Texas

[RoosterCogburn7]

Cross-posted from https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/1065952/west-texas-breeders#post_16237059 at the suggestion of caveman rich:



Having moved from South Texas to Lubbock, we're about to move onto some land and I'm finally going to get another flock of chickens! This time around, I want to hatch eggs with a surrogate Mother Hen, rather than ordering Hatchery Chicks.

Here's my ideal plan:

--Get two to three pullets of an appropriately broody breed from someone within driving distance of Lubbock.

--Raise them in my little coop while preparing the big coop and run.

--When one or two pullets mature and turn broody, obtain fertile eggs of a dual purpose breed (my wife likes the Americaunas, and I like Jersey Giants) and let the young Momma(s) hatch them.


My main question is this: Where in West Texas can I get either the pullets, eggs, or both?


Thanks, and I am so glad to be back!!

SF

There are several places you can get pullets, including your local feed store. Also, you can mail order chicks directly to your post office, or hatching eggs if you want to put them in the incubator. By summer I hope to have my NPIP license. I plan on selling hatching Ameracauna (Not Easter Eggers) in Blue and Splash, Black Copper Marans, and Chocolate Orpingtons.

If you want a breeding stock, Americaunas tend to do really well. Jersey Giants are huge birds and take a lot longer just to mature. Is your goal to have pretty birds or table egg proliferation? If it is simply pure production leghorns and road island reds will be your top producers. I like table eggs, but I like a rainbow of different color eggs, which is why I chose the birds I did. If you are thinking of Giants as a table bird, at full maturity the roosters can be 13 pounds, like a small turkey. I thought about that for awhile. However, I would prefer to have a pen full of white rocks, as they grow faster and leave a cleaner looking carcass.

 

[Ren2014]

Cross-posted from https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/1065952/west-texas-breeders#post_16237059 at the suggestion of caveman rich:



Having moved from South Texas to Lubbock, we're about to move onto some land and I'm finally going to get another flock of chickens! This time around, I want to hatch eggs with a surrogate Mother Hen, rather than ordering Hatchery Chicks.

Here's my ideal plan:

--Get two to three pullets of an appropriately broody breed from someone within driving distance of Lubbock.

--Raise them in my little coop while preparing the big coop and run.

--When one or two pullets mature and turn broody, obtain fertile eggs of a dual purpose breed (my wife likes the Americaunas, and I like Jersey Giants) and let the young Momma(s) hatch them.


My main question is this: Where in West Texas can I get either the pullets, eggs, or both?


Thanks, and I am so glad to be back!!

SF

There are several places you can get pullets, including your local feed store. Also, you can mail order chicks directly to your post office, or hatching eggs if you want to put them in the incubator. By summer I hope to have my NPIP license. I plan on selling hatching Ameracauna (Not Easter Eggers) in Blue and Splash, Black Copper Marans, and Chocolate Orpingtons.

If you want a breeding stock, Americaunas tend to do really well. Jersey Giants are huge birds and take a lot longer just to mature. Is your goal to have pretty birds or table egg proliferation? If it is simply pure production leghorns and road island reds will be your top producers. I like table eggs, but I like a rainbow of different color eggs, which is why I chose the birds I did. If you are thinking of Giants as a table bird, at full maturity the roosters can be 13 pounds, like a small turkey. I thought about that for awhile. However, I would prefer to have a pen full of white rocks, as they grow faster and leave a cleaner looking carcass.

Everything Rooster said and, if you're wanting eggs you definitely should go the local route. Hatching shipped eggs is very risky due to the damage they occur during shipping. Even if they arrive intact, the damage to the inside can be horrendous resulting in a low hatch rate.

 

[VladikC]

How can I tell who is a certified breeder?

 

[bnjrob]

How can I tell who is a certified breeder?

Not sure what you are meaning. There is no such thing as a certified breeder. What are you looking for?

 

[VladikC]

Not sure what you are meaning.  There is no such thing as a certified breeder.  What are you looking for?

Well I read in a chick post about buying breeds from certified breeders.
I'm just looking for anything that's not from hatchery.

