Comments regarding Welp Hatchery

I have 1 silver duckwing hen, and she is a special little bird. She is the first bird that ive ever had that will follow me and sit on my shoulder, so i decided to buy a few more from Welp Hatchery. Well i had to buy a total of 30, there were 4 other breeds including 3 different mille fleur d'uccles, and they arrived a little over a month later. Well they didnt ship a single extra, and there were multiple dead chicks and chicks that have a wobble likw they will die.

My second order with Welp was a disaster. Was called by the company asking if they could move my delivery date back by 2 weeks. Asked them if the price was the same and yes it was. I added to my order. Got a new confirmation and everything was good. They put a hold on my account for the correct amount of money. But then they took out $30 extra dollars a couple of days later. Called them about it and they said I had cancelled the order and then reordered. I told them I had not every talked to the person mention. I had only every dealt with 2 people with Welp and had never cancelled my ordered. They could not explain it and said it happens. I have cancelled all my orders with Welp and will not use them every again. Can't trust that they will not do this again and not care.

I was nervous about ordering here because a local store got their birds here last year and the Ducks arrived dead again and again. I figured I would be safe because our post to our home doesn't go to the same locations so we should get quicker. Our meat chicks arrived safe and quickly. The turkeys arrived a day later even though they were shipped at the same time as the meat birds and 3 died. We ordered turkeys elsewhere too and no losses. Several of the turkeys look like they have angel wings (don't know if turkeys get that but that is what they look like). Then they completely forgot to put in 6 of the pullets I ordered. So obviously no extras included. I ordered in Jan. for April delivery so I could get what I wanted and now everywhere is sold out or can't get that breed for over a month. This means I either have to wait until next year to get or have two separate grow out dates which is very difficult. I almost gave a neutral because they did refund my money easily for the birds which was really nice. Very good customer service as far as that is concerned. I have geese scheduled to come this week so hoping they come quick, alive, and all ordered are in the box.

"On Apr 11, 2016 3:49 PM, Welp Hatchery responded with:

Hello. I'm sorry that this occurred with your order. Someone made a mistake in filling your order and missing the 6 pullets. This was a mistake on our part, and we'll work to do better in the future. I see that you did contact us and we have issued a refund for this. Thank you for contacting us. I wish we have more control over the arrival date of the birds. Generally it is 2 days for arrival, but with Priority Mail, it can sometimes take until the 3rd day. On the whole, the postal system does a very good job for us. In this case, the one extra day may have caused the loss of the birds in your order. We hope you'll give us a try in the future. We do appreciate your business."

I was skeptical about ordering through a hatchery, as typically we order through the feed stores. Unfortunatley we are off season and had a critter kill the majority of our chickens.

The US should have laws about shipping new born chicks. I ordered 30 chicks from Welp Hatchery and 16 chicks were dead when I rec'd the package. It was not through any fault of Welp hatchery, they were only in the box 48 hours, and they took all precautions that they could, but it was unnecessary death. DO NOT Order from any hatchery, as they all have not choice but to use the US postal service as other carriers will not ship chicks. Blue Seal has their chicks overnighted to them, so order through the feed store. Having your children open up the box and having 50% of the chicks be dead is not a good thing.

"On Jun 28, 2013 11:41 AM, Welp Hatchery responded with:

Thanks for giving me a chance to respond to this comment. Here is the part of the email below that I sent to this customer.

I received your voice mail and wanted to have a look at your order for you. Attached is the email confirmation that our customer service rep. sent to you on 6/21 when the order was entered, as well as the text of the email below. It shows the ship date as 6/26/13, which is the actual day the birds hatched and shipped. This being the case, the birds were in the mail for less than 48 hours as indicated by the screen shot at the bottom of the page taken from the USPS delivery confirmation. We do ship our birds priority mail through the post office, which is typically 2 days. In your case it was less than 2 days. This is a standard shipping time and the industry standard is priority mail. We cannot ship Fed Ex, or UPS as they will not accept day old chicks, so the post office is our only option.

Generally the post office does a good job of shipping for us. Unfortunately, there is always a slight risk of shipping through the mail. Unfortunately, since there are only so many hatcheries in the United States now, and we are spread out all over the US, with limited options for shipping, on occasion we can lose chicks during the shipping process. Our losses on the whole are typically less than 0.5% of the total chicks that ship. Unfortunately, it sounds like your chicks did not have a very good trip. We are truly sorry about this. We do our best to work with the post office to get the birds to you in the best, quickest, safest, most efficient manner.

