I can only buy Rhode Island Reds and Barred Rocks locally, so I’ve ordered other breeds from both Ideal Poultry and Murray McMurray. Both have shipped excellent chicks.
My favorite breed of all is the White Leghorn. They weigh about 4 lbs. at maturity, start laying large white shelled eggs at 4 1/2 to 5 months, and they continue laying 10 to 12 weeks longer than most good layers. Their resistance to disease are very high, and the feed to egg ratio is excellent.
From the McMurray website: “When our local farmers ask us to recommend the pullet that will lay the most eggs of top grade and size, of uniform shape, good shell, and highest interior quality, and do it on the least feed and in smallest amount of space, we suggest the Pearl.”
http://www.mcmurrayhatchery.com/index.html
I recently got one of their catalogs in the mail , upon request. I’ve looked at it briefly but we found the Buff’s pretty close and since we didnt want to deal with babies with winter knocking on our door, we decided that a pullet of several months old would be perfect for us right now, at least to start out with.
In fact, I just found out she has a few Buckeye’s, 4 mo available but dh says in the spring we will add a few more.
I reallllllllllly want an “easter egger” and a black copper maran to add to the mix, just to see which breeds we like the best. But so far we are really enjoying the Buff’s.
I don’t think I’ve heard of Ideal but I’ll take a look at the link you provided. Thank you for that ~