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Planning a Road Trip to Missouri? Be Sure to Visit Cackle Hatchery!

No trip through Missouri would be complete without a visit to Cackle Hatchery®. The facility is not merely a mail-order poultry hatchery. It also operates a year-around poultry-only products store and museum, and sponsors a popular annual chicken festival. The best time of year for you to visit depends on your purpose and on the […]

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What is NPIP? National Poultry Improvement Plan

Cackle Hatchery® and Cackle’s Chicken Breeder Farms are members of the National Poultry Improvement Plan (NPIP). But exactly what is NPIP? What is NPIP? The National Poultry Improvement Plan is a nationwide collaboration between state and federal departments of agriculture. Its purpose is to monitor member flocks and hatcheries and certify them as being free […]

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Chickens Disclosed How Our Immune System Works

Baby Chick

Until the 1960s, no one was able to determine the function of a chicken’s cloacal bursa. That year, in an attempt to find out, Ohio State University graduate student Bruce Glick performed bursectomies on some chickens. But it didn’t seem to make any perceivable difference. Unintended Consequences Then a fellow graduate student, Timothy Chang, borrowed […]

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The Coronavirus Pandemic Is Renewing Interest in Raising Backyard Chickens

The Coronavirus Pandemic is Renewing Interest in Backyard Chickens

The coronavirus pandemic has shut down businesses, closed schools, and disrupted supply chains. It has also led to a dramatic increase in chick sales.    “We are totally swamped,” says Jeff Smith of Cackle Hatchery. “It’s a little overwhelming.”    Indeed, at Cackle Hatchery alone, sales have doubled over the previous year as more and […]

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The Mother of All Chickens

A team of British avian paleontologists believe they have discovered the mother of all chickens — and ducks. They have identified the remains of the world’s oldest modern bird, dating to about 66.7 million years ago.   The Wonderchicken Researchers call the bird the Wonderchicken. Its formal name is Asteriornis maastrichtensis.   Asteriornis is combined […]

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The Pandemic May Cause Chick Shipment Delays

Every spring, Chick Season® causes a surge in shipments through the United States Postal Service. The annual increase in cargo, consisting of chicks and support accessories, creates space issues. As a result, chick shipments may get delayed in transit. Sometimes the surge in numbers of packages will slow things down to the point that chicks […]

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M.A.D. Scientist Creates Self-Replicating Robot

Chicken and Chicks

It seems (as the story goes) that a project came to the Maker of Advanced Designs (M.A.D.) Scientist that would tax the brains of the most brilliant person to overload capacity. It seems that society needed a robot. Ohhh, but not just any robot. This one had to have six special characteristics and qualities.   […]

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The COVID-19 Pandemic Triggers a Run on Chickens

Baby Chicks

The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered a run on chickens, causing people to ponder the age-old question: Which came first, the chicken or the egg?   The Columbia Missourian votes for eggs: “Panic-buying the eggs came before panic-buying the chickens this year, though people have been doing both.”   But Newsweek opts for chickens, saying, “Many […]

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Myrtle the Para Chicken and the Battle of Arnhem

Stoessis Figurine

This September marks the 75th anniversary of World War Two’s Operation Market Garden, during which a hen named Myrtle parachuted into the Battle of Arnhem with Britain’s 1st Airborne Division. Summer of 1944 was hot in Leicestershire, England, as paratroopers of Britain’s Tenth Battalion, Parachute Regiment waited for deployment. Irritable after a series of proposed […]

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The Little Red Hen that Sailed Around the World

Monique hen who sailed world book

Frenchman Guirec Soudée is sailing around the world with a crew of one — a Rhode Island Red hen named Monique. “I knew I wanted to sail alone, for sure, but I wanted a pet. I thought a chicken would be brilliant, because I could have fresh eggs at sea,” Guerec told The Guardian. “I […]

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