I ordered 2 tolbunt polish and 3 French black copper marans March of this year. After about a month or so I sent an E-mail asking when I should expect my shipment of birds to come in, and I was told they had orders pop up and needed to send some out, so they were getting ready to hatch out another batch of chicks that would be mine. It wasn't until Mid May that I had received my birds. I did get 1 extra tolbunt polish and 1 extra maran which was nice of them to do, as I understand that they didn't have to do that.
About 2 to 3 weeks after my first polish pullet died suddenly, I lost my 3rd and last pullet. Whatever they had they were not able to recover from. I had tried multiple vitamin replacers, foods, etc...and nothing worked, they just got increasingly worse until passing away. I spent A LOT of money for these birds, they were a Christmas gift from my husband. I had wanted tolbunt polish chickens for close to 2 years and now I am left with a broken heart and out a lot of money.
We didn't start to notice any issues until the birds were about 2.5 months old. I had a tolbunt cockerals that would not grow, would not feather out, and would not put weight on. He was diagnosed with failure to thrive. I took extra measures and precautions to make sure I did my best to keep him as healthy as possible. At that time I also noticed my 2 pullets walking and acting drunk. I was told by my vet to offer extra vitamins as polish are prone to deficiencies. The vitamins never made a difference.
About 2 weeks after I lost my cockeral I lost one of my polish pullets suddenly. She was fine the night before when I locked them in their coop, and dead when I went to let them out. Keep in mind they both acted drunk all the time, could hardly walk, stumbled all the time and had a lot of balance issues. I did not have a necropsy done on her, because at this point I was already out over $300 for just these 3 birds. And the vet who did my original necropsy said she would likely find the same issues with my pullet as she found with my cockeral.
First issue that disappointed was that I contacted them for an exact ship date as I had a trip planned to Canada for thanksgiving and had someone bird sitting for me and wanted to be able to put their name on the shipment so they can receive the order. They told me they had to put new eggs in the incubator because mine were given to someone else to fulfill another order, so the ones I thought were mine were given away and i had to wait an extra 2-3 weeks. This isn't a big issue, but when you are timing it with another shipment and have other chicks you are raising in a brooder, its annoying. I had to set up a whole different brooder and its good i did. They were so kind to keep the chicks an extra few days for me till I got back from my trip.
We purchased an order of Cream Legbars from Omega Hills. They arrived very quickly and healthy. This purchase was over a year ago if I recall correctly. They sent many extras including some hens.
When I contacted Omega Hill Farm about the loss of my cockeral, all that was said was "it happens" and that was the last communication I had with them. I'm convinced that the polish were severely inbred, and had been immunosuppressed for some reason, bad/very weak lines that no breeder wants in their flock. I have come to this conclusion because my black copper marans are healthy and beautiful.
I decided to write this review after I wrote an email to Omega and they didn't respond after over a week a half. I purchased 4 birds from them, 2 Silver laced orpington ($70 each), and 2 gold laced orpington ($35 each) and they threw in an extra gold laced orpington in the shipment (i assume to help keep the chicks warmer). I ordered them in early september, I believe, and they were supposed to send them to me soon as they told me they hatched and like to keep the chicks around for a little bit and i was perfectly fine with it. I timed their shipment with another order from another breeder and they were supposed to arrive within a week of each other.
I was able to get all my birds outside into separate pens away from my older flock, within a week of being outside I found my polish cockeral dead in his pen. He was completely fine the night before and that morning, he came out of his coop ate, drank, and foraging. About 2 hours later he had passed suddenly. I sent him in for a necropsy, and $150 later when the results came in, it was found that he had a liver issue due to early exposure to a fungal infection. The vet who did the necropsy spent a long time speaking to me about my birds, and she felt that they were exposed to something before coming to me. He had also had high load of Coccidiosis which I was actively treating with an appropriate coccidiostat.
My real issue was the birds themselves. Now, i get that straight run is just that, you take the risk and you never know what you get in terms of sex, but I can only keep hens here so I had hoped at least one of each breed might be female, not the case. All were males... bummer but thats not the issue here, though they should consider at the price they sell their birds that they invest in someone who can come out and sex their birds for them. All the birds arrived and within a week or so I noticed they all had puffy eyes and a couple were blowing bubbles out their nostrils. I immediately started them on antibiotics and used some cream on their eyes. The puff never really went down even after I had treated them for the recommended period of time. This is in contrast to the other 10 chicks I had from the other breeder and none gave me a single issue. On top of that one of my 70 dollar orpington ended up being a runt and never grew more than a centimeter or two, and I did end up having to cull it from how sick it was. It would have been nice if they would have replaced the bird or given a refund. All in all, it would have shown great customer service.
And despite my birds being near or around the polish(through fencing) no one has came down with the same symptoms or any illness for that matter. I believe that it was due to poor breeding or poor incubation that caused my polish to be so poorly.
The night I received my birds all of them started having respiratory problems, thank goodness I kept them in quarentine, and thank goodness it was still too cold for them to be near my other birds since they were kept inside. All the chicks recovered well.
The birds have grown up and we have some beauties! Out of the 6 or so roosters we had, we got 2 of excellent quality. Most of the hens were very good. Couldn't be happier with how these birds are doing!
Omega Hills Farm is a US Food place based in Columbus, Alabama. Omega Hills Farm is located at 533 Omega Dr, Columbus, MS 39702, USA.
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