You're welcome Dreadstalker. The issue of ordering from hatcheries is you can only purchase chicks by the full box, 50 chicks, or by half box, 25 chicks. This is way more chicken than what most people want in their backyards. If 25 chicks are too many, you'll need to find a couple of friends who want chicks and share an order.

I've not been happy with feed store chicks, either. I've talked to the feed manager at the local store several times about poor quality poultry. He orders the cheapest chicks he can find and sells on the "cute factor" alone. Quality or production are not things he is interested in. His goal is to sell more feed.

I found Ridgeway Hatchery because the farm coop 80 miles away orders their poultry from there. I go to several different feed stores and I always ask which hatchery their birds come from. They all name hatcheries that offer cheap and useless birds. I only found 1 feed store interested in ordering better birds, and that store is 70 miles away.

+1000 on the barred rocks.
This is my first year raising them and I absolutely love em'. I plan on hatching out at least 2 doz more in the spring.

Try www.mypetchicken.com for small orders. More expensive, but saves the angst of trying to rid yourself of unwanted chicks.

Chicks are shipped with the idea of having enough birds to keep them warm. This hatchery provides a heating "blanket" that allows them to ship just a few chicks

The downside to Mypetchicken is they are selling Pets, selling on the cute factor and convenience of small lots alone. They are not selling production. It costs as much to feed poor and non layers as it does good layers.

Here it is the dead of winter and every single one of my hens are laying every single day without supplimental light. My friends and neighbors all bought chicks around the same time as I, but different breeds from different hatcheries. None are getting eggs and are not expecting any until March. That's a long time to wait for eggs! I am sharing my egg bounty with them.

Not all of my hens started laying at 6 months like expected. Some were quite late, up to 7 &1/2 months to start laying. I know who these underacheivers are. DH didn't want me to cull them yet and they are laying now. They and a couple of late blooming roosters will be culled early spring before I gather hatching eggs.

I only want to reproduce from the earliest layers to protect the integrity of the gene pool. I will be offering my chicks locally and I'm hoping to find others who are interested in keeping superior production lines clean or who order from Ridgeway Hatchery and are willing to do rooster exchanges.

Most people don't give much thought to what hatches out of the backyard eggs. Without the introduction of distant genes by using generation gaps, the interbreeding eventually causes production declines, retardation(as if you could tell) and birth defects.

Some of mine at still laying but I think my decline is because stock dog pup has decided it's fun to scare the hell out of them. Damn dog, she's bored I guess. I keep austrolorps, plymouth rocks, rir, and a privately bred line of english game cock, plus of course my bantys. My current dominant roo is a P' Rock.

An update on my Ridgeway Hatchery Barred Plymouth Rock chickens. My birds free range throughout the yard and pastures getting plenty of greens and bugs. My first batch of eggs in the incubator was a fail, the shells were too thick and all but one chick died before they could pip all the way out. I took my flock off soy based feed, now they get corn, oats, barley and raw dairy.

Many, if not most of my hens are laying double time, I get way more eggs per day than I have hens. I've also captured most of the farm egg customers in the area because free range, grain fed, fresh eggs taste better and are healthier than cooped, pellet fed birds. I am getting $2.50 per doz, 25 cents more per dozen for my eggs than other sellers and can sell all my girls produce. My main buyer resells at $3.50 per doz.

We made $50 this week on eggs, have all the eggs we can eat, have the incubator laoded again with thinner shelled eggs and have a waiting list of buyers for straight run chicks when they hatch. A bag of grain costs $13 and feeds them for a week.