Comments regarding Privett Hatchery

I ordered 100 eight week white broilers from Privett Hatchery and was sent 100 slow white broilers instead. When I called to let them know that there had been an error I was told I was a liar about ordering eight week broilers. They refunded my money and told me I was banned from ever ordering from them again (like I would want to repeat this fiasco again). It was the worst example of customer service I have ever seen.

I ordered 15 Dominiquer pullets and 10 White leghorns pullets from tractor supply which use Privett Hatchery. They were all healthy up until they died when they turned 2 months old, they just up and died without any warning in two days with Maercks disease. I called them and they said it was my fault EXACT WORDS, cause i didnt choose to vaccinate, I said I was not offered the vaccine. They told me well that is tractor supplies problem and then hung up on me. So I called tractor supply and they stopped me in the middle of my sentence and said no refunds and hung up on me.

I called months ago to ask what they did with their unwanted males of the layer breeds. They would not tell me and black listed me. Just kind of a Crappy thing to do. They said "it was a management decision". LOL. They have a lot of bad reviews, I would go somewhere else!

Privitt Hatchery shorted me 8 birds, Chantecleers. When I called them, on my own dime, they said, "Well, we don't ship those they come from another location, so they weren't sure how that had happened." I then asked for a refund as the next available dare for these birds was late July (little cooked birdies). I was assured that the refund would be on my next credit card billing, two billing cycles went by and nothing. So today I called their billing office .."Oh it's on your Privitt account and is good for one year." Not the answer I wanted, eventually after a bit of digging they decided they could refund it to my credit card....no I won't buy from these folks again!

I ordered Standard Cochins : 25 pullets and 2 cocks. I got 22 pullets and 4 cocks and 1 of the pullets isn't even a cochin. I only got 1 beautiful bird, the others are poor quality, the legs should be fully feathered and they are not. They are small almost the size of Bantam Cochins. I wanted large standard Cochins at least that is what I paid good money for. I am not going to ever take a chance from ordering from them again. I wrote to them explaining my complaint and I haven't heard back from them yet. Hatcheries should breed to the best standard of the breed if they want to stay in business. Bad standards are a waste of money , time ,and life. They knew what they sent me, 4 cocks because they were marked with blue marker on their heads !

I have ordered from the local feed store many times over the past five years and I will NEVER order from them again. On several occasions our meat chickens "fast cornish" have had feet and leg problems and we received an ameracauna with a crossed bill and some with NO muffs and we always have issues with laying hens, such as deformed eggs, not laying to their potential.. etc...
The final straw was this year when I ordered ducks. The ducks were the wrong breed, and some of them the wrong sex. I had to reorder blue Swedish for my son because they gave us runners and he loves the Swedish, and the second time they shipped them with geese and the ducks were crushed to death. So we had to wait a third time. I was afraid to even ask if they made it here alive (we live in Kentucky). They did, but they had to be revived and now they are OK, but we will see if they are all actually the right sex.
I now order from another hatchery and I am culling all of the chickens from Privett. I don't care how cheap they are they DO NOT take good care of their poultry and waterfowl. The farm store always has sick and injured ones, they do not look vibrant and healthy like the ones from the other hatcheries I have ordered from. Take my advice and don't EVER order from this place!

I have ordered directly from Privett for years--the last two orders have been wrong and Privett got mad and informed me that I can no longer make orders with them--not that I would ever want to --last order was all pullets and received straight run, they told me I did not know hens from cocks --sent them pics and I was still wrong in their eyes---prev order was wrong breeds and again I was not aware of correct I.D. in their eyes---they said pics I sent them were not from their birds -- I used to think they were the Best but times have changed--NEVER again will I order from Privett !

For the most part the birds we've gotten have been healthy, BUT they have messed up every interaction I've had with them this season (our first time dealing directly with them).

First, we ordered slow-growing red broilers and they sent us some yellow chicks. We called within a couple of days as wing feathers started growing in white ... and first-tier customer support blew us off, said they look white but they will turn red, and we couldn't get past first-tier to someone who worked with the birds. (We emailed pictures, but "the person who checks the email" -- there's JUST ONE?! -- was out of town.) Sure enough they were white chicks, and when I finally got them to understand I can't sell fast-growing commercial broilers in my market -- and don't want to raise non-heritage/heirloom breeds anyway -- I was able to talk to someone who works w/the birds. But he couldn't say whether they were their slow or fast white broiler, and they didn't have any way to check records to find out what they had sent me.
If they had not blown us off in the first place, when we called within a couple of days, I would have insisted they send the reds we ordered the next week. Instead we lost a whole month of our season. We sold the birds to another farmer in a different market and waited (im)patiently for our good broilers from JM Hatchery.
The white broilers also had higher mortality than the slow broilers we've gotten from JM in the past -- this may be normal for production birds, though, and all other birds we've gotten from Privett have been healthy, so I can't say if this is the breed or the stock.

