So Frustrated ...

[Sylverfly]

I am so frustrated with Welp hatchery right now! I have always had nothing but great luck and good experiences with them until this last shipment. I ordered 2 males and 10 females of the same breed. I ended up with 16 total so four extra. And its been a few months and I ended up with 12 males and 4 females. I can't imagine they got the sexing that wrong! I'm convinced they read my order backwards and sent 10 males and 2 females. I contact them and tell them I can send photos if needed. They tell me they need photos, so I run around catching 10 little roosters and snap some pics of the male group and a one of the female group. There is an obvious difference in posture, tail, and comb color and size between the photos. Two weeks and a bunch of chicken feed later I finally hear back.

They spoke to someone from the hatchery who says they are a slow developing breed so it can make it confusing when they are growing and that they are sure they are all females. What?! why would a slow developing breed have way bigger redder combs then the fast developing breeds that were sent in the order? Why would I think they are roosters if they are slow to develop? That answer makes zero sense. Then they tell me to wait a few months and send more photos...do they not know what its like to have let alone feed 10 extra growing giant breed roosters for a few months.

I also informed them that these "pullets" had long pointy glossy saddle feathers, which they completely disregarded in their email response and said nothing about.

So I paid for 10 hens and got practically all males, that I have fed for months, grown attached to, and now I need to either spend hours trying to give them away to non-meat homes (practically impossible especially this time of year) for a total loss, have a shortage in laying hens this spring and a loss of egg customers since I will be short on eggs, or pay someone to process them in the middle of a Northern USA winter.

I have raised and breed various breeds of chickens for years, ordering commercial layers from Welp for years as well. And this is what you get for being a loyal customer. Long response times, followed by being told you don't know anything about chickens and that I need to keep feeding my huge combed saddle feathered "pullets" for a few more months and then maybe they will change their mind and give me a credit so I can get what I actually ordered. I guess I should just shut up and enjoy my rare crowing eggless "hens" courtesy of good ol' Welp Hatchery. Such a big company and they can't refund 10 chicks, when they were wrong. Ridiculous. I can promise you that they have lost a very good customer.

This concludes my rant.

 

[Kelsie2290]

Makes you wonder what customer service is thinking. Interesting since they say in their sexing guarantee that all claims must be made within 8 weeks of hatch. Remembered reading that and thought it was odd. " We guarantee Welp-Line pullets to be 90% accurate to sex. If more than 10% cockerels, we will refund the difference between pullet and cockerel price. Claims must be made within 8 weeks of hatch. " ...

 

[cluckcluckluke]

Hehehe, that was funny Sylverfly

.
But I am sorry you had to go through all that bs and still not get the result you wanted.
But as you said in your 'rant' "Such a big company and they can't refund 10 chicks", that's your problem. I bet if you had 30 chicks then you would have done something but anything smaller they just don't care.

 

[Sylverfly]

Its definitely not cool and I really did like Welp hatchery, for one of the big ones it was pretty good, but all things with time I guess. I did send them a very nice long reply in regards to their abrupt response back to me. Their email to me was rather reminiscent of a particularly long finger located in the mid section of the hand. I kindly told them they I did not agree with them, that they had lost a customer, as well as their moral compass as a company. It will be interesting to see if they actually care about any of that or if they will just get rude. Its one thing if a company makes a mistake, mistakes happen, but if they won't try and make things right or even acknowledge that a mistake happened, its just wrong and I don't want to put myself in a situation that will allow that to happen again, and I certainly don't want to support them be it verbally with recommendations or financially with my purchases in the future.

 

[Sylverfly]

Thanks for the sympathy everyone. I know anyone who deals with big companies, hatcheries or other has had or will have some kind of negative experience eventually, but sometimes its just nice to be a raving maniac about it, lol.

 

[appps]

I'd love to see the photos you sent to see if they could possibly not know they are roosters or if they are quite aware and just hoping in a couple of months you won't bother chasing them again.

I would reply showing the estimated costs to keep them for a further two months and say you expect to be reimbursed for both the roosters and upkeep when they turn out to be roosters as you have said.

 

[cluckcluckluke]

Yeah I good idea Appps.
I think you should try that Sylverfly.