New Year, New Offerings: 2022 Hatchery Updates

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Check out these 2022 updates from some of our favorite hatcheries:

• Cackle Hatchery

New for 2022 Cackle Hatchery will be offering Tolbunt Polish, exhibition type Silver Laced Wyandotte, and exhibition type Barred Plymouth Rock chicks. They also acquired a new bloodline for their Golden Spangled Appenzeller Spitzhauben to improve the bonnet crest type, spangling and deeper golden color. These birds are very rare, and Cackle Hatchery is one of only a few breeders in the U.S. for this breed and color. Fertilized eggs from Liege Fighters, Denizli Long Crowers, Indio Gigante, and Ayam Ketawa will also be new this season.

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• Chicken Scratch Poultry

https://chickenscratchpoultry.com/

Newer breeds include; Heritage Rhode Island Red, Appenzeller Silver Spitzhauben, and the 55 Flowery Hen.  They are particularly passionate about the Heritage Rhode Island Red due to the fact they’re on the Poultry Conservancy Watch list. 

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• McMurray Hatchery

https://www.mcmurrayhatchery.com

2022 celebrates their 105th season! Five of their highlighted breeds come from their APA-certified flocks: White Polish, White Langshan, Silver Penciled Plymouth Rocks, Buff Plymouth Rock, and the Partridge Plymouth Rock. See the recent article in Backyard Poultry Magazine for the announcement on the APA certification.

Other breed highlights include;

3. Blue Ameraucana — 2022 marks their second season to offer a line of true Blue Ameraucanas from a private breeder’s show line. Very limited availability as this is still an extremely small flock. 
4. White Naked Necks (Turkens) will now be available in white in addition to the legacy option of assorted colors. 
5. The most popular breeds they offer continue to be the French Black Copper Marans, White Marans, Whiting True Blue and Whiting True Greens (a McMurray exclusive), Crested Cream Legbars, and the long list of rare breeds. 

Like previous years McMurray Hatchery will continue to offer free shipping on all full orders of baby birds — note: small orders do have a small order fee. Day-old baby chicks have a 6 chick minimum on orders of standard-size breeds (not Bantams) that ship after April 1st.  

• Metzer Farms 

https://www.metzerfarms.com/

In 2021 Metzer farms added white Muscovy. Due to the popularity they will be adding black Muscovy to their 2022 offerings.

For $5 per duck and $15 per goose, Metzer Farms will be offering life insurance on their waterfowl! Customers can receive a two-year life insurance policy on their birds. If anything happens to the bird for two years, they will replace it for free, including shipping. When checking out on their website, it is presented as an add-on option.

Metzer Farms will now be able to offer 1-day shipping to most of the United States. This is due to a new hatchery in Memphis, TN. Construction in underway right now with completion date being February 2022. They will hatch, pack, and deliver to FedEx World Hub at the Memphis airport. Birds will fly out that same day to our customers’ nearest airport. From there they will travel overnight in a USPS truck to the local post office. Customers will be able to pick up their birds that next morning. In the next issue of Backyard Poultry Magazine we will explore the new  $6 million, 21,000 square foot, state of the art waterfowl hatchery.

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• Freedom Ranger Hatchery

https://www.freedomrangerhatchery.com/

2022 will be the first full season that Freedom Ranger Hatchery will be offering Delaware and New Hampshire chicks. These birds were previously owned and raised by Knolls Poultry Farm and Marketed by Art’s Hatchery. Henry Knoll, who recently retired, is the geneticist who maintained the purity and quality of these two heritage lines. Knoll had started them on a GMO free diet which Freedom Ranger Hatchery plans to continue to offer. These varieties will be a great addition for the individual or homestead who is looking for long term sustainability. They are from GMO free parent stock, excellent dual purpose birds, and work well on homesteads where folks want something that can provide meat or eggs and breeds back true.

FifthDayFarm will be offering White Muscovy and Khaki Campbell ducklings, as well as Brown Chinese goslings. They are now taking over the French Guinea keets for JM hatchery and will also offering a White French gosling. As they build a new website their offerings can be found at freedomrangerhatchery.com.

• Purely Poultry

https://www.purelypoultry.com/

New breeds for 2022 include; Pure Redleg Partridge, various quail and pheasant eggs and chicks, and wild ducks varieties. They’ve also added a retail location in Alma, WI at 312 S Main and another at 313 W Main Durand, WI to visit and pick up live chicks.

Originally published in the December 2021/January 2022 issue of Backyard Poultry and regularly vetted for accuracy.