Why should I choose My Pet Chicken over another hatchery?

My Pet Chicken is geared toward backyard flocks

People who keep small numbers of chickens as a hobby often prefer to buy from My Pet Chicken because we are geared to small backyard keepers of just a few birds at a time. Our minimum order is just three (rather than 25 most other hatcheries). Even other "small order" hatcheries may allow you to order just a few birds, but then add "extra males for warmth," meaning you are saddled with 15 extra roosters to rehome. This is something most keepers of pet chickens are just not interested in. My Pet Chicken NEVER adds extra males for warmth.

Instead, we use a long lasting, high tech heat pack to keep small numbers of babies warm, and our hatchery ships these small orders via Express Mail so the babies arrive faster, overnight in some locations. They are also shipped early in the week, so the babies will not be delayed over the weekend when the post office may be closed. (Some hatcheries ship Saturdays, and most ship Priority Mail rather than offering an Express option like My Pet Chicken does, so with some hatcheries, the babies are assured of spending at least two days in transit, sometimes three.)

My Pet Chicken also has some extraordinarily rare breeds like Wheaten Marans, Swedish Flower Hens, and Heritage Barred Rocks that are not offered by other hatcheries.


Heritage Barred Plymouth Rock

My Pet Chicken offers designer chicken breeds

We also have exclusive breeds and varieties like Favaucanas, Silchins, Olive Eggers, Silked Easter Eggers and more. We hope we will always be able to offer some of the most sought after and rare breeds not offered elsewhere. We even offer rare and heirloom breed juveniles--and all our juveniles have their full, natural beaks. (Find them here when in stock!)

You can't find female bantams anywhere but My Pet Chicken

Last, My Pet Chicken is the only place in the country that offers sexed day old bantam breeds like Silkies. Again, this service is geared toward people who want to keep small numbers of chickens in an urban or suburban setting as a hobby. Other hatcheries offer straight run mixes of bantams (meaning a mix of males and females). That would mean that you would need to order roughly twice as many Silkies to get the number of females you desired, and of course there would be no guarantees as to the exact number of males and females in your mix. A ratio of 50-50 is just the average.

Our Customer Service team is based in the U.S. and all keep chickens!

What it comes down to is that My Pet Chicken is geared to serving different types of customers from other hatcheries. We're the best if you want a small, cherry picked flock for your home and if you care about how the birds are raised and treated, and if you want real, live help from right here in the US. (You can phone us, chat with us online, or email.) At My Pet Chicken, we're there for you if you are just getting started in chickens and need in-depth help or advice. We're there for you if you want heirloom started birds with their full, natural beaks... or if you want exclusive, fun breeds and varieties not available elsewhere.

That said, if you live in a place where you can keep many chickens--25 or more--a different hatchery may work very well for you. It really depends on what you need and what type of service you are looking for. Many people order from My Pet Chicken in addition to other hatcheries.

For the most part, chicks are chicks. They can vary based on breeding lines, but we have never heard anything bad about the lines of any major hatchery. But if you are looking for just a few chickens at a time, if you want rare breeds and varieties, if you want exclusive designer breeds if you want sexed bantams--or if you care about receiving juveniles with full, natural beaks in many fun heirloom breeds--then My Pet Chicken is really the best place to find them.