Preserve an Endangered Species with Heritage Chickens

Article Tools

Image Gallery

Print

E-mail

Comments

RSS

Your choice of breeds from most hatcheries will be limited to the best-selling commercial breeds: typically, several leghorn hybrids (skinny white-egg super-layers); in the Northeast, one or two hybrid brown-egg super-layers; several heavy-bodied dual-purpose meat/egg hybrids; a Rock-Cornish broiler/roaster cross; and one or more of the dualpurpose purebreds, such as Rhode Island Reds or Barred Rocks, that best suit the small home flock.

The traditional/endangered native strains of the old-time purebreds can be a little harder to locate and purchase. Natural chickens just naturally begin laying when the days lengthen enough to warm the skin in mid to late February, taper off when days shorten in late summer, and quit in September.

Breeding flocks for many scarce types are small and often have only a few surplus chicks available for an even briefer period each year. If you want a really scarce or exotic strain, get your order in early.

You'll learn most buying firsthand from a local small-scale or hobby/show breeder (but you do risk getting problem stock). Only a few small breeders are large enough to advertise in the yellow pages or classifieds in the local papers. Ask around at the local farmers market or feed store or at the poultry shed at the County Fair.

You'll get excellent help, advice, and the location of breeders from the rare-breed organizations listed on page 88.

The mail-order catalogs also listed offer a variety of nonstandard poultry. All chicks are fully guaranteed. Some hatcheries sell books, feed, medications, and equipment as well. I suggest sending for all the catalogs. They are a lesson in themselves and most are free. Many offer books and equipment that are simply unavailable anywhere else. Also, shipping of live animals is costly and the closer you are to the hatchery, the less you'll pay for shipping.

My old favorite was Hall Brothers, a major New England hatchery of conventional breeds only; they supplied the chicks sold by Sears back when Sears still valued country customers. Their purebreed Reds were the original foundation stock for my own flock of foragers/breeders. There's no longer a listing for them, and I'm afraid they may be out of business. I can, however, vouch for Murray McMurray Hatchery in Webster City, Iowa (800) 456-3280.

Arrival of the Chicks

If you order your chicks locally from a breeder or feed store, you'll get a call when they are ready. Most mail-order chicks arrive by UPS these days, preceded by a telephone call or postcard. If they are sent by mail, the PO. will call for you to pick them up. The clerks may be alarmed at the birds' cheeping if they've never handled chicks before. (But not as alarmed as when they get a screen cage full of humming honey-bees. Jostle chicks and all you hear is weak little peeps of protest. Jostle several thousand bees and you get a growl right out of the sound track of The Swarm.)

RSS | Comments | E-mail | Print