As you might imagine, it is definitely not good for our business to have chicks arrive dead, or in poor condition. We have to either replace the chicks, or refund to the customer, and most importantly we have upset customers. It is never enjoyable for us to hear chicks did not arrive in good shape. Again, I apologize for this. We work with the post office on routing, we put less chicks in the boxes during the warmer months to try and help with excessive heat (however, remember that chicks need to be about 90-95 degrees the first week in the brooder, so they can take warm temps, they just need to have good airflow and ventilation), we add supplements to the boxes to hydrate the birds along the way, and we deliver our chicks directly to airmail facilities to expedite them through the post office. In the summer months, we actually drive the chicks in our climate controlled truck an extra 150 miles at our own additional expense, to get the birds to the postal airmail facility, rather than put them on a postal truck locally. We really are concerned with the welfare of our chicks.

In addition to the comments above, I'd like to point out that Blue Seal is getting their chicks from a hatchery somewhere in the United States. There are probably less than 10 major commercial chick hatcheries in the United States, so chances are that the birds are shipped into the feed store as well. The times of every town having a hatchery where people can stop by and pick up chicks are unfortunately gone. For most people, the only option for getting chicks is through the mail.

I appreciate the oppurtunity to respond. Thanks!
"

I received my order today from Welp on March 30, 2012...I live in Iowa and one of the reasons I ordered from them is there are also in Iowa. This was my first order from Welp, I am a 'vetran' chicken producer having received thousands of chicks over many years. I called to check on the status of the order on March 27th and was told the chickens were being shipped from New Mexico. I was none too pleased with this being discussed now, not when I ordered the chickens in early Feb. I received the chicks today, 75 ordered and received 66 alive and 9 dead....not 1 extra was shipped. Does not look like they were vaccinated for Mareks either. I am waiting to call them to discuss when they open at 8 AM.
I don't like the 'bait and switch' ( ship from a hatchery other than Welp in NM not IA) and the fact they shipped from another time zone and not 1 extra chick....well thats just cheap.
I will not ever order from the company again and recommend othyers choose another hatchery.

"On Apr 2, 2012 2:28 PM, Welp Hatchery responded with:

I've spoken directly with the customer above regarding his order, but will add some comments here as well.

First, we do use several supply points (other producers), to supply birds for our orders. We hatch cornish rock broilers and red rangers here at our hatchery, but use other supply points for different breeds. This is mentioned in the middle of our home page right on our website, and is in regular sized type, not fine print. We have never tried to hide this fact from our customers. Most of the other supply points have been doing business with us for 20 years or longer and we would not continue that relationship if we thought it was reflecting on us negatively.

The customer mentioned that he did receive exactly 75 chicks (which is what he was charged for) but 9 did not survive the trip through the mail. Unfortunately, this sort of thing can happen on occassion, despite all the precautions we put in place to help avoid loss of birds in the mail. It is our policy to send a few extras chicks in the box, but in this case, I can only assume the person counting made a mistake. For this I apologize. I have issued a refund back to this customer for these birds. He also mentioned that the birds did not have the marek's vaccination noted on the packing slip. It was noted correctly in the system, and I believe probably was done to the order, but I did issue a refund for this as well since it was not noted on the packing slip. (Sometimes a "V" on the line for the chicks is used to abbreviate marek's vaccination.) I do understand the customer's concern regarding this. Again, a mistake on our part that is not acceptable. This is definately not the norm for how we do business, and we will work to do better next time. Our goal is always to get quality birds to our customers efficiently, and in the best health possible.

Thanks for reading my reply.

Posted on June 12, 2011, updated January 7, 2012
Posted on June 9, 2011, updated June 12, 2011
I ordered 35 birds from them in or around mid april to they gave me a shipping confirmation for 6/8/2011. It also said they would contact me if this changed. I recieved a phone message on 6/7/11 saying they would only be sending 20 and then a message on 6/8/11 saying 16 I called and left a message saying don't bother cancel the order I later called and spoke to a person about the order and said
I don't want an order that small and she said too late they have already shipped. The order size was determined by availability and they didn't get a good hatch. This doesn't meet what I needed in an order. Their attitude about the shortage and the fact they shipped a short order without confirmation that this would be ok or any offer to finish filling the order in short term tells me that they don't care about service and if they new on the 7th the order was to be short they didn't ship same day as hatch as advertised. When the chicks arrive I'll add to this as to quality of birds but as for now I recommend using a differrent hatchery if you need what you order!!!

