A good sultan is hard to find. Since the 1550s, the title has belonged to Muslim sovereigns, and the tradition has carried through the centuries into the present day. Though they have largely become individuals of lore, there still exist certain areas in the Middle East and Africa where the honorific endures. The news and other worldly outlets are hard pressed to find stories of them. Look hard enough, and you will. 

Sultan chickens are quite similar to sultan humans: a challenge to find. Perhaps one of the reasons for this is their role: they are almost completely owned as show chickens. Many chicken breeds are layers, good as broilers, or even dual-purpose, which is a blend of both uses. Any certified breed can also be a show chicken, strutting its stuff of the catwalk (roostwalk?), but Sultan are pretty much limited to the latter.

These incredible birds look as if they have been bred specifically for the show ring. Their heads are completely covered in feathers in such a way that they poof; it’s like a permanent pompadour rising up over their eyes and sometimes foofing up into a ball or collapsing down their faces, like a part in a willow tree. The special feathering culminates in a wonderful spread of tail feathers and down their legs.

Due to being a smaller breed, Sultan Chickens aren’t ideal for meat and are poor layers, offering a bounty of between 50 and 70 eggs per year. Besides their splendid appearances, one of their main strengths is their friendly and affable personalities. If you’re looking for a lovely bird to add to your family, look no further than a Sultan Chicken! 

To aid in your quest for one, we’ve compiled a list of 9** hatcheries that offer Sultan Chickens for you. 

** And a bonus of sorts. 

1. Murray McMurray Hatchery

Average Straight-Run Sultan Chicken Price: $6.26

Murray McMurray started his chicken business in 1917. As a banker, he sold his chicks to locals through the bank and by 1919, he had developed his own stock of chickens. During the Great Depression, he devoted himself to chickens full time. Since then, Murray McMurray Hatchery has developed into one of the largest chick hatcheries in the country. They sell more than just chickens, with ducks, geese, guineas, turkeys, other fowl and game birds all in the catalogue.

Advantages:

  • Males are extremely inexpensive.
  • Bulk discounts available.
  • Excellent breed availability. 

Disadvantages:

  • Minimum order of six birds at a time.

2.California Hatchery

Average Straight-Run Sultan Chicken Price: $6.99

Nestled in the hills outside of Los Angeles, California Hatchery is making a name for themselves as an online resource for chickens, ducks, and goslings. They are proud to offer day-old ducklings nearly every day of the year! This is great for their backyard duck enthusiasts. While availability of their chickens isn’t quite as high as their ducks, they do ensure that their chicks can be shipped anywhere in the USA, which is certainly a plus for chicken enthusiasts! 

Advantages

  • Low minimum shipping numbers which can be mixed and matched. 
  • Safe arrival guarantee for replacement or reimbursement. 
  • Reasonable shipping costs. 

Disadvantages

  • Optional Marek’s vaccination is quite expensive. 
  • Service fee on any cancellations shorter than a fortnight. 

3. Meyer Hatchery

Average Straight-Run Sultan Chicken Price: $4.35

Meyer Hatchery is based in Polk, Ohio, and boasts itself as the “premier Poultry Source.” Priding itself on customer service and availability, Meyer Hatchery provides a variety of chicken breeds to meet customer demands for color and diversity. They welcome mixing and matching of breeds of the same poultry type to meet minimum order requirement for safe shipping. To help with orders, they have a calendar of hatchings. 

Meyer has a variety of means of communication, including multiple phone numbers, fax, and email. They also run a blog that covers everything from breeds to plant pairing with chickens, feed, cooking recipes, fowl entertainment, and survival tips.

Advantages

  • Significant discounts if buying male chickens.
  • Accepts checks and credit cards.
  • Guarantees gender of chicks either through refund or store credit.
  • Optional vaccination.
  • Member of the National Poultry Improvement Plan (NPIP), and provide NPIP VS Form 9-3 free of charge. 
  • Offer orders of over 100 chicks.

Disadvantages

  • Limited store hours that change with the season.

4. Cackle Hatchery

Average Straight-Run Sultan Chicken Price: $3.50

Cackle Hatchery proudly boasts that they have been hatching and shipping since 1936. A third-generation hatchery based in Missouri, their mission is to provide customers with quality poultry for showing, meat, enjoyment, and eggs. They ship throughout the USA, including Alaska, Puerto Rico, and Hawaii. They offer nearly 200 different types of chickens at all stages. 

Cackle also offers many other kinds of poultry including ducks, water fowl, game birds, turkeys, and other fowl. They are also a good source for supplies and book. 

Advantages 

  • Discounts if you buy male chicks.
  • Vaccinations available.
  • Only need 3 birds to ship (or just one for male birds).

Disadvantages 

  • Limited availability. 
  • Sold as baby chicks only.

5. Stromberg’s

Average Straight-Run Sultan Chicken Price: $4.85

Stromberg’s Chicks and Game Birds Unlimited has quite the name! It is appropriate, because they have a selection of birds to match the ambition of their name, with over 200 breeds available to their customers. This impressive family business got its start when Ernest and Josephine Stromberg brought 100 White Leghorn chicks to supplement the family income. Whatever they did must have worked wonders, because 99 years later (as of 2020), they are still going strong! In addition to livestock, Stromberg’s Publishing Company offers a number of books on poultry, poultry-related subjects, and myriad educational bulletins, all of which help make Stromberg’s an excellent source of all your fowl needs. 

