Ordering chicks by mail

Why there is a minimum order

Chicks cannot keep themselves warm for their first weeks, so in the box they keep each other warm. A hatchery's minimum is the smallest number it trusts to arrive alive, and it often goes up in cold months.

Of the 141 listings here with a stated minimum, 78 will ship three birds or fewer, 110 will ship six or fewer, and 17 need fifteen or more. Alchemist Farm tops up small orders with free cockerels to reach a safe number rather than refuse them. Every hatchery's minimum, side by side.

What "in stock" means

Every listing here repeats what the hatchery's own catalogue says, read directly from it. "In stock" means the shop will take your order now. It does not always mean the birds ship this week: many hatcheries sell against hatch dates weeks or months ahead, and late in the year a listing in stock can be for next spring.

Three of the ten hatcheries publish their hatch dates in a form we can read, and breed pages show the next ones. For the rest, the date is on the hatchery's own listing.

Pullets, straight run and cockerels

A sexed pullet is a female chick. Straight run is as hatched, close to half and half. Cockerels are the males, and the cheapest birds a hatchery sells.

Sexing a day-old chick is skilled guesswork. The hatcheries here that state an accuracy figure quote 90%, so in a box of ten pullets, expect about one to grow up crowing. Autosexing breeds such as the Cream Legbar and Bielefelder, and the sex-link hybrids, hatch in different colours by sex and are close to certain. What the pullet premium costs, breed by breed.

Shipping and arrival

Hatcheries post chicks by USPS Priority Mail or Priority Mail Express, usually early in the week so a box is not sitting in a sorting office over a weekend, and most arrive in one to three days. Give the post office your phone number and ask them to ring when the box comes in; many will let you collect it before the counter opens.

From each hatchery's own policy page; sources and sexing guarantees.

Before the box arrives

• A brooder. A draught-free box or tub with room for the chicks to move away from the heat.
• Heat. About 95°F (35°C) under the heat source in the first week, then about five degrees less each week. Chicks piled under the heat are cold; chicks pressed against the far walls are too hot.
• Water first. A shallow chick waterer. Dip each beak in it as you take them out of the box.
• Chick starter crumb, and pine shavings for bedding rather than cedar. Paper towel over the shavings for the first few days stops them eating the bedding while they learn what food is.
• Ducklings need more niacin than chicks; a little brewer's yeast on their feed covers it. They make a mess of any water deep enough to climb into.

Disease testing

The National Poultry Improvement Plan is a federal and state programme that tests breeding flocks for pullorum-typhoid and other diseases. Most hatcheries that ship across state lines take part, and some states require it. Nine of the ten hatcheries here state that they participate; the hatcheries page shows where each says so.