Meyer Hatchery policys

So I picked up a group order from Plentywood. supposed to be 246 birds I think we got 230. There is 25 dead and a few more on the way. Mostly Bantams died. The sticker is the papers were for 146 birds luckily that got missed by everyone. They came in 3 boxes not marked. I phoned to see if they could tell me anything about this order? What did you send ? did you substitute ? How many did you actually send? I was informed they never ever mark what is in each box and have no record of what they actually shipped or how many. They can read off the invoice of what you ordered but they have no idea what was actually sent. So figure out which chicks are which and did the $10.00 ones die or the $3.00 ones. They would like to know to the best of my ability which chicks died (for reimbursement) and they cant even tell me what they shipped. There was 8 Australorps which were not ordered and I was informed they were probably Ameraucaunas. So I guess I'm keeping a bunch of chicks till we figure out whose is whose. So which ones did they short us Ameraucaunas Blue Andulusions or Welsummers?

Pictures of the dead chicks might help.

Had a couple of problems like that on our order from Meyer's instead of sending Dominiques 50 of them look like Barred Rocks. Had a real sloppy job on the bantam assortment with some missing and some breeds not supposed to be in the assortment. All of the birds that we got that were wrong or died right away are going to be covered I believe.

The different breeds should have been put in seperate compartments. Hope you can get things straightened out.

I was in on the same order as Chantecler and we did have some issues but they are refunding us for them. I did lose quite a few in the week after they arrived, unfortunately those are not covered, but the ones DOA or Missing were refunded and the ones shipped that were wrongly shipped are being refunded too.
DLC the Amerauana's will have no combs, the Andalusians and Welsummers will have single combs.
If they cannot tell you what they shipped or what was shorted then to me they are all $10 birds...
Our order was seperated mostly by breeds in different compartments, of course most of the breeds were in quantities of 25 or more. Also all the breeds we ordered were very different so easy to tell apart.
If you have some chicks you are not sure of post pictures, If I was closer I would stop by and help you out but the 6 hr drive would be a little too far. LOL.

I hear ya , my order wasn't short shipped ,my health papers were never made up ! SO SOMEONE GOT OVER $230.00 WORTH OF CHICKS FREE ! And I thought that I had made a good choice ????? Never again !!!! I think everyone should send them emails regarding all these error's , maybe the message would get through ? I can't imagine whoever is in charge is sleeping to good lately ............heard bad reports on the US forums as well

Well I think they did a good job fixing our problems. There has been a new family purchase the business I understand and that is why they are getting into so many different breeds.
For a US hatchery to do the health papers and ship to Canada it is huge, so lets not get to nasty with them or they will simply not ship to Canada.
I think you should be reimbursed your mileage at least PD, I know last year when a hatchery shipped us chicks with two different ship dates we had to turn around and drive an extra 3 hours to go to a border with a vet on staff, the hatchery did pay me the extra mileage and all the losses we incurred due to the dealy to get them food and water.

Well H/R i wish that was true , about the milage that is .I was reimbursed the full amount of my purchase and for the I'm thankfull .It just seemed that there was no attempt made to even try to redo the order ? At first they were just going to give me back the paper cost's untill I got it through the custer service rep that I couldn't take the chicks home!I asked for a full reimbursement and they did that .Strangely I still find myself looking into there catolog ? I did like the way the chicks looked and there sales people were great , just the papers ? I am assumeing that because I had a USA zip that that might have been the downfall of the whole order ? someone saw that and figured tha papers were not required and out they went ?? On the papers that the faxed to the border there packing slip showed that the paper cost was a credit ? at least it looks that way to me ? I'll be looking around for next year and who knows ??

Feathersite has a lot of chick pictures that might help.