The first farm was located in Doge, Iowa, but have since moved their headquarters to Hackensack, Minnesota. Including Hackensack, they ship from all locations:  Woodland, CA; Wilkes-Barre, PA; Marshall, TX; Winter Haven, FL, and Clarkson, KY.

Advantages

  • 13% discount offered on orders of 30 or more!
  • Free shipping on orders of $100 or more. 
  • Chicks are shipped immediately upon hatching. 

Disadvantages

  • Minimum orders of 5 chicks. 
  • Alaska residents suffer additional shipping costs and no live bird guarantee on orders shipped there.

6. My Pet Chicken

Average Straight-Run Sultan Chicken Price: $4.35

My Pet Chicken got started in 2005 by Traci Torres and her husband, Derek Sasaki, two novices to the chicken world who had a dream to help other novices in their farmers’ goals. To do this, the put free how-to information on the web and offered some unique products and services. 

The website launched in 2005 and in 2006, their flock had grown to the point to where they started offering chicks for sale from their headquarters in Monroe, CT. The site has been mentioned in another of publications, and serves tens of millions of page views per year.

Advantages 

  • Offers Marek’s vaccinations on all standard chicks at the click of a button.
  • Consistent hours of operation. 
  • A good source for questions about ordering chickens, chicken care, and about raising chickens.
  • Full refund for any bird that has been incorrectly sexed. 

Disadvantages 

  • Limited availability.
  • Does not have a storefront.

7. The Chick Hatchery

Average Straight-Run Sultan Chicken Price: $4.10

The Chick hatchery is Michigan’s “premier source for superior quality poultry.” With a creed that revolves around the sharing and joy of raising chickens, they operate in no-kill facilities. They raise their chickens humanely, with any unsold chicks going to Amish farms. Much of the experience of raising chickens is the awareness of the individual chicken and the relationship between food and our own health.

Advantages

  • Ships a minimum of 3 of each sex.
  • All poultry guaranteed live delivery.
  • Offers discounts on orders of larger quantities of birds. 

Disadvantages

  • Limited availability – February to September.
  • Does not ship to Hawaii or outside the USA.

8. Ideal Poultry  

Average Straight-Run Sultan Chicken Price: $3.48

From Texas to your home, Ideal Poultry has been providing chicken owners with stock since 1937! At Ideal, their excellent customer service agents seek to provide their clients with everything they might want, from exceptional birds, to smooth and safe shipping, to even supplying answers to any and all question that might be raised about their fantastic fowls! They ship 5 million chicks annually! And that doesn’t even include the variety of non-chicken birds available. 

Advantages

  • Can ship orders exceeding 100 chicks!
  • Easy-access breed availability calendars on the web pages for each breed. 

Disadvantages

  • Expensive optional Marek’s Vaccinations. 
  • No direct access to shipping information on their website.

9. Chickens for Backyards

Average Straight-Run Sultan Chicken Price: $4.25

Chickens for Backyards is an online poultry store that ships orders from Phillipsburg, MO. It sells over 100 breeds of day-old chicks, ducks, geese, turkeys, and guineas with orders as low as three fowl. They have a mix and match option for all breeds, which can be shipped all in the same order. 

Advantages 

  • Orders can be cancelled up to 24 hours before shipping. 
  • Free shipping on supplies.
  • Comprehensive FAQ that covers a range of questions from care, feed, shipping, sexing, local laws relating to chicken farming, and terms.

Disadvantages 

  • Offer a 90% sexing guarantee, and will refund 90% of the purchase price once the 90% guarantee is surpassed. 

10. Welp Hatchery

** Please note that while Welp does offer Sultan Chickens, they are only sold in assorted runs along with a number of other Chicken breeds. ***

Average Straight-Run Feather Legged Assorted Bantam Chicken Price: $3.02

Average Straight-Run Crested and Polish Assorted Bantam Chicken Price: $3.43

Located in Bancroft, IA, Welp Hatchery was founded way back in 1929 by Joseph H. Welp. While their specialty is Cornish Rock Broilers, they have diversified to include a wide range of chicken breeds. To simplify their orders, they have a catalogue available for viewing or downloading. From their shipping points in Iowa, New Mexico, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, this hatchery truly has a wide reach. 

Advantages 

  • Can choose the breeding date on the product page. 
  • Marek’s immunization is a one-click process.
  • Minimum orders of 5.
  • Wintertime availability for select breeds.

Disadvantages 

  • Maximum orders of 25.
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Maat van Uitert is a backyard chicken and sustainable living expert. She is also the author of Chickens: Naturally Raising A Sustainable Flock, which was a best seller in it’s Amazon category.  Maat has been featured on NBC, CBS, AOL Finance, Community Chickens, the Huffington Post, Chickens magazine, Backyard Poultry, and Countryside Magazine. She lives on her farm in Southeast Missouri with her husband, two children, and about a million chickens and ducks. You can follow Maat on Facebook here and Instagram here.

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