All Heavies

Really nice chicks, will order more soon.My order of all heavies took less than 48 hours to get to NW Montana. I am impressed! I ordered 25 and received 28, all in excellent shape and were very warm in their shipping box. They were pretty thirsty in comparison with other shipments of chicks from McMurrays I have received, but these chicks are LARGE boys! Looks like there are seven breeds, possibly 8, as the yellow chicks do not all have the same conformation/disposition. By their second day they have slowed down on the water drinking, and are now concentrating more on chasing each other for a tasty alfalfa leaf or dandelion flower. They are total beasts fighting over a spider or other flying insect landing in the brooder! These chicks have been the prettiest and most robust I have gotten yet. I am so pleased with this order. And I haven't been disappointed in any of the orders from McMurrays, so far in all the years I have been getting my chicks from this outfit. I have some hens still laying 5 eggs a week that I bought early 2014! I will be ordering more of the all Heavies assortment again as I have raised some of these roosters before for the table, and they turned out perfect. The key, if anyone wants to know what works for me to get tender meat from these heritage breeds, is to feed them well on good grass and alfalfa, bugs and small grains and keep them close so they don't run all over the country getting tough muscles. I use a movable enclosure that is roomy, and a fresh area to graze every day. They stay calm, eat well, and grow big for me. I highly recommend a heritage breed to raise for meat in higher elevation regions, and getting this assortment helps me to explore different breeds to compare meat quality, quantity, and ease of handling. Thanks, Murray McMurray hatchery for sending me such fine chicks in this assortment.

interesting variety!We got 25 of these for meat birds and to keep one rooster for our newly established flock of hens. They arrived very healthy and vigorous and all survived to butcher. There were so many different colors and shapes of chicks that these were interesting to watch, grow and guess which breeds were included. We kept the speckled Sussex for our rooster and he is very sweet and pretty but there were some mean roosters in this bunch that we were glad to butcher! We butchered at 4 months but wished we had waited to 6 - 12 months as they were a little scrawny! They free ranged so once they were big enough to let them loose they ate practically no broiler finisher so they were cheap to keep which wouldn't be the case if I had to feed them over the winter before butchering. The meat was tough from free ranging so I have to brine the chickens before cooking but then it's tender meat. Raising this variety of roosters was an exciting adventure for us and the kids but we will be ordering from the meat bird varieties this year!