Terms & Conditions

We are a family-run dynamic poultry operation focused on a closed line of standard-bred Black Copper Marans throwing deep pigmentation and heavy blooms, and a good number of experimental heritage crosses. We offer these genetics to you as hatching eggs and live birds under the following terms and conditions. If the following terms and conditions cause you pause, do not purchase from Crosshatch Farm. Please reach out to brooke@crosshatchfarm.com with any questions.

1. Point of Sale

All sales are processed through this site via Paypal. You will receive an automatic recept to your email. If you have ‘DO NOT SHIP’ dates we need to be aware of (vacation etc.) please add them to the Notes during checkout or as soon as you can.

Other than an occasional overhatch or add-ons to your order on ship day (through Paypal or Venmo), we do not generate sales through Facebook Messenger or use platforms like Zelle or Cashapp for rapid payments. Buyers should use caution: scammers regularly use stolen photos from sites like ours to build fraudulent farm pages that appear to have significant followers. These scammers generate sales through Messenger and block you after you send money.

2. Order Minimums/Maximums

Our DAY OLD CHICKS 2025 order minimum is 8 chicks, and our maximum order is 20 chicks. You can combine any different breeds but orders that come through with less than 8 total chicks or more than 20 will be cancelled if not remedied by (a) adding chicks or (b) paying two shipment fees.

Our HATCHING EGGS 2025 orders can be built into one box with foam shipper as either one dozen (12 +2) or two dozen (24 +2). You can choose single box Priority Express or double boxed Priority shipment at checkout.

IF YOU WANT TO PURCHASE BOTH CHICKS AND HATCHING EGGS, PLEASE CHECK OUT IN TWO SEPARATE TRANSACTIONS WITH TWO SEPARATE SHIPPING FEES. Chicks and eggs cannot be shipped together, and will be shipped at different times through different shipping methods.

PULLETS and COCKERELS can be shipped for $150, maximum one bird per box.

3. Paid Sale = Waitlist Spot = Est. Ship Date

Checking out on this site during 2025 presales reserves an egg collection window and/or hatch date for your order in 2025, between late March and late October. When you check out and receive a receipt to your Paypal email showing your completed sale you are “on the list.” Here’s what to expect:

Generally speaking, we build our ship list in the order of received sales. As we build our shiplist we take into account weather and climate at the destination, as well as other patterns we can see in our data such as natural variations in laying cycles and USPS holidays that can disrupt shipping timelines.

As the early Spring weather forecasts come into focus, you will receive an email from Brooke ballparking your shipping window. We ship weekly on Mondays or Tuesdays and aim to reserve a specific ship date for you. We do a pretty good job meeting our estimates, but you should plan for a span of two weeks before or after your target week.

We cannot guarantee you a ship week. We cannot time your order to coincide with other orders you may be receiving through the year. Please do not purchase believing that we can coordinate our shipment to you to arrive at the same time as other shipments you may have. We cannot bump your order up on the waitlist for a special event, such as a birthday.

We can delay your order if you are not prepared to receive it in your estimated window. No problem. And we always get confirmation before we ship to you— often we’re in email chats the week or so leading up to your ship date. Every now and then folks will move around on me, and I’ll be going down the line for a person able to receive their chicks on short notice.

Note: In 2023 and 2024 we sold out in less than a week of opening presales. In 2024, it took us three full months to ship out opening day orders. Through the year, almost everyone experienced about a three month wait. Your waitlist time from check-out to shipment could be between 3 months and 9 months. If you order later in the season there is a chance I could carry your order over winter.

4. Order Refunds & Delaying a Shipment

Order refunds are difficult for us, as we run an operation with a seasonal window for limited sales outpaced by fixed, year-around costs (read: FEED). We are changing our policy for 2024 and asking that folks who encounter unforeseen circumstances delay their orders (to later in the year or to the beginning of next spring ship season) or gift their order to a friend rather than seek a refund.

Again, once you purchase live birds or hatching eggs, your sale is final, though it can be rescheduled and delayed until you are ready to receive.

If for any reason we need to cancel your order (i.e. loss of breeding birds due to an act of god or retirement of a breed) we will offer you a full refund. If national laws and regulations limit the transport or shipping of live birds (due to Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza or other regulatory reason) we will close down shipping and hold all orders until the coast is clear.

5. Straight Run Policy/No Rooster Refunds or Replacements

Crosshatch Farm offers primarily straight run chicks, as our breeds cannot be sexed at hatch. As each egg and each chick has a 50% chance of being a rooster, please plan accordingly for how you will handle and provide for male birds you may not be able or wish to keep. Though statistically rare, we did hear of one customer receiving all males in small (6) chick purchase. As breeders of breeds that cannot be sexed at hatch, we are unable to determine sex at birth and we are absolutely unable to exchange males for females under any circumstances. There is some ‘luck of the draw’ involved in establishing your flock— please commit to the process and its risks before purchasing chicks or eggs from us. It takes time to grow a flock, genetics are an investment, there will be trials and tribulations!

