Poultry Hatcheries and Supplies
American Livestock Breeds Conservancy
Rare Breeds, Breeders, and Products Directory
P.O. Box 477
Pittsboro, NC
27312 919-542-5704
albc@albc-usa.org;
www.albc-usa.org
A nonprofit organization dedicated to the conservation and promotion of breeds of livestock and poultry threatened with extinction. For those people serious about breed conservation, this is a great source of the top breeders of heritage poultry in the United States.
Eldon’s Jerky & Sausage Supply
P.O. Box 422 022
Main Street
Kooskia, ID 83539
800-352-9453
FAX 208-926-4949
www.eldonsausage.com
Okay, so they don’t sell chicks or eggs, but they do have every kind of supply you can imagine necessary to make scrumptious chicken sausage.
Hall Brothers Hatchery
P.O. Box 1026
Norwich, CT 06360
860-886-2421
A small family hatchery where I bought my very first meat chickens. They tend to have hybrid varieties rather than the more obscure breeds.
Moyer’s Chicks, Inc.
266 East Paletown Road
Quakertown, PA 18951
215-536-3155
www.moyerschicks.com
Another great source for hybrid meat and laying chicks.
Murray McMurray Hatchery
Box 458
191 Closz Drive
Webster City, IA 50595-0458
800-456-3280
www.mcmurrayhatchery.com
Touted as America’s rare-breed hatchery, this is arguably the most well known hatchery in the United States It is also one of the more expensive hatcheries and really just a broker for a number of different breeders. The color catalog, complete with real pictures of the chicks for each breed, is a good place to begin, especially if you’re not sure which breed you want to start with. Their service and quality are also impeccable.
Nasco Farm & Ranch
901 Janesville Avenue
Fort Atkinson, WI 53538
800-558 – 9595
www.enasco.com
This supplier has everything from feed to sausage-making supplies.
P.O. Box 89
Washington, IA 52353
800-282-6631
www.premier1supplies.com
They have electroplastic netting for poultry yards and fence chargers.
Reich Poultry Farms, Inc.
1625 River Road
Marietta, PA 17547
866-365-0367 or 717 426-3411;
FAX 717-426-8061
This is one of my favorite hatcheries for hybrid meat and egg varieties. They supply large poultry barns with thousands of chicks at a time, but they know me by name when I call up to order my 150 Buff Silver meat birds. I have had great success with several of their hybrids on forage.
Sand Hill Preservation Center
1878 230th Street
Calamus, IA
52729-9659
www.sandhillpreservation.com
A small, family-run farm and company dedicated to the preservation of genetic resources. Their poultry offerings are outstanding, and although you’ll probably have to exercise delayed gratification before you get your birds (they do everything by mail, and there are usually long waiting lists for the rarer breeds), you won’t be disappointed.
Townline Hatchery
P.O. Box 108
Zeeland, MI 49464
616-772-6514
www.townlinehatchery.com
Fast-growing, traditional hybrid meat birds, hybrid laying hens, and turkeys. Very good stock for serious meat-producing potential.
Noah Abbot, 8, of Randolph, Vermont, Silas Mitchell, 8, of Orwell, Vermont, and David Russell of Orwell, Vermont, play with an Old English Bantam rooster, left, and hen brought by the author, right, to a workshop she gave to children of parents attending the NOFA-VT Annual Conference in Randolph Center, Vermont.
Clucky, a Partridge Cochin pullet, roams amongst the leaves at Brianne Riley and Matthew Taylor’s home. The couple raised their menagerie of a dozen chickens from chicks they bought from a hatchery.
