2018 New Year's Letter

Dear Waterfowl Enthusiasts!

I first want to thank you as a very valuable customer. It is only with customers such as yourself that we can succeed and grow and therefore offer you new breeds and services. It is our hope that 2018 will be even better in supplying you fantastic day-old birds and unsurpassed customer service!

We have specialized in waterfowl for over 40 years but are now seeing a tremendous growth in the interest in our meat chicken strains. We have the standard Cornish Cross that is unsurpassed in terms of growth rate and feed conversion. Last year we offered the Rolin S, a red broiler that gives an excellent meat carcass in twelve weeks. This year we are adding the Big Sur, a bird with the characteristics many of you have been requesting: a larger breast than the Rolin S, more white feathers for cleaner processing and a bird that can thrive in a pastured production system.

In the past we only offered goslings in pairs – now you can order all males, all females or any combination of straight run, male and female goslings! Many of you have been requesting this for years - now we can do it!

Starting in February we will be hatching and shipping on both Mondays and Tuesdays. This will continue through early June before we go back to Monday hatching only. As long as we have the birds, you can order for either day.

Last year we introduced three breeds: Silver Appleyard, Saxony and Hookbill. We ran short of the Silver Appleyard and Saxony frequently during last season but have increased our flock size substantially for these two breeds and hope to meet all your needs this year. The Hookbill, however, were extremely difficult to hatch and we are not offering them this year. If we can figure out how to best hatch them, we will have them in the future – but not this year.

Salmonella continues to be a concern with day-old poultry. We are in the National Poultry Improvement Plan (NPIP) Salmonella Monitored Program. We encourage you to purchase all your day-old poultry from hatcheries that are in this program as this ensures that hatchery is vigilantly monitoring for salmonella and taking corrective steps if it is found.

Even though we are doing all we can, it is important you provide safeguards, too. Wash your hands after handling poultry. Limit or prevent children under 5, the elderly and those with compromised immunity systems from handling poultry. We are not trying to scare anyone. Salmonella has always been around – we just want everyone to be careful.

Thank you very much!

John and Marc Metzer