"On Jun 14, 2011 2:47 PM, Welp Hatchery responded with:

I've responded to this customer directly through email, but feel it should be answered here as well.

Unfortunately, all hatcheries have to deal with short hatches on occassion. Our supply point noticed that the week before this customer's order was to ship, the chanteclers hatched under previous projections. Since we had this information, we tried to be proactive by contacting customers to let them know we were most likely going to be short on their orders for the next week. Since this breed is a rare, hatch percentages were down, and we weren't sure if/when we'd have this breed available again, we decided to get all customer's who ordered atleast some of this breed, rather than cancel several orders all together. In most cases, customers will want to do this, rather than risk getting nothing at all. On Friday, June 3rd, I called and left a message on this customer's voice mail. I left a message that we were projecting to be short on this breed, but would still do our best to get 20 of this breed for him. On June 8th, after the hatch was complete, we hatched short from the projection, so we were able to send him 16 birds. I called him again, and left a message telling him about this. We did not receive a call telling us to do anything different until June 9th, which was after the birds had shipped.

This customer contacted us via email to let us know that some of the birds did not survive, so we issued a refund back to his credit card. With regard to shipping straight run from our supply point, we've shipped from our New Mexico shipping point for over 20 years, and we would not continue that partnership if they sent all males to customers. This insinuation really has no basis. On the homepage of our website and also in our brochure we mention that we have supply points in New Mexico, Minnesota, and Iowa. Thanks for the oppurtunity to respond."

Posted on May 18, 2011, updated July 30, 2011
Posted on February 15, 2011, updated May 18, 2011
On February 6 2011 I ordered 25 Wyandotte chickens from this hatchery.

I had been warned against using this hatchery by my Father-in-law and by a co-worker. I couldn't pass up the free shipping that Welp offers so I decided to give them a shot.

I received an email confirming my order later that night. Two days later, I received another email confirming a shipping date of February 14 2011. I took Wednesday off from work to be available to take care of my newly arrived birds.

I was impressed by how swiftly my order was being processed so I ordered an additional 25 broilers to be shipped with my Wyandottes. I received a confirmation from the company for that as well.

At 1 pm on February 14, I received a phone call from the customer service representative telling me that my Wyandottes were to be shipped in APRIL which would put my breeding program at least 2 months behind. I asked her about the broilers and she said they'd be sent out on Wednesday...not Monday the 14th. I took a day off for nothing.

After demanding an explanation, the lady said "sorry, it's not OUR fault...the chickens just aren't laying!" I don't buy this as a reasonable excuse for poor service. At first I was very angry and cancelled my entire order. I changed my mind, called them back and asked them to make amends by sending the broilers free of charge as an action of good faith on their part. She said she had to clear that with her manager. I said that's fine, find out and call me back as soon as possible. I waited all day yesterday for a return call that didn't come. This morning I called them. I gave them my name and inquired about my birds. I was informed that they shipped on the 14th!!! I asked her if she was sure and she said yes but then transferred me to the lady I talked to yesterday. She told my they DID NOT ship and I was told she hadn't attempted to contact the manager yet... she'd get back to me tomorrow.

I'm frustrated that a company such as this can have such lousy organizational skills and LAZY customer service representatives.

"On Feb 21, 2011 10:49 AM, Welp Hatchery responded with:

I wanted to post here to confirm that I have contacted this customer regarding his order. I was out of town and called him when I returned to the office. After talking with him, I believe we have resolved his issues and are shipping him his cornish rock broilers. I just wanted to post a few more details as well. Thanks!

When a customer places an order on the website, they select the preferred week that they'd like to receive the birds. There are occasions where specific breeds aren't available, so we send an automatic reply to the customer when the order is placed that lets them know to look for a second email confirming the actual ship date. Since we use the postal system to ship chicks, we can never guarantee the exact arrival date, but it is generally 2-3 day. We mention this as well in the email the customer receives.

