A Little Something About Us
Metzer Farms is a waterfowl hatchery supplying day-old ducklings and goslings to customers throughout the United States and Canada. The vast majority of birds are mailed through the US Postal Service. We will ship as few as two for an individual wanting a few ducks for their backyard to 5,000 ducklings to a commercial grower. We have over 35 breeds of ducks and geese from which to choose. Some breeds are just pretty, some are excellent egg layers and one, our French Grimaud Pekin, is an excellent meat producer.
Not only do we ship birds to individual backyard hobbyists but to commercial growers and feed stores throughout the nation. We also drop ship many birds directly to the customers of other hatcheries that do not have waterfowl breeders themselves.
The Beginnings
Metzer Farms was started in 1972 by Olin Metzer, John’s father, when he began using ducks to control the snails in his sheep pastures. As time went by, he began selling ducklings to local feed stores and duck eggs to the local Asian market. John came back to the farm in 1978 after graduating from the University of California, Davis to turn his father's hobby into a business. The farm grew each year as new products were added: more breeds of ducks, geese, fresh duck eggs, salted duck eggs, blown eggs and guineas. During this time John and his wife Sharon had three children, Janelle, Marc and Erin that worked on the farm. After graduating from Cal Poly State University, San Luis Obispo, Marc worked abroad in Korea and then locally in the fresh vegetable industry before joining the business in 2014.
What's Happening Nowadays
Another poultry farm was purchased in Hollister, California in 2017. This enabled us to increase our sales of day old birds and start selling fresh duck eggs to retail and food service outlets in the western US through our fresh egg brand name, Olinday Farms. Olinday was selected by combining our patriarch’s first name and part of our fresh duck egg tagline, The All Day Egg.
Our most recent expansion was building a 21,000 square foot hatchery in Memphis, Tennessee. Almost all birds mailed in the US are transported by FedEx planes to Memphis, sorted and then shipped back out to the destination airport where they are handed back to the USPS. We reasoned that by hatching and shipping in Memphis we would have quicker service, lower mortality and a greatly reduced postage bill. Our first hatch was in February of this year and our expectations are we will be shipping about 80% of our birds from Memphis and 20% from Gonzales. We are working with Amish farmers in Tennessee that use our breeders to produce hatching eggs for our Memphis hatchery.
We utilize the best genetics available and raise our breeders in a more traditional system. Our replacement duck and goose breeders are on pasture as much as possible during rearing. We feel this provides them a maximum amount of exercise and fresh air. All of our growing and layer buildings are open sided and all birds are on the floor - cages are never used.
Our Plans in the Future
Metzer Farms plans to continue to extend our breed offering to a greater variety of poultry. We continually strive for an environmentally friendly approach on our farm. We have installed solar panels on our newest grower building that will produce 75% of our farm and hatchery's electrical needs and we use our six bicycles for personal transportation around the farm.
Bottom Line
Metzer Farms has been producing the finest ducklings and goslings since 1978. We are family owned and operated and control every aspect of the business from breeding to shipping to assure the highest quality birds and finest service available. We attempt to be innovative in our production methods and customer oriented in our marketing. We focus on growth, innovation and customer service. We continually add new breeds, technology and ways to improve our delivery of healthy day-old waterfowl to customers throughout North America.