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I figured most of them out I think. The Dominiques 3 have the wrong comb. The ones I thought were Australorps could be Black cooper Marans but why 3 of the 8 were Bantam size? The Blue Andulusian Males could be 3 diffrent colours I think I figured out 7 out of 11. I'll just keep them till we know for sure. We must have been shorted the Welsummer pullets and some Ameraucauna pullets. I agree about not being too nasty as were limited where we can buy and I have had worse experiences with a hatchery in Ontario.It would help if they knew anything about the order when you phone. I'm short 15 and there is over 30 dead but the dead are mostly Bantams Polish Andalusions and Sumatras all little birds that I guess cant take the travel as well as the Stds. I have to call back today with totals for them.

It is not uncommon for Dominiques to throw single combs. There was a time when the single combed Dominique was more numerous than the rose comb.

I kind of liked them myself. When I had Doms I intended to make a single comb flock for myself. Alas both my heir and spare roosters died that winter and ended those plans (for the time being).

I took a $150.88 credit to my next order. I cant help it I knew I would order again. Hidden you did warn me quite awhile ago about Bantams from the U.S. not being able to take the trip. There was 22 dead Bantams and 9 Sumatras. The Std breeds faired well with only 7 dead. I ordered Bantams from Rochester a few years ago and they had to replace the order twice as they all arrived doa but then the Cornish Bantams from Ideal this year have all suvived. So I guess I'll order only Std breeds when I order again. Oh yeah there will probably be more dead before the weeks out especially if the Bantams and I get kicked out of the basement by my ever patient better half. Very nice customer service rep Laura did not dought for a second we were shorted 16 birds along with the dead. I counted the birds 3 times and still came up with 230 not 246 so I had to guess which were missing and that seemed to be the 11 Welsummer Pullets and 5 Ameraucauna pullets,so thats what I went with. I hope I am right.

DLC - black copper marans should have feathered legs!!!

I guess I'll have to wait and see.

BriarwoodPoultry wrote:DLC - black copper marans should have feathered legs!!!

Also I don't know of any large hatcheries that sell Black Copper Marans who also supply health papers for Canadian customers.

Dan Smith wrote:

BriarwoodPoultry wrote:DLC - black copper marans should have feathered legs!!!

Also I don't know of any large hatcheries that sell Black Copper Marans who also supply health papers for Canadian
customers.

............They do , although quite pricey ,but very limited supply as well .I treid , but they were sold out for the year as they told me ??

The pictures in Meyers catalog show the Copper Maran chicks with minimal if any feathers on there feet but they are feather footed but obviously there's are not as well feathered as a cochin. I have white maran chicks and they have minimal feathers also but the chicks seem to be a whiter colour compared to the yellow cochin chicks whos legs are heavily feathered. In the Maran Pkg I could have Black copper, Blue Splash,Golden Cuckoo or White and I had to ordered in January so I could get them.

The Black Copper Marans legs are not supposed to be feathered as heavily as a Cochin. The Marans should just have a strip of feathering down the outer edge of the leg.

Dan Smith wrote:The Black Copper Marans legs are not supposed to be feathered as heavily as a Cochin. The Marans should just have a strip of feathering down the outer edge of the leg.

Exactly

Thanks for reiterating what I already stated.

Then it shouldn't be an issue ID'ing marans vs australorps, IMO.

I have around 130 birds in the pen so when I move them to a bigger pen I'll check there legs and like you said I should be able to tell. We probably just missed it as none of the numbers jived and after 2 days travel I wanted to get them watered and fed asap. Do you have an idea why 3 of the 8 seemed to be bantam size compared to the rest?

Did you order anything that could have contained say bantam cochins? I hatched 2 bantam cochin x OEG and they looked EXACTLY like the BC marans, only very slightly more leg feathers (hard to tell at that young age and small size though).

Or, do the bigger ones have more wing feathers/could they be a little older? I find there is often a noticeable size difference if they hatch a couple days apart or if it's a slow hatch - they seem to grow really quickly at first.

I had someone ask me for bantam marans - you might be onto something LOL

I did order Mottled bantam cochins but the colouring is a little diffrent and there feet are heavily feathered. The other bantams I ordered were all clean legged so there shouldnt be any other cochins. I guess like you said maybe 5 were just a little older.