Terms and Polices
Terms and Policies- Read Before Purchasing. We only ship hatching eggs and chicks within the state of CA.
Local Pickup preferred. We are in Fresno, CA. We only ship hatching eggs and chicks within the state of California, but Elector PSP, Safeguard Aquasol, and stickers can be shipped anywhere in the lower 48 states. WE WILL NOT STOCK JUVENILES OR OLDER BIRDS THIS YEAR. Any available older birds will be posted on our Facebook and/or Instagram and sold on a first come, first served basis. We will NOT hold birds for anyone unless you are in the car, on the way to pick them up. Read these terms in their entirety. If you message, text, or call me with questions that have been answered here or on our website, your messages will be ignored. We simply do not have the time to keep repeating ourselves and answering the same questions over and over because you didn’t take the time to read our terms.
All orders must be made via our website. ALL ORDERS FOR HATCHING EGGS AND/OR CHICKS ARE PREORDERS ONLY. Placing an order reserves your place in line. Orders must be paid in full at the time of purchase. Hatching and collecting eggs depends on the weather, fertility, and when hens lay. We cannot guarantee a specific date, only a spot in line. We will not allow anyone to jump the line. No exceptions. Be prepared to receive your order at any time during the season. You will be contacted when your order is next up in line. If you cannot take your hatching eggs or chicks for any reason when your order is up, you will be moved to the next hatch date. We will allow up to 3 reschedules, after which, the amount paid and the items in the order are considered forfeit. No refunds. We have a limited number of hatching eggs and chicks each year. When you reserve eggs or chicks, you are keeping others from being able to place their order. All chicks for pickup must be picked up within 3 days of hatch. No exceptions. If they are not picked up within 3 days of the hatch date, your order and all amounts paid are considered forfeit. No refunds.
We are not responsible for how USPS handles the eggs/chicks, and the buyer takes full responsibility for any chicks and/or eggs that are lost in the mail, damaged, or arrive late. The buyer assumes all responsibility for filing an insurance claim with USPS to be reimbursed for their losses. We only issue refunds if we cannot fulfill your order by the end of the 2025 season. Hatching eggs are sold in either 1/2 dozen or 1 dozen. We only ship within the state of California. If you have a shipping address that is outside of California, your order will be cancelled. If you'd like to have your hatching eggs or chicks shipped, please add the appropriate shipping item (Chick Shipping or Hatching Egg Shipping) at checkout. There is a minimum of 6 chicks for shipping and a maximum of 12. If you are ordering more than 12 chicks to be shipped, please contact us for a shipping quote ahead of placing an order. Otherwise, choose "Pickup" to pick up locally. When your order is up next in line, you will be contacted with a pickup date.
We cannot guarantee the fertilization or hatch rate of any eggs. We test hatch continuously from all our breeding pens, including before offering any hatching eggs for sale. We get excellent hatch rates from our pens in our GQF Sportsman Incubator. We do not sell any hatching eggs from pens that have less than 75% fertilization rate. Your hatch rate from our eggs can be anywhere from zero to 100% no matter if the eggs are shipped or not, as hatching is dependent on the type of incubator, hatcher or broody hen used, the ambient temperature and humidity, and handling by the person doing the hatching. If you have eggs shipped, we cannot control what the post office does with the eggs after they have been dropped off at the USPS counter. Rough handling, x-ray, and shaking of the package can cause eggs to break or kill the embryo, rendering it unviable. By purchasing eggs from us, you acknowledge that you have read and understand these facts and accept the risk that you may get a great hatch or none at all. No refunds will be given for poor hatch rates. If you want live chicks, purchase live chicks. We usually send extras just in case, but if your shipment of eggs arrives with broken eggs beyond the number of extras, it is up to you to file an insurance claim with USPS. Eggs are shipped via USPS Priority Mail 2-3 days ($40) or USPS Priority Mail Express 1-2 days ($70) in a custom foam egg shipper insert with the included $100 of insurance. We will do our best to pack the eggs well and will only send eggs that we would set in our own incubator. There are NO refunds or returns for shipped eggs for damage, fertility issues, non-development, or non-hatch. If you do not agree to take on these risks, do NOT purchase from us. Please make yourself familiar with hatching shipped eggs as they should be handled differently from your own eggs or eggs that were picked up locally. As of January 2025, USPS has implemented an additional fee of $15 on all perishable goods and live animals. This new fee is included in the cost of shipping. Of note, USPS does NOT guarantee that Priority Mail packages will arrive on time. Currently, shipments have had delays of up to 5 days. USPS does offer a money back guarantee on Express packages but it still does not mean that they will arrive on time.
All shipped chick and egg orders will be marked “Hold for pickup” with your phone number. The post office will call you when they arrive at your local post office. You must plan to be available to pick them up on that day. Most shipments will arrive within 1-3 days. Failure to pick up chicks or eggs from the post office within 3 hours after they have arrived at your local post office or as soon as the post office opens if the chicks or eggs arrive outside business hours, will void all guarantees.
