Recent Alchemist Farms Experience?

[CrystalAnon]

I got two ABs and two SBs. What do your ABs look like? Mine are still pretty young so it’s hard to tell how they’ll feather out, but I’ll take some pics of them.

Here’s Lucy on the left & Xena on the right. Xena looks more like the Alchemist Blues that are on the Alchemist Farm website. Lucy is black with brown-gold flecks on the edges of her feathers & she has a pretty pronounced Mohawk. (Hard to see the color on Lucy with this pic, as it was a little overcast that day.)
And behind them, is Rapha… one of the Alchemist Farm French Black Copper Marans.
Lucy is hilarious too. She loves running around the yard, catching mosquitos in mid-air. It’s so funny to watch her!

 

[CrystalAnon]

One has some brownish barring coming through and the other looks like she may be a really dark gray. They were not fans of holding still for the photo shoot.

Yes! That last picture looks like what Lucy (left one) and Xena (right one) looked like at that age. Very similar.

 

[Disheygirl]

Yes! That last picture looks like what Lucy (left one) and Xena (right one) looked like at that age. Very similar.

They’re beautiful! I hope we get a Mohawk - hers is the cutest!!

 

[CrystalAnon]

They’re beautiful! I hope we get a Mohawk - hers is the cutest!!

I bet you will get a Mohawk on that one!! Please update me & let me know what they end up looking like! I’m guessing they’ll look super similar to ours at 11-12 weeks.
They are so adorable! They grow up so fast, it’s kinda crazy!

 

[Disheygirl]

I bet you will get a Mohawk on that one!! Please update me & let me know what they end up looking like! I’m guessing they’ll look super similar to ours at 11-12 weeks.
They are so adorable! They grow up so fast, it’s kinda crazy!

These are my two Alchemist Blue girls all grown up (not laying yet but almost!). The black one has a cool face, and the blue looks like her Silverrud sister except bigger and with a Mohawk.

 

[CrystalAnon]

These are my two Alchemist Blue girls all grown up (not laying yet but almost!). The black one has a cool face, and the blue looks like her Silverrud sister except bigger and with a Mohawk.

Oh my goodness!! I love them!! The gray one looks almost exactly like my Xena. Xena has been the star egg-layer, along with her sister, Lucy, even though they’re our smallest hens (We only have two alchemist blues). She was the star, until she went broody. But it wasn’t hard to break her of it. Just had to take the fake eggs (golf balls) out of the laying boxes. Suddenly she wasn’t interested in being broody any longer.
But she hasn’t laid since she went broody. Hopefully she’ll get back to laying before winter temps.

 

[CrystalAnon]

These are my two Alchemist Blue girls all grown up (not laying yet but almost!). The black one has a cool face, and the blue looks like her Silverrud sister except bigger and with a Mohawk.

I just LOVE their big eyes & small frames. Especially for Florida weather where it’s so hot & humid in the summer. If I were to re-do our purchases for chicks from Alchemist, I would have bought more Alchemist Blues and less Azure Eggers. But I do love two of our four Azure Eggers. I mostly purchased the Azure Eggers because I knew I’d get all females. I bought only two Alchemist Blues because at the time I ordered them (last year) they were still straight run. But by the time I got them, they had figured out they could sell them as female or male at the time of hatching.

 

[metarachel]

Hi there - I'd love to hear about any experiences with Alchemist Farms chicks - both positive and negative, and particularly those who have picked up locally, since that's what I'll be doing.

I ordered 3 guaranteed female chicks from AF that I plan to pick up in 2 weeks, after only getting 3/6 females of sexed chicks from our local feed store, all 3 EEs being cockerels. It didn't occur to me to check reviews here first - I was just so happy to find blue-ish egg layers that were sex-linked (and not just cream legbars) after having more than my fill of unintended cockerels, as well as ones that I could pick up instead of worrying about shipping - losses, minimum numbers (I can only have 3 more birds), and shipping stress.

After seeing a recent thread about possible Marek's in a flock on BYC this week, I remembered that the AF chicks aren't vaccinated, and then started digging further, including searching for threads mentioning Alchemist Farms. There was a thread from 2020 with mostly positive experiences with Alchemist Farms chicks, but two more recent comments from this fall raised concerns about serious illness that potentially could have been from AF chicks, genetic issues, and poor survival rates with AF chicks in general, so now I'm wondering if I should cancel my order and take my chances again with a local feed store.

Thoughts?

I've purchased from Alchemist three times. When their birds are healthy, they're truly something--friendly, sweet, curious, solid layers with gorgeous and proper egg colors.

Unfortunately, they're not always healthy. My first negative experience was having six of sixteen chicks die within the first week of ordering. They only guarantee live arrival so we were out the money on that, and considering the cost of those chicks, that was a LOT of money. My second negative experience was having two roosters from unrelated breeds (isbar and black copper marans) both drop dead suddenly shortly after sexual maturity, after seeming perfectly healthy literally hours before. I didn't pay for necropsies but I'm experienced enough to know they didn't die from impacted crops or any externally viewable issues or injuries, or of something infectious (since the rest of my flock was fine).

Prior to that I'd had EXCELLENT customer service with Alchemist (I mean TRULY excellent), but when I wrote them about this, concerned that perhaps there was something toxic in their pastures that might be causing genetic defects, they never responded. I found that a little disappointing, since I was trying to help them rather than, say, asking for a refund.

So I'm a little mixed on them. I love their philosophy on breeding, and on environmental respect. I love the quality of their birds when they actually survive. I love most of the customer service I've experienced with them. But there does appear to be some environmental issue on their farm that they were unwilling to even say "We'll look into that, thanks" to.

 

[Kikwi]

When their birds are healthy, they're truly something--friendly, sweet, curious, solid layers with gorgeous and proper egg colors.

Unfortunately, they're not always healthy.

Oh no! Now you’ve got me worried. I got three marans and three moss eggers from them. The chicks are 7 weeks old today and have been in a separate area of our coop for the last week. They all seem healthy - active and curious from the day I picked them up - but they’ve only been exposed to the existing flock for a week now. I wonder how many will make it to full maturity.

Which breeds did you have problems with from Achemist (other than the two roosters)?

 

[metarachel]

Oh no! Now you’ve got me worried. I got three marans and three moss eggers from them. The chicks are 7 weeks old today and have been in a separate area of our coop for the last week. They all seem healthy - active and curious from the day I picked them up - but they’ve only been exposed to the existing flock for a week now. I wonder how many will make it to full maturity.

Which breeds did you have problems with from Achemist (other than the two roosters)?

The ones who died around maturity were a BCM and an Isbar, and curiously enough, they were both males. The babies came from a pair of the mixed boxes and could've been more or less anything, so I'm afraid I don't know about those. It's entirely possible I just had really bad luck with them; lots of folks get really beautiful birds from them and never have any problems. I've gotten really beautiful birds from them with no problems. I'd probably even give them another chance if they were having a good sale. Best you can do is love them and give them the best care you can and hope everyone thrives; I'm wishing you all the luck!