POLK, Ohio — Meyer Hatchery, an industry leader offering more than 160 breeds of poultry, started in 1985 when owner Karen Meyer went to the local hardware store for a seminar on baby chicks.

“It started out as a hobby,” Meyer said. “When my kids were younger, still at home, I guess my husband thought I needed a little something extra to do (she and her husband, Dewey, also milk 450 Holsteins).”

At that seminar Meyer met Christina Uhl who, with her husband, had started a hatchery in Wooster in the 1940s. She was ready to get out of the business, so Meyer took over some of her breeding flocks.

“We bought a couple of incubators from her and hatched about three different breeds,” she said. “From there we added a couple breeds. Then we decided to move forward and bought some new equipment, put up a new building in 1999.”

The company added a few employees and connected with people who needed larger quantities of baby chicks, Meyer said. She found if she gave people what they wanted, the business could definitely grow.

“People wanted different breeds, so we added those on,” she said. “A young man who started working for us, Ben Brushaber, was really interested in making things happen in the office – you could call him a general manager – and we got more automated, advertised further and the business has grown since then.”

The chicks start hatching in February and hatch weekly through the second week of November, Meyer said. Throughout the year she also offers started pullets, which are young hens about 16 weeks of age. The pullets are started in contract grower houses, Meyer said. Those growers raise from 5,000-12,000 pullets at a time.

The hatchery purchases some of the eggs but also has its own breeder flocks on six different farms for most of the breeds.

“We just built a new breeder house last fall on a farm we have about a mile from here, and it holds about 3,000 of our breeders, 27 different breeds,” she said. “We have individual pens for those 27 different breeds on that farm.”

Also, keeping a few chickens in the backyard has become popular and many people who do that flock to Meyer Hatchery for chicks. “That is definitely a big deal,” Meyer said. “We send quite a lot of small orders out to those people.”

Just a few years ago the standard small order was 25 chicks and they were shipped in a box approved by the post office. The chicks were warm and comfortable in the winter. Then more requests began to come in for smaller orders; four or five, 10 at the most.

“We came up with different ideas; we still use that same box, we just put more bedding in it and a heat pack when needed, tape up the holes a little more, to make the small quantities of birds more comfortable,” she said. “We have excelled in that as far as being probably one of the first hatcheries to ship a small quantity of as little as three baby chicks.

“I would have to say that the reason we’re successful here is because we have good employees. I always like to hire people that enjoy doing the kind of work that we do here. Everybody does their part and that is what makes everything go so well for us.”

For more information visit www.meyerhatchery.com or phone 888-568-9755.