Has anyone ordered from Ideal hatchery? I am thinking about ordering some chicks from them.
Ideal hatchery
Yeah, they were great. They sent me the wrong color, but credited my account for the mistake.
You might try searching some of the posts in this forum or even just browsing through some of the other posts asking similar questions.
I ordered my chicks from Ideal last year and was extremely pleased with them. They were also by far the least expensive for ordering small orders. They will, however, if you order below a certain amount of chicks, send you free rooster chicks that you may not want.
ordered a pullet mix from them that ended up being the very unfriendly kind and got birds 2/15/08.three were dead in the box. over the weekend 7 more died. they credited my account and wanted to know if i wanted to order more from them. i don't think so. my kids have ten little graves out back. last year i got from privett. they were good. ordered all pullets. got all pullets and they were alive.
I ordered from them and everyone is still alive and happy almost a year later. They have some really different breeds at reasonable prices. I am ordering a few "strange" breeds this year plus my meat chickens from them. And the man that got two ducks (I added them to my order) loves his ducks too!
i ordered from them last year and had a few DOA. the small bantams such as d'uccle ect(i'd have to look at their list to tell ya the others i've heard done it also) especially the males are week stock and die in ship or shortly after. they replaced 5 sent 9 rir males for warmth. certain breeds only seem to be affected i had 2 who had crooked neck and died at age of 3mths. most died between 4-6mths old due to winter it was too cold here. i do have some on my site who made it if u'd like to see pics of some of there stock older. all my polish are from them and all my d'uccles except the big roo pictured are too. my silkies were very poor pet quality i gave them all away i did not keep them past 2mths old so i don't have pics of them but my friend still has them. only one was colored wrong it was to be a golden neck d'uccle but i believe it is a columbian i have pics of that one on my comp.
http://www.picturetrail.com/homepage/keystone_bantams
i would buy from them again i love my polish and they are very beautiful and loveing just i will watch what breeds and only get them in spring time. most breeds they have i've heard great things about. they are a member on byc.com forum and there is a post there where u can ask them questions about the hatchery and the stock. she is very nice and her id is ideal poultry on the forum.
hope this helps,
silkie
I ditto the poor silkie quality, of the four I bought three have regular colored crests and waddles (hence Red my Red and RED roo) My marans might not be pure (two have yellow legs) they are GREAT layers, 5 eggs a day almost everyday and they are xlarge to jumbo 4 times out of 5, plus they are friendly nice birds even Marshall the roo, quiet too. I am ordering a few more marans, a few polish (haven't figure out which one), some turkens, meat birds and whatever else catches my eye this year.
Last year I ordered 7 marans (6 f 1m) straight run of 4 silver sebrights (turned out all female), 4 straight run of red silkies (3m 1f) and two ducks (1m 1f) cannot remember what kind I do they were white and a regular breed, I ordered in spring for a friend and maybe they kept my group warm??
I've heard good things about Ideal. I think you can have problems with almost any hatchery. My order from Privett was all messed up, ordered 4 pullets, got 4 roosters, but the chicks were very healthy and had nice personalities. I just received my order from Meyers today and the chicks are all very healthy and active--too early to be sure they're really all pullets. I did the special small order with a heating pad and ordered 6 chicks--they put in an extra, but it is one of the breeds I'd ordered and I am happy. It was so good to be able to get just a few chicks without all the extra roosters most hatcheries put in for warmth.
I just ordered 10 guineas from Ideal. It doesn't matter if they put roosters in for warmth because they will become dinner when they are about eight months old. And being cheap, if I get them for free, so much the better (chuckle).
Of course, there is no way to tell the sex on guineas, so I will take what I get, hoping there is a mix of sexes so I would be able to raise my own from now on.
I hatched my own guineas after buying eggs online and they started laying about month ago. Just a couple a day, I'd find them in the morning when I go out to let everyone out for the day and collect any chickens eggs laid already. I put them in the incubator with a bunch of bantam eggs and they are fertile!! I doubt they will hatch, the banties will hatch first and they say it contaminate them and its 2 degree colder than you should hatch them. I just really wanted to see if they were fertile.