Feb. 4, 2010 - What started in 1937, with an initial investment of $500, has grown to be the largest distributor of backyard poultry in the United States.
Ideal Poultry, located in Cameron, in Milam County, sets and hatches more than 5.4 million eggs a year and ships the chicks to backyard poultry producers, retail customers and feed stores throughout the United States, Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico.
Janet Fuchs Crouch, part of a third generation of the Fuchs family to own and operate the business, said the company has survived and expanded as other similar operations faltered or went out of business.
"There are fewer and fewer of us doing this," she said. "Seems like everybody has been shutting down, but we've maintained a good, solid customer base. We hatch every week of the year. We skipped a week between Christmas and New Year's one year just because of the way those dates fell on the calendar, but we haven't missed a week other than that."
Ideal ships its chickens, ducks, geese, guineas, turkeys and bantams 52 weeks a year. Some of the more exotic breeds, like chukkars, are drop-shipped from other locations but can be ordered through Ideal. The most popular breeds of chickens the company sells are the Ideal 236, Production Red and Rhode Island Reds. The company also provides chicks for 4-H projects. Shipments go out four days a week during the spring months and twice a week the rest of the year.
"It's a seasonal business," Fuchs said. "People just naturally start thinking about gardening and other outdoor activities as spring approaches, and that's when we get probably half of our business."
Leo and Theo Fuchs started the business near Pettibone, about seven miles from Cameron, in 1937, but moved into Cameron the following year. The Ideal Farm, where breeding stock is raised for the business, is still located in Pettibone. Monroe Fuchs, Leo's son, threw himself into the business at an early age. By the time he was 13, he had completed a course at Texas A&M University (Texas A&M College in those days) that certified him as a selecting agent and qualified him to blood-test chickens for pullorum disease and typhoid.
Monroe Fuchs, who is Janet's father, attended TAMU and earned a bachelor's and master's degree in poultry husbandry, with an emphasis on poultry breeding. After serving three years in the United States Air Force, he entered the family business full-time in 1960. There were more than 100 family-owned breeding farms in the United States at that time, including 30 non-commercial hatcheries in Texas.
In addition to Janet, her sister Teri and brother Gary own and operate the business now, along with help from a fourth-generation that includes Gary's oldest son, Steven.
"It's always been a family operation and we hope it always will be," Janet said.
While poultry producers are a large part of their customer base, Ideal sells chicks wholesale to feed stores -- especially the "mom and pop" stores. They also sell to chains like Atwoods Ranch and Home stores and Callahan's General Store in Austin. They sell through their website at www.ideal-poultry.com and run frequent Internet specials based on what's available.
"It used to be that if we had too many of one thing, we'd get on the phone and hustle people, but now we can run specials on the Internet, and people usually take advantage of that," Janet said. "We get everything out the door every week. That's my dad's favorite saying: 'The floor is clean,' which means we moved everything out the door."
Ideal offers more than 200 breeds, but the core of their business has remained consistent, she said, though occasionally one breed or another will become the "flavor of the month" among producers and consumers.
"Ten or 15 years ago, there was a report in the American Medical Journal that said the eggs produced by the Americana breed was lower in cholesterol," she said. "For a while there, we could not produce enough Americanas to keep up with the demand. They produce a red to bluish-green egg, which some people like, but their eggs aren't lower in cholesterol than other breeds, or if they are, you don't hear about it anymore."
Monroe Fuchs established the Leo and Edna Fuchs Endowed Scholarship in Poultry Sciences at TAMU, which was first awarded in 1991. In 2003, Monroe's children established the Monroe H. Fuchs '56 Endowed Scholarship in Poultry Science. The scholarships are intended to pay a student's tuition for a year.
The company is expanding and revamping part of its building in Cameron this year, but Janet said the company now is about where it needs to be.
"The goal is to keep everything on a level playing field," she said. "If we have trouble with a breed, we will drop it, but other than that, we want to keep providing a high level of service for our customers."
