Just realized ordering is now open for my local hatchery/breeder!

Ah sumi, that's awful. Yikes!

Sumi, that guy saw you coming. I'm willing to bet he didn't even know he let a pullet into that batch by mistake. Or it could be that he puts at least one to every batch he sells so he can say that it's "straight run" and not intentionally all males.

Beekissed, we suspect he collected male chicks from one of the hatcheries that hatches chicks for egg farms and then drove around telling people he's selling straight run chicks and (to us anyway) his order got cancelled at the last minute and he's got all these chicks to sell… It happens that they throw a female chick the wrong way sometimes, one of them ended up with us.

My second big batch of chicks didn't fair much better. I ordered and paid quite a lot for 100 2 week-old RIR chicks, pullets only. After driving all the way to collect them and getting told she's not ready for us to pick them up she suddenly phoned me 2 days earlier than arranged to say she couriered them to me. Thankfully we were near the courier depot where they were going to be kept overnight before coming to us, so I collected them, opened the box and…



1-day to 1-week old, unsexed, cross-bred chicks! Yay…

Sumi, I think you'd love hatcheries here in the US. Very nicely shipped chicks, not overcrowded and I've had no mistakes on sex or breed when I've ordered from the hatchery. Also got good, healthy chicks.

These are not mine but are typical of shipped chicks...air holes, no overcrowding but enough chicks in each to keep one another warm...they'll even include "packing peanuts" of various chicks if you've not ordered enough to keep them warm, at no extra charge. Usually the packing peanuts are roosters.

They also have bedding in the bottom of the box.

That looks and sounds great!

I like the place I go to. It's a little over an hour drive but I figure that's great in terms of travel time for the chicks. They operate out of their house but keep tight bio-security.
Last year it seemed things were a little disorganized which is understandable for a mom and pop operation that's so busy - but I think they could have used some help - someone with a good head for organizing pick-up operations.


I really hope I get at least one pullet per breed that I ordered. I got that last year except for my orpingtons, but I lost 2 of the 5, so at least one of those was probably female. (And the losses were my fault, one was crushed by other chicks and the other my dog got when we didn't realize she was in the shop. Will be much more careful this year.)