 

[bnjrob]

Well I read in a chick post about buying breeds from certified breeders.
I'm just looking for anything that's not from hatchery.

Most of what you're going to find for sale is going to be hatchery stock, whether you buy it directly from a hatchery or from someone online. For the sake of this discussion, poultry can be divided into two groups - standard-bred stock and hatchery stock.

Standard-bred stock comes from flocks where the birds are mated to produce offspring which will be most like their breed standard which is in the Standard of Perfection (SOP) book, detailing what the breeds accepted by the American Poultry Association (APA) should look like. These are what most folks think of as *show birds*. Doesn't mean that every chick hatched are going to be good enough to enter a show a win, but it does usually mean that the flock is more uniform in appearance and will look more like the *ideal* bird for that breed.

This type of breeding is what I do and it is very labor intensive and more expensive than what most people do. Most people do what is sometimes termed *barnyard breeding* where they are just breeding to get a specific egg shell color or a specific feather color. But there is a lot more that goes into breeding to the SOP than just making pretty feather colors. Since I am breeding for preservation - to keep a couple breeds of poultry from going extinct - I want the birds that are closest to their appearance standard, as well as birds that are productive for both meat and eggs. It's a lot harder to breed this way and get as many of the best, nit-picky traits into one bird at the same time. Which is why most people don't do it.

Hatchery stock is what the majority of people have. People may have gotten their original birds from a standard-bred flock, but if they did not continue to breed to the SOP, then their birds are no longer considered standard-bred birds. Most of the time, hatchery stock pales in comparison to standard-bred poultry when it comes to appearance. Hatchery stock can be pretty, but if you stand a couple of birds next to each other - say a hatchery Plymouth Rock next to a standard-bred Plymouth Rock - you'll see a significant difference - usually in size as well as feather coloring/crispness as well as other things like comb, carriage, etc.

Hatchery stock is also sometimes known as *production* stock, such as Production Reds versus the Rhode Island Red. This is because hatcheries breed for QUANTITY. They may also cross breed their birds in order to get their hens to lay more. They need birds that lay lots of eggs so that they can sell a lot of birds. Which is great for someone that wants a lot of eggs and birds that mature very quickly. But if you are wanting birds that are closer in appearance to their breed standard, or you are wanting to breed for preservation, then hatchery/non-standard-bred stock is not what you want and you will need to find someone that breeds their birds to the SOP.

The term *heritage* is often used as a marketing term and even the hatcheries use the term to sell chickens. There is no hard and fast rule about what the term *heritage* means when it comes to poultry. Some people, like myself, tend to go by the Livestock Conservancy's description of what a *heritage* bird is, but I also believe that a heritage bird needs to come from a flock that is bred to their breed standard because there is such a difference between a standard-bred and non-standard bred bird.

If someone says they are a certified breeder - ask them what that means and who certified them. You'll need to decide exactly what it is that you're looking for when you say you don't want hatchery birds, since the vast majority of people, including most of the people on this website, all have *hatchery* birds for sale. You can ask the seller if they breed to the SOP or how they breed - such as are they making specific breeding choices to get a feather color or other trait? I recently had some guy tell me that he routinely gives all his chicks 3 weeks worth of antibiotics to make sure they are healthy. To me, this is absolutely unacceptable and I would not recommend that people buy chickens from him, but there are plenty of people that won't bother to ask the guy about his breeding and husbandry practices. So you need to think about what you want from your chickens and that will help you decide what breed to get and who you should consider buying from. If you are just looking for some chickens that lay breakfast, hatchery birds will be just fine - whether you get them from a hatchery or the feed store, or someone online.

