What is your favorite hatchery?

[Farmlife16]

I am looking for a hatchery that breeds chicks that are healthy with low death rates and that are good quality as far as the breed standard goes. Which hatchery is your favorite?

 

[Sally PB]

I've only ordered mail order chicks once, this last May. I ordered from Mt. Healthy, and if I ever order chicks again, it will be from them.

Yes, I did have to pay a "small order" fee, but I understand the reason. They had what I wanted and I could order 4 chicks. Not 15, as some other hatcheries mandate.

 

[NatJ]

I am looking for a hatchery that breeds chicks that are healthy with low death rates and that are good quality as far as the breed standard goes. Which hatchery is your favorite?

I have ordered from McMurray, Ideal, and Cackle at various points. The chicks generally seemed healthy with low death rates, from all of those hatcheries.

I was not looking for "good quality" as regards breed standard, but I didn't have much trouble recognizing which birds were which breed (so they were at least mostly right.)

Each hatchery sent me some that were not quite right: a Spangled Russian Orloff from Ideal that did not have muff/beard, a Spitzhauben from Cackle with the wrong shape of crest, a Bielefelder from McMurray with the wrong color legs, that kind of thing.

I was a bit irritated that Cackle sent me a Spitzhauben that was missing half a toe, and another that had two nails on one toe. To be fair, I should note that they sent one extra Spitzhauben chick: so one free chick with a minor problem, and one chick I paid for that had a minor problem. Neither of the toe problems seemed to bother the chicks in question. I felt that they should cull deformed chicks, rather than mailing them out to customers, although maybe someone else would be pleased that those chicks were shipped instead of culled.

 

[Farmlife16]

I've only ordered mail order chicks once, this last May. I ordered from Mt. Healthy, and if I ever order chicks again, it will be from them.

Yes, I did have to pay a "small order" fee, but I understand the reason. They had what I wanted and I could order 4 chicks. Not 15, as some other hatcheries mandate.

Did you have any chicks dead at arrival?

 

[Farmlife16]

I have ordered from McMurray, Ideal, and Cackle at various points. The chicks generally seemed healthy with low death rates, from all of those hatcheries.

I was not looking for "good quality" as regards breed standard, but I didn't have much trouble recognizing which birds were which breed (so they were at least mostly right.)

Each hatchery sent me some that were not quite right: a Spangled Russian Orloff from Ideal that did not have muff/beard, a Spitzhauben from Cackle with the wrong shape of crest, a Bielefelder from McMurray with the wrong color legs, that kind of thing.

I was a bit irritated that Cackle sent me a Spitzhauben that was missing half a toe, and another that had two nails on one toe. To be fair, I should note that they sent one extra Spitzhauben chick: so one free chick with a minor problem, and one chick I paid for that had a minor problem. Neither of the toe problems seemed to bother the chicks in question. I felt that they should cull deformed chicks, rather than mailing them out to customers, although maybe someone else would be pleased that those chicks were shipped instead of culled.

Thanks, this is very helpful! That's a shame that you received chicks with deformities. That only will hurt their reputation as far as quality goes...

 

[Apis mellifera]

My favorite hatchery, my backyard.

 

[NatJ]

Thanks, this is very helpful! That's a shame that you received chicks with deformities. That only will hurt their reputation as far as quality goes...

Cackle is also the hatchery that sent someone a 4-legged chick (there's a long thread here about it: 2 extra legs hanging from the back end.)
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/4-legged-chick-clover.1449620/
That chick was an extra in the box, so the customer was not charged for it-- but still, Cackle shipped it rather than culling it.

(I have also seen plenty of posts from people that had good experiences with Cackle, and got chicks with no problems. That one just stood out to me because it was so different.)

 

[SueT]

My favorite hatcheries would be ones I can drive to and pick up the chicks so they don’t have to suffer thru the mail. The farther they have to travel in the mail, the greater chance of the chicks dying.
We can drive to Cackle, and to a smaller hatchery called Estes. But now that I have breeding stock (originally from both of those) we hatch our own eggs.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Something to keep in mind is that, with questions like this, you'll often end up with as many different answers as you'll have people answering. With things like death rate of shipped chicks, someone living in one part of the country can have a vastly different experience from someone in another part of the country, even if ordering the exact same breed from the exact same hatchery in the exact same week. What makes the difference there is the postal workers between you and the hatchery, and how well they handle the chicks in transport. So a hand full of bad experiences with shipping and chicks arriving weak or dead does not necessarily mean that that hatchery is no good to order from ever. Remember, if they were always that bad with shipping their chicks, they would rapidly go out of business--for every bad experience that is posted about, there are dozens and dozens more experiences that were not posted because everything went fine.

As far as quality and lifelong health of the birds goes, I only have personal experience with Meyer Hatchery, from whom I was satisfied with what I got and most of my birds seemed to be of good quality as far as standard goes. I just lost my last hen from my very first order from them last month, and that first order was 11 years ago, so based on my experience lack of longevity is certainly not a problem with their birds. I don't often buy hatchery chicks anymore (I also hatch my own or buy hatching eggs from other breeders if I'm looking for something different), but if I just want a hand full of pullets of random breeds just for fun in my mixed flock I'll grab a few from Meyer. It's a day trip for me from where I live, but I always drive out to pick them up from the hatchery rather than have them shipped. Just personal preference on that.

I can't comment on the health of any other hatchery's birds, but as far as breed standard goes, I have not heard good things about the quality of Ideal's stock, and the pictures I've seen of McMurray and Mt Healthy's stock has not been great to my eye, either. However, Cackle is supposed to have higher quality stock in general, so the above posts about them are a bit of a surprise to me!

 

[Sally PB]

Did you have any chicks dead at arrival?

No, all the birds I got from Mt. Healthy were healthy, and I got an extra. Same breed, also a pullet, like the rest of them.

My favorite hatcheries would be ones I can drive to and pick up the chicks so they don’t have to suffer thru the mail. The farther they have to travel in the mail, the greater chance of the chicks dying.

I drove to a breeder that was about an hour and a half away. One chick died that night, and I never heard from the breeder again when I sent a picture and asked for a refund. I was told there "24 hour live guarantee." Getting ahold of her to place my order was a hassle. She was supposed to meet us at a certain time and was half an hour late. We drove an hour and half, she had to walk down her driveway. I will not use that breeder ever again