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 2024 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.

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

Checking out on this site during 2024 presales reserves a hatch date for your order in 2024, between late March and late October. When you check out and receive a receipt showing your completed sale you are “on the list.”

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. 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. 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.

Note: Sales for 2024 open Dec 21. In 2023 we sold out in about a week, then opened for a short additional sales run in February and again in July, where everyone experienced about a three month wait. With a more sophisticated tool for predicting weekly hatch rates in place this year, it is likely that we will keep the portal open until we reach capacity for the year. Your waitlist time from check-out to shipment could be between 3 months and 9 months.

4. Order Refunds & Delaying a Shipment

We processed a number of refunds in 2023, one was an order we cancelled and refunded by our choice and the remaining were requests from customers due to changing family circumstances, natural disasters, predator issues, relocation, health, surgeries, etc.

Full 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) 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 we will offer you a full refund.

5. Straight Run Policy/No Rooster Refunds or Replacements

Crosshatch Farm offers primarily straight run chicks. 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.

If you require females only, we recommend you 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, some find success with homesteaders who respond to Craigslist area ads for free dual purpose roosters to process as food.

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.

One dozen: We double box a dozen (14-pack or 12 +2), which is one order of rainbow eggs or two half dozen orders and ship Priority. If you order four half dozen selections for 24 eggs total you will receive a single boxed foam shipper in a large flat rate box through Priority Express. If you wish to purchase more you’ll need to check out as multiple purchases, and be prepared to receive and incubate eggs in separate batches. In Spring of 2023 Crosshatch Farm hatching egg shipping charges are a flat rate of $55.

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 (this happened three times in 2023!), document this with postal workers at the time of pickup in order to file a claim. In my experience, claims are rarely successful. We are unable to replace or refund damaged eggs beyond any postal refund, as per the buyer-beware policy above.

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 2024, Crosshatch Farm allows you to choose your shipping preference of Priority ($65) or Priority Express ($100), in accordance with USPS policy. Priority-Live Animal-Day Old Poultry tends to arrive next day, same as Priority Express Live Animal-Day Old Poultry. The key difference is that Priority Express is carried by third party handlers between post offices and airports in small vans, whereas Priority is handled by USPS staff in normal USPS mail trucks. Where extreme distance or extreme temperatures (heat or cold) are an issue, choose Priority Express for the quicker transit in a passenger van. Both shipping methods will usually get on a Fed Ex plane and depart Ohio the night we ship them. Every now and then there is no room on the departing plane (dry ice onboard sometimes requires live animals to disembark) and if it takes an extra day the chicks are just fine. (Ask your local post office what time the Express truck usually comes in, and whether they’ve seen any issues with third party carriers since the contracts were changed mid 2023— they usually know the drivers by name and can help you decide which to choose!)

9. Live Arrival Guarantee

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.

Generally speaking, we refund rather than replace documented 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.

PLEASE DO NOT mix chicks with other chicks on your premises. We cannot and will not refund or replace chicks that perish after being merged with other chicks that may cause death due to crowding of different ages, vaccination status, exposure to fecal material, or disease.

PLEASE DO NOT seek a refund for chicks that died in your care after 24 hours. 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, or access to feed or water. The health of the chicks and their environment is your responsibility.

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.

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 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.