We've just recently found out that there are several breeds that are not laying and hatching well, so we've contacted those customers to let them know about this. We are putting them on lists so that when the birds are available, we can call them.

"

We ordered bantam light brown dutch chicks this spring. The chicks arrived, and the did not look anything like the light brown dutch chicks that we have received from other hatcheries in the past. As they grew it became more and more obvious that they were NOT what we ordered! We complained to the company and they assured us that they were light brown dutch. We have looked at the Standards of Perfection book, and they do not meet any of the standards for this breed. In fact, they appear to be "mutts". Not pure-breed chickens. We intended to show these for our kids 4H project this year. As it stands we wasted a whole bunch of money on birds that cannot be shown as pure breeds. WE WILL NEVER BUY FROM THIS HATCHERY AGAIN!

"On Jul 6, 2010 3:38 PM, Welp Hatchery responded with:

Hello. I've sent you a private email, but have not yet heard back. I thought I should reply to your posting. In a case like this, we normally would just ask that you send us a photo of the birds. Once we have the photo, and confirm that we made a mistake and sent the wrong breed, we are very willing to either replace the birds with the correct breed, or refund your money. We do have photos of most of our breeds on the website, so you can see exactly what our birds look like. If you can send us photos, I'll be happy to have them looked at and we will respond once this is done. Thanks for letting me reply to your post."

I ordered 25 straight run Dark Cornish chickens, they arrived at the post office on June 24th, the post office called me and told me the birds were in, but there was no sound from the box and they thought they were probably dead. I called the hatchery on my way to the post office to find out what I needed to do, the lady told me that I should call back when I knew for sure if they were dead or not and they would either issue a credit or replace the birds. When I picked up the birds they were indeed all dead, so I called the hatchery again and the lady said they would go ahead and issue the credit. I never received the credit, so a few weeks later I called again. This lady told me there was no record of my previous calls, but that she would go ahead and issue the credit. I am still waiting for the credit 7 weeks after the fact! Talk about customer no-service.

"On Oct 9, 2009 3:44 PM, Welp Hatchery responded with:

Hello. I just wanted to reply to your posting so I can clarify what happened to this order. Since I can only assume your name, I believe this is the correct information regarding your order. It looks like the order was shipped 6/22/09 and as you mentioned, the birds came in bad shape.

(I wish we had more control over how we ship baby chick, however, FedEx and UPS don't allow us to use them for shipping, so for now we are stuck with only on option, the US Postal System. They generally do a good job for us, but on ocassion this can happen. I'm not sure how we can avoid it completely, but we do our best to give the birds the best chance for survival and good health. )

Our policy is a guarantee of live delivery and up to 48 hours after delivery as long as proper care is given. We just ask that you call us within 48 hours (or Monday if over the weekend). You did do this, so we did initial the process to issue a credit. Our policy is to issue the credit right back to the credit card the following Friday. However, is looks like one of the clerks made a mistake and issued a credit to the wrong customer (some has a name very similar, and the clerk did goof this up). I apologize for this mistake. It looks like after some time, you contacted us again, and after we checked out your account, found that it had been issued to the incorrect customer, so as soon as this mistake was found, we issued you a credit back to your card. I believe the transaction date for this was 8/11/09. I guess I just wanted to let you know that we did not intentionally withhold your refund, it turns out the clerk made a mistake that caused this delay. Thanks for letting me explain."

I had initially ordered 25 day old chicks from Welp Hatchery in late June, (15) Welsummer pullets; (2) Welsummer roosters, (6) Dominique Pullets and (2) Dominique roosters.All alive and well.As the chicks began to develop I realized the Alleged Dominique Roosters were actually Barred plymoth rocks due to their STRAIGHT combs and yellow shanks.The pullets having ROSE combs and dark shanks. I called customer service with the complaint and they concurred with their SEPARATE distributor and assured me that I would receive the proper breed of roosters.This morning I received the same incorrect Barred Plymoth Rocks as I initially received incorrectly,plus (20) assorted roosters used to keep them warm in transport(that I havent got a use for in this world).I WILL NOT ORDER FROM THIS HATCHERY AGAIN.They either dont know the difference between a ROSE and STRAIGHT combs or they tried me twice and lost.