But Privett credited us for the white broilers, so we used the credit towards turkeys. Couldn't get the breeds we wanted all at once, so we got 25 last week and were expecting 30 more this week, hatching today, due to arrive in two days. They just called us to say they don't have the heritage breeds we were expecting this week, so are shipping us Midget Whites instead. Well, I do not want Midget Whites; I want heritage breeds. That is why I ordered heritage breeds. It seems like a strange customer service decision to substitute a product without finding out if the customer wants the new product in the first place.

Though the birds we've gotten have been healthy for the most part (other than the fast-growing white broilers' mortality at the beginning), I am really disappointed in their customer service and their shipping and ordering issues. We lost a month on our broiler season and we'll be a month behind with the turkeys we got from a different hatchery, too. Their internal communication seems to be poor; their first-tier support blew us off without seeming to understand the issue we were describing; they seem uninterested in providing thorough information to customers -- their marketing materials ("catalog") are basically information-free; and they apparently have no way to track how orders were fulfilled.
We won't be ordering from Privett again.

As another commenter implied the complainers don't know what they're doing, I'll note that while I'm not terribly experienced -- this is my third year with poultry (chickens, ducks, turkeys) -- we are farmers, not dilettantes with a backyard coop, and I've never had issues like this with any of the 3+ other hatcheries I've dealt with.

I ordered 25 chicks in November, expecting them in December. They came a week after I ordered, and while healthy, were not true to my order. Of 15 'Amauricanas', 5 are Buff Orpingtons, at least five have no muffs or beards, and several have crooked toes and one can barely walk. Of the Cuckoo Marans I ordered, I only got three of the 5, because somebody else's Barred Rocks were shipped with mine, and neither I nor the feed store ladies could tell the difference. That other person lives 100 miles from me, so switching back isn't an option.
A neighbor had Privett bantams disqualified by the county fair, for not being true to breed. So, if you just want healthy chicks, go ahead and order from them. But if you care about looks, go to Murray Mc Murray.

In past we ordered birds from privett hatchery and they were sent a week early with no call of change, therefore no one was around to pick up birds from post office. We often vacation. As a result the birds were sent back. The hatchery blames us, but we feel it is crutial to inform customers of live animal delivery changes. Now seven years later the company still is rude to us when we call and will not deal with us. As a business man I believe it is important to accept blame for your own mistakes, and make good on them. I will say their birds are very poor quality and their service is worse.

I purchased chicks from a feed store that were supposed to be Black Australorps, just rec'd from Privett. i hand picked 20 from the 200 in the brooder. All chicks were healthy, but slow growers. At 2 1/2 weeks they finally have their primary feathers. 17 are barred, which means they sent Black Sex-Links as substitutes!

We raise purebred heritage birds, & have no need for hybrids. What a waste of time, chick feed and brooder space [besides the 80 mile drive to pick them up]!!!

The feed store insists they ordered BAs. The hatchery refuses to cooperate. "Ask the feed store". "We have no record of what we sent them or when".

Now instead of ten pullets to breed with our nice young roo, we have three for sale & 17 for the freezer. And have to purchase replacements from a BETTER HATCHERY.

I will say the birds are good-natured & lively thus far... It isn't the chicks fault...

I ordered 2 buff Orpington pullets and 2 black Australorp pullets from Privett through our local feed store. I wanted three birds for eggs and thought I was being smart ordering an extra in case of death or roosterness. It was late in the season and the first shipment failed because the "hatch was bad". Okay. The second and last shipment of the year included my chicks and indeed they appeared to be what I ordered. Six weeks later one proved to be a cockerel. Okay. Three months into it ALL are cockerels. They are healthy and have great temperaments--but I have been told by the local 4-H poultry rep that they don't look like "purebreds". It makes it difficult to find homes for them--and I can't keep them because we aren't zoned for roosters. In all, sort of a heartbreaking waste of time. I will be ordering from another hatchery this time. I think my chickens are indeed the right breeds--just not great looking representatives. The Orpingtons in particular are very sweet and cuddly. I suspect Privett just got desperate and sent what they had without reference to sex--which is not right.

i orderd 40 pullets and 10 roosters (ameracauna). i have had a 25 year breeding program. my 1st inclination was to pull their heads off and send them BACK!!! ameracaunas DO NOT have straight combs!!! i got straight combs in the roosters as well as the pullets, the pullets are 3 colors of brown, the roosters black & white. 1 rooster had blue legs and a big beard and muffs. he died! these chicken i recieved are the UGLIEST i have ever seen!!!!! they told me they had chickens from almost coal black to almost snow white. i wonder about what they told me about the egg color.
i got one question answered when i called. that was do you contract for your setting eggs they said no and WOULD NOT answer any more. the Yard Man never called.
P.S.
1/4 had little to no muffs or beard.

I ordered 32 geese from Privett because they had them cheapest. It was a big mistake. They shipped on a Wednesday and didn't arrive until Saturday. They arrived alive but are NOT hardy at all. I have had 3-4 die a week. They are still dying now at over a month old. I ordered geese earlier this year from a different hatchery and have had 0 deaths in that batch.