Refunding money for dead chicks can be a double edged sword, and I can see both sides. Obviously if a hatchery order arrives and the chicks are dead the fault isn't with the person getting them.
Until last year our local TSC refunded money or chicks. This year not so much. Perhaps after talking to the purchaser. What caused the difference? I buy supplies at TSC and talk to the sales people and managers. Most are very helpful during chick days. A flyer is given out detailing the care and housing of poultry and their needs.
Now here are some of the recent stories. People have gotten peeps as pets and allowed their small children to play with them.
Some people house them in a cardboard box, no heat, and expect them to survive.
Someone did the rest of their shopping including grocery shopping, arriving home three hours later and were incensed that their peeps were all dead.
Someone made several stops on their way home to show the peeps off to their friends.
Bowls that the peeps could not easily reach were used for feed and water.
You get enough people acting like that and it causes a policy change. Not fair, but it happens.
I've gotten chickens different ways. Adults and juveniles from friends and neighbors. Peeps from hatchery and feed stores plus I've hatched my own from either my own eggs or purchased eggs.
My highest mortality rate has been through shipped and delivered eggs, usually from show breeders. I've had 100% no hatch in one case, extremely low hatches in others and absolutely no refund there. I have a 98% hatch rate using my own eggs.100% living rate from juveniles I've gotten. Both hatchery shipped and feed store chicks fall in the middle, a few losses but no where near as many as shipped eggs.
Bottom line, there's a risk, no matter where your chicks come from. You have to figure out what you want, and where you can get it with the least trauma.
Now that I have what I want, I plan to mostly raise my own. I haven't lost any that I have hatched myself.
(edited: just want to make it clear, in no way do I think the low hatch rate was because of show breeders. I think it is shipped eggs in general. I was going to shipped eggs only when I wanted something really special that I couldn't get through breeders around here or a feed store. I swear, the minute eggs were put into the mail the temperatures unseasonably plummeted or they took their sweet time in arriving or once they were put on the wrong truck.)
Until last year our local TSC refunded money or chicks. This year not so much. Perhaps after talking to the purchaser. What caused the difference? I buy supplies at TSC and talk to the sales people and managers. Most are very helpful during chick days. A flyer is given out detailing the care and housing of poultry and their needs.
Now here are some of the recent stories. People have gotten peeps as pets and allowed their small children to play with them.
Some people house them in a cardboard box, no heat, and expect them to survive.
Someone did the rest of their shopping including grocery shopping, arriving home three hours later and were incensed that their peeps were all dead.
Someone made several stops on their way home to show the peeps off to their friends.
Bowls that the peeps could not easily reach were used for feed and water.
You get enough people acting like that and it causes a policy change. Not fair, but it happens.
I've gotten chickens different ways. Adults and juveniles from friends and neighbors. Peeps from hatchery and feed stores plus I've hatched my own from either my own eggs or purchased eggs.
My highest mortality rate has been through shipped and delivered eggs, usually from show breeders. I've had 100% no hatch in one case, extremely low hatches in others and absolutely no refund there. I have a 98% hatch rate using my own eggs.100% living rate from juveniles I've gotten. Both hatchery shipped and feed store chicks fall in the middle, a few losses but no where near as many as shipped eggs.
Bottom line, there's a risk, no matter where your chicks come from. You have to figure out what you want, and where you can get it with the least trauma.
Now that I have what I want, I plan to mostly raise my own. I haven't lost any that I have hatched myself.
(edited: just want to make it clear, in no way do I think the low hatch rate was because of show breeders. I think it is shipped eggs in general. I was going to shipped eggs only when I wanted something really special that I couldn't get through breeders around here or a feed store. I swear, the minute eggs were put into the mail the temperatures unseasonably plummeted or they took their sweet time in arriving or once they were put on the wrong truck.)
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