What is your favorite hatchery?

[JacinLarkwell]

I love ideal. I certainly wouldn't day they have the best when it comes to looking up to the standard though

 

[MysteryChicken]

Meyer's Hatchery, & Cackle so far are favorites. I haven't yet tried out others.

 

[Isabella6Storm4]

We've ordered large batches (anywhere between 10-40) of chicks from Meyers many times and I've only ever seen one chick arrive dead. They're always on time in my experience when it comes to shipping too.

 

[ChickyCh00k]

I have only ordered chicks once and it was through TheChickHatchery.com (which I later found out is a "middle man", so I dont know which hatchery my chicks actually came from - they justbtold be they were shipped from Missouri, so maybe Cackle). I ordered six, received 8, and all were healthy/alive, still very healthy a year later.

I'm looking at where to place my order for this spring and I Googled each of the major hatcheries - Mt. Healthy has the highest ratings (4.9), Meyer (3.9), Ideal (4.4), Cackle (4.3). I sort the reviews by newest, to see how the last few months have been and what people are saying.

Meyer has all the breeds I wanted, but they have the lowest rating of all the hatcheries, so I'm not sure I want to risk it. I'm probably going to go with Mt. Healthy.

Like Pipd said, if you ask 100 ppl, you'll get 100 different replies. It's a risk no matter what.

 

[Sally PB]

I'm probably going to go with Mt. Healthy.

Here's my long story about them, and why I'd use them again. I'm in SW Michigan.

I called in January to order the chicks, and since she wasn't busy, Kelley (the woman who took my order) listened to me natter on about how excited I was to get Bielefelders, and what I'd name them, blah, blah, blah.

I got the email confirmation right away, and noticed that they had misspelled my my address. Not just a little, a lot. Oh, I see what happened... fingers on the wrong keys when typing. Not like I've ever done that?

I called back, talked to Kelley again. She thanked me for catching the mistake, and redid everything so that the address was correct, and sent a new email confirmation right away. Everything was correct, and I emailed back to let Kelley know that. She replied with a smiley email.

Shipping day was Sunday, May 14th (Mother's Day). I am in the two-day shipping zone, but figured I should be ready for early delivery. I got a reminder email the week before shipping, and an email on Sunday that the chicks had shipped. I had visited the local PO to let them know chicks were coming, and they told me to come to the back door and ring the bell.

I got the phone call from the PO at 6:30 Monday morning, had the chicks home in an hour. Healthy, "zippy" chicks, and happy me.

I had an extra Bielefelder pullet (they're sexable at hatch; one of the reasons I wanted this breed). One was smaller than the others, but she was never lethargic or seemed weak. Just smaller. She still is the smallest, and will probably be the last to lay, based on comb color.

Yes, Mt. Healthy charged a "small order" fee. I understand that they have to package fewer chicks differently so that they stay warm, that there is more work involved for them. I was willing to pay the fee because I couldn't get 15 chicks, I wanted 4 (got 5) and there was no minimum on how many of a breed I had to order. I ordered 3 Biels and a Blue Australorp, received 4 and 1.

Maybe I could have split an order, but the person I asked wasn't getting back to me, and I didn't want to miss out.

 

[Farmlife16]

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!

Thanks! Like you pointed out, it will be a risk no matter what. I might just have to try out different hatcheries to see which one I like the best.

 

[Love Donkeys]

I've used Hoover's Hatchery with great success. They guarantee a live chick for 48 hours after you receive them. I bought from them 4 different times, 25 Speckled Sussex chicks each time. Only lost 1 chick, which they reimbursed me for no questions asked.

 

[RubelliteRose]

I checked McMurry, but I should note that I did receive 2 chicks who developed scissor beak. One EE male and my free Polish male. When I emailed them about the beaks just to let them know about the issue, they refunded my money for the EE and offered to send me 2 free chicks with my next order to make up for the free Polish.

 

[Penpal]

Townline Hatchery in Zeeland Michigan. It is family owned for over 100 Years. I have ordered online and been happy. I also found a nearby store that sells them. I would go there rather than TSC.

 

[Kiki]

https://www.idealpoultry.com/

@idealpoultry