What About Hilltop Farms?

[Newyorkrita]

Just found this website from Hilltop Farms in California. They have a lot of breeds and mixes.

https://hilltopfarmspoultry.com/

They only ship chicks within state in California but don't ship day olds. Anyone order from them?

 

[CHlCKEN]

Never heard of them. Their website looks promising though. Check out their reviews and go ahead and order from them if you wish

 

[Wangxian520]

Just found this website from Hilltop Farms in California. They have a lot of breeds and mixes.

https://hilltopfarmspoultry.com/

They only ship chicks within state in California but don't ship day olds. Anyone order from them?

I just ordered from them. The owner Patrick is very nice. He however, currently only cater to customers in CA. I live in Southern California and they offer day old chicks to customers in Southern California they also offer pick or they will drive down to your area and hand deliver for Southern California residents only. They might offer hatching eggs for shipping to other state. You will need to contact him.

 

[mintdeer]

I just picked up some chicks from them yesterday! They had a lot of good reviews so I thought I'd try them out. We live in Southern California so we just drove to pick them up. We ordered 8 chicks advance and added another one when we got there (impulse buy, lol). They all seem pretty happy and healthy so far but I've only had them a day. Patrick and his assistant(?) were nice. They're more expensive then your average feed store/hatchery chick but hopefully they'll be higher quality.

 

[CinnaBun]

Fun! What breeds did you get? Did you get day old chicks? Hilltop isn’t so far away, maybe I’ll get some this spring.

 

[mintdeer]

Fun! What breeds did you get? Did you get day old chicks? Hilltop isn’t so far away, maybe I’ll get some this spring.

We got 2 speckled sussex, 2 "marans hybrid", 2 easter eggers, a salmon faverolle, a welsummer and an olive egger! All sexed so should be pullets. The marans and welsummer are a week older since they hatched earlier, all the others were either a day or a few days old. They have quite a variety of breeds, we ordered ours in advance but you could also call and see what they have available.

 

[JKHerdItAll]

Watch out if you order from them - I placed an order for hatching eggs in January and requested that they send them around a certain date. In February, they tried to charge me $65 extra for more shipping fees and at that point, I asked to adjust the order to remove some breeds because our coop expansion plans were delayed due to crazy lumber prices and due to the start of HPAI. Patrick agreed in writing to adjust my order and ship my hatching eggs ASAP. Now in the middle of May, they sent the original order without any notice MONTHS after expected, after my state shut down imports due to HPAI, while I'm packing to leave to get married and won't be able to accept or hatch eggs. I contacted them right away, and now they're refusing to help. Incredibly poor business practices. After researching more, I've also seen reviews about sick birds and refusing to honor their guarantees.

*Edit - after a whole lot of back and forth, they did refund most of my order, which doesn't solve the whole issue but does help make the transaction a little bit less of a waste of money. The owner blamed the confusion on not being able to keep up with customer emails.

 

[Kelly60]

I ordered from Hilltop Farms in December. I just got my eggs yesterday. 12 eggs were left out. Patrick answered my email promptly and seemed surprised that the second box didn’t arrive with the first box. He also charged me $75 for postage! At that point i went to the post with the first box tracking number. The postal clerk spent some time backtracking my order. First off the postage was only $10.95. Second off she said there was not another box shipped to me from Hilltop. I did not know she could track like that! I emailed patrick that i expected him to mail me the remaining 12 eggs i’d ordered and make sure they did not break like the first box. I also told him that he way overcharged me on the shipping costs and either he reimbursed me the difference or he let me pick out enough eggs or chicks to cover the extra unnecessary charge. I have not heard back yet. But having worked with BBB, I do know how to make him a little less likely to basically steal money from clients in the future. He is pleasant to talk to if he answers. His website is beautiful. I expected better service from Hilltop. I hope he cleans up his business practice. Right now i do not recommend Hilltop.

 

[Kelly60]

Follow up on Patrick at Hilltop farms
I’ve been emailing Patrick back and forth all day. I do believe he is a good guy and he loves his birds. He explained his shipping and handling and i completely agree with him though i did tell him he needed to make clear why he was charging extra for shipping and handling. He has always had a good business until covid hit. He said he is also waiting for a kidney transplant and has given up hope of ever getting one. The man is nice and also seems pretty depressed. I’ll continue to order from him but i will monitor him.

 

[Bowman_Ranch]

Worst hatchery EVER. Do not buy from! I have been raising chicks for years, and gave them a try (i do like supporting local businesses and they are only 120 miles away from me)…. Well, they are 6x more expensive then ANYWHERE else and the birds are NOT healthy. From this order 3 out of 25 birds survived. (Normal mortality is .5-1%…. Please do NOT support these criminals. I am not the only one who had had problems with them. Do more researching and you will see LOTS of independent poor reviews (yelp, google, etc…)