A while back I said something about ordering chicks from a hatchery, and I had a couple of people ask where to get White Rock chicks. At the time I couldn't find my catalog to share the address. I just received the 2001 catalog (rather a pamphlet) in the mail. It is "Cackle Hatchery", P.O. Box 529, Lebanon, MO 65536.

I have had great success with the chicks I have ordered from them in the past. Since I am in Central Florida, and the summers are so hot and humid, I have not always had such a good "live arrival" rate from another place I've ordered from.

I usually order the frypan special from Cackle. They are $22.95 per 100, or $13.95 per 50, or $8.50 per 25. Even with shipping, I can get 100 chicks for under $40.00. That is about $.40 per chick. When I get 100 chicks, I sort through them and pick out the ones that look the most like cockerals. Even at only a few days old, you can tell pretty good by looking at their combs, when you have cockerals and pullets together. ( Now I know this isn't an all-fired sure method, but I do pretty well with it.) I take the ones I think are cockerals, maybe thirty, forty, fifty of them to the local "small critter" auction, and if I get $.50 each for them, which I usually do, I come pretty close to paying for the rest that I've kept. Then I raise them till I can tell for sure which are roosters and which are pullets, and we sell or eat the roosters I don't want, and we have maybe twenty or thirty pullets of various breeds that are really nice. Of those I pick out the breeds I want to keep. Sometimes I save a rooster to match, and then get a good price for a pair or trio of a certain breed later.

This is just my method, because I like a variety of color in my flock of layers. But Cackle does have White Rocks, and many other specific breeds for $68.00 per 100 straight run, which is still a good price compared to some others I've seen.

Hope this helps someone else.

-- Lela R. Picking (stllwtrs55@aol.com), February 09, 2001

Answers

I sell Cackle hatchery birds in my area (I take orders and people pick them up off of me) This will be the 5th year I have dealt with them. Good birds, good people, and if there is a problem they make it more than right. I would say that at least 80% of the people who order get more birds than they order Grant

-- grant (organicgrange@yahoo.com), February 10, 2001.

Thank you Lela. We'll have to try them this spring. Sounds like real farm-fun. xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

-- Action Dude ! (theactiondude@yahoo.com), February 10, 2001.