Avoid Hoover’s Hatchery

Last winter, as I was placing this year’s poultry orders for the small market farm I run, I couldn’t find any hatcheries with a ship date earlier than June, so I found Hoover’s with a May ship date. This hatchery supplies Rural King and Tractor Supply with birds. I usually use Murray Mcmurray, but between their bird availability and shipping dates, the logistics just weren’t going to work for my farm. Two of the 15 meat ducks I ordered were dead on arrival. 14 OF THE 20 MEAT CHICKENS, died within 36 hours of arrival. This isn’t even close to my first rodeo and I have never experienced mortality like this from any hatchery or business that sells chicks. We also got a variety of 7 chicks from Rural king the day they got their first chick shipment in. This was just to do a test run of our improved brooder setup, and 4 of those died from coccidiosis within 72 hours.

Hoover’s is out here killing baby birds like it means nothing. Their customer service is great and they’re good about refunds, but their terrible husbandry practices cost my business hundreds of dollars of lost profits and it caused me a huge amount of stress and wasted time. I will never be buying from them again.