If you require females only, we recommend you choose our Pullets or find a local breeder to grow birds out for you (or shop your local shows).

Crosshatch Farm is absolutely unable to take eggs or birds back for any reason once they leave the property, due to the biosecurity guidelines of the National Poultry Improvement Plan. Many of our customers have good luck rehoming our young cockerels in social media groups dedicated to heritage breeds and colorful egg breeding, as folks are always looking for a male ‘that hatched from a dark egg’. Alternately, many find success with homesteaders who respond to Craigslist area ads for free dual purpose roosters to process as food, while some supply local wildlife rehabilitators.

6. Local Pick-up

Local pickups for either chicks or hatching eggs can be chosen as a $0 shipping option at checkout, and are arranged by email after purchase (waitlist status still applies, but sometimes we can work in local pickups in early to mid-March if temps are too cold to ship during our first hatch or two). We are located in Xenia Township, south of the Village of Yellow Springs and near Cedarville and Wilberforce. Major highway intersections include Rt 35 and Rt 71, or Rt 675 and 35; we are approximately 35 mins from the major interstate crossroads of Rt 70 and Rt 75. Area attractions include private, state, and federal nature preserves, documented Native American Mounds, and small towns with coffee shops and boutiques. There are many small farms and producers of local food products, herbs, tinctures, ferments, etc. in the Ohio Valley. Please be in touch if you’re looking to plan a trip.

Note that our biosecurity practices and participation in the National Poultry Improvement Plan means that we are unable to receive guests at the coops or to do walk-throughs at the time of pick-up, though we can gather the whole family on our front patio for conversation and consideration of a number of birds/eggs.

7. Shipping— Hatching Eggs

All hatching eggs are sent USPS in a custom foam shipper and padded with packing material. We stock two options, one dozen and two dozen. You will choose the appropriate shipping method for your order from a drop-down menu.

With our commitment to fertility rates and the special care that goes into shipping, we feel sure that you will receive quality eggs. However, hatching eggs are purchased buyer-beware with absolutely no “hatch guarantee” implied. Like all other hatcheries, homesteads, and heritage breeders, we put our best into the box but simply can’t control what happens during shipping or incubation.

As such, there are no refunds nor replacements on hatching eggs, irregardless of their status upon arrival or the hatch rate you achieve. If your box arrives obviously damaged by the post office with broken eggs inside, document this with postal workers at the time of pickup in order to file a claim. In my experience, USPS claims are rarely (never!) successful.

We are unable to replace or refund damaged eggs beyond any postal refund, as per the buyer-beware policy above. Our experience as both buyers and sellers of quality poultry suggests chicks are hands down the best way to go.

8. Shipping— Live Chicks, Ducklings, Quail

Chicks and ducklings are shipped immediately after hatch in live bird mailers with a coco liner pad, heat packs, and Grogel, an electrolyte and protein concoction that helps keep them stay hydrated during their journey (or to give them a place to exercise their emerging pecking instincts). Chicks have a natural window of 72-hours after hatch where they do not require food or water to stay alive, as they have absorbed the yolk sac and will wait by the mother hen and she sits the remaining eggs to complete a multiple day hatch cycle. Accordingly, the USPS adds a 3-day estimate to the tracking number when shipping live birds. Despite the long 3-day estimates (which limit their insurance liability), they often arrive overnight, unless your location requires two distribution centers. (Quail can be shipped in groups, sold as a sexed tiny covey of one male with females once fully feathered.)

In Spring of 2025, Crosshatch Farm reserves the right to ship chicks via either Priority plus Live Animal Fee OR Priority Express plus Live Animal Fee at our discretion, depending upon how the season is going. We ship more than 100 boxes of live day old chicks annually, have relationships with Postmasters in various POs and distribution centers, and regularly check in with USPS Transportation Directors. Sometimes, we can get your Live Animal shipments to you more quickly and safely via Priority. Both Priority and Express add 3 days to the estimated delivery date you will see at the time of drop off. Both are mandated by USPS to move as quickly as possible, and both usually arrive on the same time frame.

We rarely ship lives through our local distribution center at Dayton Ohio, because they no longer contract overnight flights out of Dayton and the probably of sitting on the shelf for a day or two before being trucked to Cincinnati is too high. We usually drive the birds a half hour to a post office that ports through Cincinnati Ohio, where they often catch a plane that night. We sometimes drive the birds to a different PO that ports through Columbus, especially when we’ve had issues with slow shipments through Cinci.

