How we choose a Meat Bird

We all know there are several different types of meat chickens...from Cornish X (which is the most popular I think) down to regular ol dual purpose birds orpingtons, barred rock, white rock etc... We choose somewhere in the middle and went with Freedom Rangers.

We did a lot of research on them and found so much info in several different forums including Backyardchickens.com There we learned ALOT of info on raising meat chickens and where to buy them which led us to JMHatchery.com which is what we went with after looking at many hatchery's. Mostly because they are a family oriented business and we always love supporting those types of businesses.

After raising back yard chickens (our egg laying machines) for a year now we feel we are ready to venture into meaties. We have the coop material for them, the forage area for them (up to 15-20 acres), and now the know how to raise them :D SOO we did it and placed the order last week with JMHatchery. They were sent out on Wed...we were hoping to get them today (Friday) but they did not show up this morning at the P.O. I freaked and called the P.O. "nope they are not here yet". Then got on the phone with JMHatchery who did not answer at first so I hung up without leaving a message and thought I would try back. About a minute later they called ME back (caller ID) and asked if I had called. I really liked the fact that they even bothered to do that :D THAT is why we go with family based businesses. I told her my dilemma and she suggested I call the P.O. back and ask them for the number of the distribution center and maybe intercepting the order and picking them up there (never thought of that so I was happy with their response and they were very helpful)! I did just that and being a small town they were ok with doing that for me and in fact made the call for me as well. They called me back quickly and distribution did not have them yet either but they are expecting another shipment in this afternoon so if they get them they will call me and I will just make the 1/2 hour or so trip to go there and pick them up rather then making them suffer through another day of shipment. I just hope they show up there this afternoon. Will continue this when we receive our babies and let you know how many survivors we have.