 

[Fire Ant Farm]

Well I read in a chick post about buying breeds from certified breeders.
I'm just looking for anything that's not from hatchery.

bnjrob's post is excellent! I would just add that depending on what your goals are, there may be nothing wrong with hatchery birds, and if you're not careful, non-hatchery birds not bred purposefully can be of less quality, depending on how they were raised. If you want to get into breed SOP/preservation like bnjrob, then what you really need is to carefully evaluate a breeder's reputation. (Many will be NPIP certified if they're selling birds, which is not a breed quality certification, but a chicken-health certification I believe - I think some states require it, or something similar. Someone correct me if I'm wrong...) In addition, some hatcheries have better specimens of some breeds and worse for others, depending on what you're looking for. I wanted big production quality Naked Necks in a variety of colors for my meat flock, and based reviews on BYC, ordered them from Ideal (in Cameron, Texas, so I could drive to pick them up). I've been beyond thrilled. In the same chick order, I threw in some New Hampshire chicks. NOT happy with what I got at all. Culling all of them (this weekend, actually). So it will vary based on stock for a given hatchery.

If your goals are for breed purity and preservation, look for breed discussions, including the thread "Heritage Large Fowl, Phase II", and try to get recommendations - that's what I did to find a breeder for good German New Hampshires. If you are interested in production of eggs or meat, there's "Breeding for production: Eggs or Meat" thread. We talk about all sorts of stuff...

Above all, keep reading! BYC is fantastic, and you'll learn so much by just reading everything you can...

- Ant Farm

 

[bnjrob]

bnjrob's post is excellent! I would just add that depending on what your goals are, there may be nothing wrong with hatchery birds, and if you're not careful, non-hatchery birds not bred purposefully can be of less quality, depending on how they were raised. If you want to get into breed SOP/preservation like bnjrob, then what you really need is to carefully evaluate a breeder's reputation. (Many will be NPIP certified if they're selling birds, which is not a breed quality certification, but a chicken-health certification I believe - I think some states require it, or something similar. Someone correct me if I'm wrong...) In addition, some hatcheries have better specimens of some breeds and worse for others, depending on what you're looking for. I wanted big production quality Naked Necks in a variety of colors for my meat flock, and based reviews on BYC, ordered them from Ideal (in Cameron, Texas, so I could drive to pick them up). I've been beyond thrilled. In the same chick order, I threw in some New Hampshire chicks. NOT happy with what I got at all. Culling all of them (this weekend, actually). So it will vary based on stock for a given hatchery.

If your goals are for breed purity and preservation, look for breed discussions, including the thread "Heritage Large Fowl, Phase II", and try to get recommendations - that's what I did to find a breeder for good German New Hampshires. If you are interested in production of eggs or meat, there's "Breeding for production: Eggs or Meat" thread. We talk about all sorts of stuff...

Above all, keep reading! BYC is fantastic, and you'll learn so much by just reading everything you can...

- Ant Farm

NPIP is a crock. NPIP lets you ship legally across state lines, but even then, some states have more requirements for importation of poultry than what is involved with any states' NPIP *certification*. NPIP is a *national* program, but it is administered by each state separately and each state tests for what it wants. Some states won't even test flocks unless the flock is very large, causing small breeders to be unable to get NPIP and be able to ship birds to folks who want them. Essentially NPIP is a way to make money for the government, not really to ensure poultry health.

 

[tjo804]

Quote:
I suspect they were talking about the NPIP certification.
Here is a link to the Washington state site on NPIP (National Poultry Improvement Plan.
http://agr.wa.gov/foodanimal/avianhealth/aviannpip.aspx
Basically if I understand it correctly people with this certification have had their chickens and chicken spaces tested and cleared for certain genetic diseases. But do a little research. You definitely don't want to pick a chicken off craigs list only to find out it brought home a disease that will effect your entire and future chickens.

Now if you are looking for the NPIP certification Ideal Poultry is NPIP certified I have bought from them and have been very pleased with the Chickens they are healthy and look like the "Breed" I ordered. (not sop) Good temperaments and I will order from them again.

If my understanding is wrong, (it has happened before) I take no offense at being corrected.
Good luck!

 

[VladikC]

Thank you guys!!
I do want to have greats breeds that are "show" quality because I want to cross my Shamo to create another breed but I want the best of the best.
I was thinking maybe a Silkied Shamo but my Silkied are all too small and my Shamo hen is to tall.