To sustain our mental health during the ship season, we no longer refresh tracking numbers on the boxes we send each week. If you have a tracking number that has not been scanned or has not moved locations for 12 hours PLEASE go directly to your local post office and ask to speak with the Post Master. The post master at the destination can see additional tracking information, the intended path of the package, and can and will call the managers at the distribution centers to track down your box. Your local post master is your best friend if you are receiving live animals!

9. Live Arrival Guarantee/DON’T MIX THE CHICKS Policy

We have a live arrival guarantee for the first 24 hours. You must receive the package from the Post Office within 2 hours of notice of arrival and place them under heat with hydration immediately. Should your birds not arrive happy, healthy, and vital please send photo documentation of both living and perished/compromised chicks and we will refund you an adjustment per bird. Deceased chicks must be reported immediately (same day) and all deceased chicks must be in one photo. This is mandatory and non-negotiable.

Very, very rarely, an entire box of chicks can suffer a misfortune during travel. If your box is damaged, delayed beyond 72 hours, or suspected to include fatalities, please open the box in the presence of post office staff or your local postmaster and ask for their documentation in addition to your photos taken on site. Successful post office insurance claims are increasingly rare these days, and major losses must be documented at your local post office. A post office refund on postage when there are major losses helps us stay in business, so please do communicate with your local post office and get them to document a damaged/perished/very late arrival. It is extremely costly to ship a new box to you without the post office postage fee refunded.

Generally speaking, we refund rather than replace individual chicks under the live chick arrival guarantee. In the exceedingly rare event of a total loss, it is our goal to work you back into the shiplist, though perhaps at the end of the season.

We take great pride in the health and vitality of our hatchlings, and we reserve the right to delay your targeted shipment date for unforseen circumstances that are likely to cause shipment delays such as a major weather event, extreme temps, transportation company strikes, or social unrest. We also reserve the right to cancel your order for reasons we determine to be in the best interest of our small business.

NOTE: DO NOT mix our chicks with other chicks on your premises. We cannot and will not refund or replace chicks that perish after being merged with other chicks you’ve received from other breeders or hatched from your pens. Chicks from different lines do not share the same immunity, and mixing chicks that all appear healthy and vital can and will cause death for the following reasons: (1) overcrowding and bullying of food, water, heat resources in brooders with different aged chicks, (2) debilitating disease via exposure to fecal material or bedding carrying coccidiosis or other unknown poultry diseases that our birds do not have immunity to.

Chicks even just a day or two younger placed into a brooder are not as strong as their older and stronger brood mates. The older and stronger brood mates will steal early nutrients at a critical stage of development. Don’t do it.

Merging apparently healthy chicks with other apparently healthy chicks means you are exposing both sets of chicks to things you may not know you have. For instance, your chicks may have generational immunity to the coccidiosis living in your soils, and will appear healthy with no symptoms in your brooder. Your new chicks do not have that same immunity, and deserve some time to recuperate from shipment and build strength after shipment before being exposed to what is endemic in your line via fecal droppings in the brooder— yes even a clean brooder!

Healthy chicks WILL fail to thrive for these reasons, and if you mix your chicks from multiple breeders along with your chicks you will not be able to trace where the problem came from if issues arise. Don’t do it.

Biosecurity is crucial. Keep your flocks closed, plan for new additions, quarantine new birds until you’ve established their health and vitality (whether you hatch from eggs or receive chicks), and don’t introduce new birds to your existing birds until they are strong and healthy growouts ready to graduate from the brooders.

We cannot and will not refund or replace chicks that (naturally) lacked immunity to issues in your brooders or on your land such as coccidiosis, Marek’s, respiratory disease, or other misfortune due to temperature regulation, access to feed or water. The health of the chicks and the biosecurity of their environment is your responsibility once they arrive.

10. Shipping— Juveniles

From time to time in late summer we offer grown out juveniles, usually males that have made it through multiple culls for the SOP in type and conformation. Shipping is set at a flat rate of $150 as Priority Express is calculated by box size and weight. If your location and the bird’s weight requires more I’ll communicate with you to pay the difference. We are not able to offer a live arrival guarantee on pullets or cockerels. The cost of raising a bird to the point of lay/adulthood combined with the cost of shipping (often over $150 not including the cost of adult live animal boxes) makes it impossible for us to do so. We have had excellent experiences shipping pullets and cockerels, and we have had devastating experiences shipping pullets and cockerels. Buyer beware.

11. Gift Certificates

Gift certificates are available in $50, $100, and $200. In the check out process, you will be asked to enter your email (the sender) and the recipient’s email (who receives the gift). You can choose to send the gift immediately or on a scheduled day in the future.

The recipient will receive a Crosshatch Farm email with a discount code that they will enter upon checkout.

Note: Our annual presales open in mid-December at Winter Solstice for the following year, we build our waitlist from those sales for ship dates from late March through late September. We are often sold out after the presale window, so a gift certificate purchased mid year may not be able to be used or ‘spent’ until we open sales again for the following Spring.