Mortality rates 2016

5fowl

Chirping
10 Years
Oct 18, 2013
58
2
91
Is anyone else having higher than usual mortality rates with their mail order chicks this year??
Lost 3 out of ten earlier from a breeder and now I have lost 5 out of 11 from hatchery mail order chicks. All of my home hatched chicks have survived well in the same brooder.
Just curious about others' luck this year after AI outbreak.
 
I've heard from several people who ship birds that they've been having a lot of trouble wit USPS this year, resulting in delays getting the birds to their destination, rough handling of the boxes, extreme temperature exposures, etc..
 
I've heard from several people who ship birds that they've been having a lot of trouble wit USPS this year, resulting in delays getting the birds to their destination, rough handling of the boxes, extreme temperature exposures, etc..
Hatchery birds or private individuals? Hatchery chicks, certified to be day olds, can be sent 2 day USPS priority. Those stay in USPS hands. Private individuals can only send birds via Express though that does not always mean overnight. Now in some US locations, like here in the northeast, it is FedEx that actually handles the Express shipping of poultry between USPS sorting facilities. While they are not supposed to bump live shipments for dry ice Mon-Wed it does happen. So delays are not always the fault of the USPS if private shipping is involved.
 
Hatchery birds or private individuals? Hatchery chicks, certified to be day olds, can be sent 2 day USPS priority. Those stay in USPS hands. Private individuals can only send birds via Express though that does not always mean overnight. Now in some US locations, like here in the northeast, it is FedEx that actually handles the Express shipping of poultry between USPS sorting facilities. While they are not supposed to bump live shipments for dry ice Mon-Wed it does happen. So delays are not always the fault of the USPS if private shipping is involved.


But the consumer pays for the shipping service through the USPS...it is their ultimate responsibility to ensure that the packages arrive as was indicated to the customer. If they have to subcontract out the work, then they have to hold the subcontractor to standards, not the consumer.

In any case, I have heard it from three sources and one was a large hatchery, one was a small hatchery (not sure if considered private), and one was an individual. One was midwest, one was west coast, one was southeast. All indicated that they had been having issues just this year, where they hadn't previously. Not sure what has changed. :idunno
 
Holy! I feel so fortunate now... I was seriously worried with this being my first time and having not known that Canada Post was how you went about getting chicks till we did it... We didn't lose any of the 25 ordered and in fact got a freebie so had 26. I wonder if the larger order = higher survival rate because of the ability to cohabitate and warm each other?
 
But the consumer pays for the shipping service through the USPS...it is their ultimate responsibility to ensure that the packages arrive as was indicated to the customer. If they have to subcontract out the work, then they have to hold the subcontractor to standards, not the consumer.
The USPS could do that, though it would probably eliminate all but hatchery shipments of baby poultry. I will say I no longer ship juveniles or adults due to the problems with Fedex. They have bumped some of my birds resulting them in arriving a full day late. The final straw was a large shipment to WA state. Technically they arrived 6 hours late, but total trip time was less than 40 hours which should have been fine. Ten of the 11 were DOA, with the last clinging to life. All we can figure is they were sent on a flight with dry ice. Of course it had to be the shipment of extremely rare Faverolles I sent out.

Consumers are between a rock and a hard place on this problem.
 
The USPS could do that, though it would probably eliminate all but hatchery shipments of baby poultry. I will say I no longer ship juveniles or adults due to the problems with Fedex.  They have bumped some of my birds resulting them in arriving a full day late. The final straw was a large shipment to WA state. Technically they arrived 6 hours late, but total trip time was less than 40 hours which should have been fine. Ten of the 11 were DOA, with the last clinging to life. All we can figure is they were sent on a flight with dry ice. Of course it had to be the shipment of extremely rare Faverolles I sent out.

Consumers are between a rock and a hard place on this problem.


One of my orders of day-olds arrived five days after being shipped. They were not only dead, but rotting. And stuck to the inside of the lid, indicating the box had been upside-down at some point. It was awful. The package traveled speedily after it left Sacramento, but according to tracking, sat in Sacramento for three days. I guess it got "bumped"?
 
One of my orders of day-olds arrived five days after being shipped. They were not only dead, but rotting. And stuck to the inside of the lid, indicating the box had been upside-down at some point. It was awful. The package traveled speedily after it left Sacramento, but according to tracking, sat in Sacramento for three days. I guess it got "bumped"?


That is horrific! Do they have a good complaints line????-- I can't even imagine-- I would have been devastated.
 
Sorry to hear about the bad luck with shipping. Both of my shipments came within 48hrs. So that shouldn't have been a factor beyond the normal stress that comes with being shipped. Maybe I'm just having bad luck.
 
On a happy note, my order of forty chicks from Cackle hatchery, sent in cold weather in early April to M
ichigan, arrived safely two days later, at the post office and called at 7am, totaling 47 chicks. Wonderful. One month later, all alive and well. Mary
 

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