As always, hatching eggs and chicks are available for local pickup and this is the recommended way to purchase from us. Chick shipping includes postage, boxing, Grogel, extra feed, a nonslip nesting pad underfoot, and heat packs as needed. Chicks are ONLY sent USPS Priority Mail Express ($100) for up to 12 chicks. If you order more than 12 chicks, you must place a separate order for every 12 chicks. USPS will not ship live chicks using regular Priority Mail. As with eggs, we cannot guarantee the health of chicks or birds once they have left our property. Chicks are fragile and as such, we recommend that you do your research on chick care before purchasing chicks from anywhere, including our homestead. It is normal to lose up to 10% of chicks within the first few weeks of life. We carefully inspect every chick before they are sold but are not responsible for how you brood them. As of April 28, 2025, we NO LONGER guarantee live arrival of the number of chicks you ordered due to the constant unreliability of USPS. We are tired of dealing with USPS delays and scammers who are just trying to get refunds for chicks that arrive perfectly healthy. Again, we do NOT guarantee live arrival of chicks. We are a small farm and are not set up to absorb the costs of replacing chicks lost through the mail. If you do not agree to take this risk, please do NOT purchase from our homestead. If chicks perish during shipping, it is the responsibility of the buyer to file a claim with USPS to recoup losses. Our homestead is NOT responsible for anything that happens once they chicks have been dropped off at the post office. We recommend local pickup if at all feasible. There are no returns, refunds, or cancellation on chicks. Please have your brooder, chick feed, and water ready to go before bringing chicks home. Shipping and handling on anything purchased from our homestead are never refundable for any reason.
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Chick sexing is not an exact science. For our breeds that are sexable at hatch, we guarantee that you will receive the correct sex of chick ordered. All other chicks that are not labelled as auto-sexing or sex-linked, are always sold as straight run (unknown sex) and we make no guarantees on the sex of the chicks. Prices reflect the straight run sale of these chicks. You may get all males, all females, or a 50/50 mix. We do not know and cannot sex these breeds. We do not accept roosters back due to biosecurity measures but can help you to rehome them if needed.
We guarantee that the chicks will be of the breed that you ordered. However, we cannot guarantee that any of them will grow up to be show quality, meet the breed standard, or lay the exact desired egg color. There are always variations in every breed and recessive or undesirable traits that may take many generations to show up. There can also be dozens of genes that control each individual trait, like egg color. We are constantly culling and breeding the best of each generation, but we have never seen a perfect specimen of any chicken. They all have flaws. We can make an educated guess on the egg color that a pullet will most likely lay but we can never guarantee 100% that the pullet will grow to lay an exact color. Even two full sibling hens from the same clutch can lay different colors. It is impossible to control all variables of egg color. For example, we only hatch the darkest eggs from our Black Copper Marans dark egg pen. Pullets from these hatches will most likely also lay a dark egg. However, we can never guarantee that they will. Over 2 dozen different genes control egg color. There can be mutations as well as genetics that we cannot identify by looking at a bird. Eggs also change drastically in color depending on the age of the bird and where they are in their laying cycle. Every breeding pen is a work in progress and the work never ends.
Elector PSP, Safeguard Aquasol, and chicken stickers have no wait time. Orders of these items ship separately from chicks and hatching eggs. Most orders will be available for pickup or shipped within 1-2 days. Please add the correct shipping for these items in checkout. Elector PSP and Safeguard Aquasol are shipped using medium sized padded envelopes and can be shipped via USPS Ground (3-5 days) for $6 or USPS Priority Mail (2-3 days) for $11. We can ship these two items anywhere in the lower 48 states. Chicken stickers must be purchased on a separate order by themselves and are shipped for free via USPS first class mail anywhere in the United States. All hatching eggs, chicks, stickers, and treatments ship separately and each will incur a shipping fee.
We do not price match. To ask a small farmer to match the prices of mass produced, inhumanely treated chickens is ridiculous. If you’re looking just for eggs and want the cheapest chicks regardless of how the birds are treated, please purchase from the large commercial hatcheries. Their birds will lay lots of eggs for you. Our breeding birds have been carefully curated from the top breeders in the country, hatched, grown out, and selectively bred over many, many years. Some are rare, imported breeds that you may not find anywhere else in California. We do not gas, incinerate, or crush rooster chicks alive as is normal practice for big hatcheries. We often give rooster chicks away to immigrant families to raise for meat or raise them to butchering weight out of our own pockets and then donate the meat or roosters to needy families. All birds are fed a good, quality, locally milled feed. You’re not paying for a chick or eggs, you’re paying for years of work, expertise, and supporting sustainable, humane practices. We care more than you know about the health, well-being, and eggs the chickens you purchase from us will grow to lay. They are the culmination of years of hard work and planning.
Do NOT purchase eggs, chicks, or chickens from us if you do not agree with all of these policies. If you purchase eggs, chicks, or any chicken from us here at Ellison Family Homestead, you acknowledge that you understand and accept all the terms outlined in our policies. If you have any questions, please contact us first via email at ellisonfamilyhomestead@gmail.com or via FB messenger.