeder trying to claim "I'm the first" of its breed to make it available. Remember the Blue and Black Orpingtons? Everybody jumped on the bandwagon while the private breeders, members of the Orpington Club here in America was up in arms because his birds are not of exceptional quality and did not weed out the faults popping up in his birds. After awhile, people are getting better Orpingtons from somewhere else and doing successfully in shows from time to time, again and again. Even Catalupa Farms, Dick Boulanger, Peter Marlin, Dick Horsmann would advise you not to buy their Orps or Faverolles from Sandhill because they KNOW and HEARD from people again and again, that they were very disappointed. I know you can not please every customer and every chick is not going to come out like a show winner but a good ratio of chicks would come out pretty good and then you would have to do some serious culling, nitpick as you will but you would do the breed a favor by following the standard.
I've heard from a Mille Fleur Leghorn breeder, she was disappointed in the quality of the chicks she raised this year from the Sandhill chicks, some have white legs and some had yellow legs and some ended up too much white, looking too much like Speckled Sussex patterns...........something tells me something was wrong in the background of those Sandhill parents. Were they crossed with Sussexes? It is a possibility or a bad throwback going on in half or a good number of chicks that are not up to the standard.
Off my soapbox. Thank you for listening in!
SITTING HERE READING PICTURING THE STEAM COMING OUT OF YOUR EARS, ROBIN!
You always put things so clear, and dont batter around the bush! Its great to have people out there like you, and the sad part is, you arent even a "full time breeder" - But I can say that you have done a wonderful job being a full time president!
IMO if you are going to be breeding to the standard you should work with a few breeds, not as many, or more than a typical hatchery. I myself raise 4 varieties of chickens (sussex, welsummer LF, welsummer BF, marans) and I try to cull very heavy for the breeding flock, If I hatch out 100 chicks, and only 5 are what I think are good enough to breed, well thats all that I would add to the flock, or breed from. The only way to get ahead is to keep good stock, it takes too much time to use a bird that is mediocre and then try and breed out the faults later on, so why introduce them in the first place?
Nate
