Durhamhens Reviews 

Brought 12 eggs meant to be fertile for hatching cost £42 plus £6.99 postage . Only 4 hatched the other 8 must have been infertile as they did absolutely nothing ! Quite shocking as they boast a high hatch rate ?? Very disappointed with this . Wouldn’t recommend and wouldn’t buy again unfortunately.

I paid £40 including delivery for 6 silkies and only 2 fully hatch and survived, one didn’t fully hatch and 3 not fertile so disappointing for grandchildren after watching and waiting . Very expensive as paid for £40 for 2 chicks. after calling Durham hens I was told they have a good success rate and it must have been our fault. If that was the case why did 2 survived? Sent evidence and pictures but they choose not to respond. Won’t be using them again

Purchased three pullets, one was laying straight away and 2 started within two weeks, all three birds very healthy. At the same time I purchased three 2 week old chics, also very healthy. Bought several other products to set them up. Arrived at the time I had booked to collect, beeped my horn and the man was very polite and helpful. I'm due to collect some more and keep an eye on their site

My husband set off for what had meant to be a 3.5 hour round trip to collect our 5 baby chicks and unfortunately on the way there he broke down. Before this we have had nothing but trouble after we had purchased the 5 chicks in getting an answer on the phone to try change our accidental booking for collection. My husband arrived, granted over an hour and a half late and saw a sign that said “beep horn for assistance” so he did and he was greeted with a very nasty rude man who said that it was a load of rubbish saying he’d broke down, tried to charge my husband FIFTY pounds for a late collection!! My husband caught some of the commotion on his camera and my husband is super apologetic and offers to pay the man something but said fifty pounds was very steep especially when we tried to call on numerous occasions as soon as he had broken down right up until he arrived late! AVOID AVOID AVOID. HORRIBLE PEOPLE. RUDE AND NOT HELPFUL AT ALL.

Poor hatch rate.

3/10 eggs hatched.
4/10 eggs infertile.
3/10 didn’t go the distance.

Been incubating for years and never had this low of a yield.

An expensive 3 chicks. Just waiting for the them to turn out to be Roo’s.

Had better luck from the supermarket.

Disappointed with only one egg hatching out of six ?? Would have expected a better percentage than that

I refer back to my last note about the appalling experience from Durham Hens Dec 2021. We should have had a lovely big flock now of more than 40 birds, but due to their birds having come to us, unbeknown by us, with Mycoplasma Galisceptum, a nasty and fatal respiratory disease, we are down to our last few. We have sent birds off to DEFRA to be tested. It’s been a really sad and distressing few years for us. NEVER PURCHASE HENS FROM THESE PEOPLE. ALL THEY CARE ABOUT IS GETTING YOUR MONEY. There are so many other lovely hen breeders out there whose premises are lovely and clean and where their hens are properly cared for - PLEASE LOOK ELSEWHERE!!!

AVOID LIKE THE PLAGUE!
I unfortunately purchased 10 of their plastic Durham Hens Chicken coops and they are such bad quality they are useless after less than 6 months use.
They are sold with a guarantee which they will not stick to and isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.
I was denied returning them under the guarantee because they had been assembled - even though it is impossible to know the design flaws without assembling them…
The issues are:
They are built of such thin bendy plastic that the frame warps leaving the roofs not being watertight or predator proof.
They have bad condensation issues which causes respiratory problems and the only way to fix it is to leave the door open all night rendering them useless.
The divider which acts as a nest box isn’t strong enough so pops off all the time.
They are generally flimsy and not long lasting.
If they were £150 you might put up with the shocking design flaws and quality but at over £400 a coop they are a complete rip off.
Furthermore the owner of the business is horrendous to deal with. He is rude, condescending and with a complete refusal to listen to what the issue is.
They made it clear the only option for me to return them for a refund (as per their guarantee) was to take them to court.
Hopefully someone with more time than me will one day do so to stop them getting away with there awful customer service and products.

recently purchased some hatching eggs from Durham hens and I'm honestly shocked with the eggs they sent me i paid £40 for eggs that were not even fertile well two out of the 12 were but they claim to have "reliable" eggs with 80-100% fertility rate, but I find that hard to believe myself and when i messaged them they basically tried blaming me but i have incubated many eggs before and have a good quality incubator that has never let me down my personal opinion would be to buy eggs elsewhere or save the disappointment and buy chicks i wish i did rather than waste my time and money i personally won't be returning here after such a disappointing experience

I ordered two new hens Friday morning for delivery, they were here just after 2pm on the same day.
I've bought all of my hens from Durham Hens and found them to be helpful. All hens have been healthy and friendly.

The sign of a good business is not how they deal with happy customers but how they deal with unhappy customers.

Durham Hens were recommended to me, I also checked out their website and saw all the business awards they had won. Unfortunately, I didn't read the reviews.

I bought 2 Barnevelder hens, described on their website as, “lovely natured”. We made a 5 hr round trip and got there earlier than our 10am appointment. I expected to be met by the owner. Instead the hens were left outside, a long way from the main house, in a makeshift open sided hut, in a cardboard box with my surname written on it.

We called the owners, but the call went to answer phone. It was purely by chance we saw the husband as he was walking across the yard.

We noticed once home that one of the hens had no feathers on her backside. We let the hens settle and then introduced them to our hen. We expected fighting. We have kept hens for many years now. What we didn’t expect was for the new hens to attack our established hen and pull out (and eat) 20 –30 of her feathers within minutes. The most aggressive of the two went into an absolute frenzy and we had to remove both after they had drawn blood.

We emailed Margaret Manchester and she replied “This is extremely unusual behaviour. If you think it's unlikely to settle, please return them to us and we will refund or swap them.”

Fair enough, although, as we are a 5 hr round trip (and £30 of fuel) away from Durham Hens this was not a viable option and we didn’t want replacement hens to be faced with exactly the same situation.

We kept the hens separated for several days, however, the most aggressive hen stayed aggressive.

We emailed again Margaret Manchester replied, “The hens were in a shed with other hens and were not aggressive when they were here. Aggression in hens is rare and is usually due to them being scared. I think this is a 'stress' reaction to the move."

I emailed back and asked, “If the chickens showed no aggression when you had them then, what do you believe was the cause of one of the chickens having no feathers on her backside when we collected her?

Margaret ignored my email.

I emailed again and asked the same question. Again no reply. I also asked,” Why did you supply us with a chicken with no feathers on her backside? And added, “We are still experiencing problems with both chickens, particularly feather pecking and eating (even though we have purchased and are using anti-peck spray). In addition to these problems we also are not able to approach the chickens. They are terrified of us. We only have to approach the run for them both to sound the alarm call. This isn’t normal behaviour for chickens who have had human interaction. These behaviours are certainly not associated with the lovely natured Barnevelder breed you advertise on your website. I would like your thoughts on this?

Again Margaret ignored me which is why I decided to leave this review.

UPDATE 06/10/2021: Margaret, I have NOT received answers to my questions so why don't you answer them here so everyone, including myself can read them.
1. If the hens showed no aggression when you had them, why did one of the hens we purchased have no feathers on her backside when we collected her from you?
2. Why would you sell us a hen with no feathers on her backside ?
3. Why, after 10 days are the hens still aggressive, still feather pecking and eating and still scared of people ?

UPDATE 12/10/2021:
I am still waiting for your answers Margaret.