Hoovers canceling orders and forcing customers to the end of the line

[wisecane]

Be glad they didn't ship.

I ordered 15 Rudd Rangers and 5 Black Jersey Giants in early January.

Thursday morning I received an email (12:06 AM) stating that they had shipped on Wednesday.

They finally arrived at my local PO box (West Palm Beach, FL) Saturday morning. It looked like they were only coming from Decatur, Ga. and spent a couple days in ATL.

However, there were only 10 Rudd Rangers packed. Of those four were DOA. One of those was outside the foam blocker.

I lost a Black Jersey Giant yesterday afternoon and another Rudd Ranger this morning. I have another RR I'm watching. Could be I just caught it at naptime. The remaining eight seem to be currently running around like maniacs, so that is good. But the RR seemed good this AM as well.

I'm pretty sick as this is my first time trying baby chicks and yeah "they're just chicks", but I feel personally responsible to do all I know to do for the animals in my charge while I have them.

Wow! I am having a similar experience.

Ordered 10 Calico Princess and 5 Sapphire olive-eggers that were supposed to ship 1-31.

They finally arrived on Saturday in central FL (Lake Wales).

Post Office didn't call but text alerts saved me.

Got the birds at 10 AM.

Have already had 2 of each variety die (one nearly DOA, only made it an hour or so).

The really crappy thing is they won't replace any less than a 15 bird loss.

I'm going to see if TSC will let me order some through them.

Good luck.

 

[JeffandLori]

Well, I was able to reach Hoover's this morning. Long wait times and the lady was very nice, but sounded a bit frazzled. She understood my frustrations and they are going to send 15 birds- but not until April. She said they don't have any birds until then.

I asked about the website showing Feb 7 and she said she didn't know how that is on there and they've asked to have it removed.

I should have just asked for my money back and waited until the fall, but we'll see. I don't think I'll be doing mail order birds in the future. There's got to be some local folks.

I wonder how hard it is to have my own supply....

 

[springvalley123]

One thing this thread has taught me is that I shouldn't order from Hoovers. There's no way that I would find a 3-month delay on delivery acceptable. A three week, as some others suggested, would be somewhat tolerable. One week would be better. I would however, if I'd experienced this circumstance as the OP, take the refund and find the chicks as soon as possible from some other source and be done with the hatchery that couldn't fulfill the order.

this is an isolated case where there was very bad weather that affected all hatcheries in the region, they all just were able to, or chose to, handle it differently.

If you don't order from Hoover's, are you going to order from Privett's and wait until August? Or order from Ideal where you can (I looked a while ago) get their choice of assortment in May (who knows when each breed is available in orderable quantities??)

And yes, if I were in this situation I'd take whatever chicks I could get ASAP, and order as many as possible in case, for example, I had to take a straight run hatchery assortment.

 

[springvalley123]

Wow! I am having a similar experience.

Ordered 10 Calico Princess and 5 Sapphire olive-eggers that were supposed to ship 1-31.

They finally arrived on Saturday in central FL (Lake Wales).

Post Office didn't call but text alerts saved me.

Got the birds at 10 AM.

Have already had 2 of each variety die (one nearly DOA, only made it an hour or so).

The really crappy thing is they won't replace any less than a 15 bird loss.

I'm going to see if TSC will let me order some through them.

Good luck.

The other thing I learned by surprise (shock actually) years ago, is when you ask TSC online phone reps, never rely on that answer. I don't want to badmouth them, but:
years ago I ordered from them, TSC said the birds would be at least 3 more weeks. So I ordere ddirect from Hoover's right then. Imagine my shock when the next hatch day, I got TWO texts, for both orders! the TSC order all of a sudden shipped several weeks earlier than TSC said, and the Hoover's order shipped exactly when they said.

This year, 1/20/23 I ordered from TSC online. THe order said it'd be filled within 7 days, which meant they'd have to have hatched 1/24 or 1/25. When I got nothing, I called TSC. They said it'd be the week of 1/30 (Tuesday/wednesday). Remembering my previous experience I called Hoover's, with the TSC order number handy. Hoover's says my birds will ship 2/14. So far the weather in Rudd and Minneapolis (their DC) look good, fingers crossed when you ship chicks in the winter!

 

[AusHen]

I'm with Hoover's on this one. Upsetting a smaller number of customers by canceling and refunding a week or so worth of orders vs pushing back months and months of orders is the logical thing to do, they are a business after all. As for customer service I think they handled it as well as they could under the circumstances

 

[gimmie birdies]

I am not ordering, but I did get a notice from Meyer's today saying today was shipping day and to see what they had and place an order before Noon Pacific coast time. I wanted to poke around, and at 9:00 am they didn't even have any rooster left.

 

[gimmie birdies]

I ordered hatching eggs from Meyers. 1/16 shippment
They are now in lockdown, I saw wigglers and heard peeping. The good thing, I didn't have to have chicks shipped in the cold. The bad thing, 2 were not fertile, 14/20 made it to lockdown. (Still a good percent though. I ordered 2-3 of each breed I wanted just in case.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

I'm with Hoover's on this one. Upsetting a smaller number of customers by canceling and refunding a week or so worth of orders vs pushing back months and months of orders is the logical thing to do, they are a business after all. As for customer service I think they handled it as well as they could under the circumstances

They certainly handled this one better than when I've interacted with them. I love their birds, but not their service unfortunately

 

[fluffybuttfarmstead]

I placed an order through Hoover's Hatchery for shipping on February 1. They were informed by USPS on Jan 31st that they would not be able to ship. Instead of letting customer's know right away, they originally pushed my ship date out to February 2. Now I received a follow up email letting me know that they will be canceling my order and forcing us to reorder. I looked and the first available ship date is May 1.

I understand that they have challenges, but they should have just pushed everyone out instead of forcing customers this week to the end of the line. This is terrible customer service from Hoovers.

Email I received is below:

We were informed Tuesday morning that USPS would not allow us to ship orders via air freight this week due to inclement weather in Memphis, TN, which is the main shipping hub for USPS air shipments of live chicks. We at Hoover’s Hatchery made every effort this week to ship your order, but unfortunately there were not any options that would ensure the well-being of the chicks in transit.

Due to the increasing egg prices and egg shortages, we have experienced a surge in demand, causing us to be sold out all the way through the end of April (might change to May). With this in mind, we are not able to re-schedule your shipment for several months. We will be canceling your order and issuing you a full refund.

You should be receiving an email confirming the cancelation and a refund going back on the card you used to place the order. You are welcome to visit our website and re-order on the next available ship date.

Please understand that due to high call volumes, this is the most efficient way for you to reschedule your order. You are welcome to call our customer service team, but please understand that hold times have been very long and we are doing everything that we can to help our customers through this difficult time. If you wish to communicate with us, email is the most efficient way and we will answer your email as soon as we can.

We greatly appreciate your business and are very sorry for the inconvenience that this has caused.

Thank you so much for your patience and understanding during this time.


The Hoover's Hatchery Team

Try freedom ranger hatchery out of PA

 

[fluffybuttfarmstead]

The other thing I learned by surprise (shock actually) years ago, is when you ask TSC online phone reps, never rely on that answer. I don't want to badmouth them, but:
years ago I ordered from them, TSC said the birds would be at least 3 more weeks. So I ordere ddirect from Hoover's right then. Imagine my shock when the next hatch day, I got TWO texts, for both orders! the TSC order all of a sudden shipped several weeks earlier than TSC said, and the Hoover's order shipped exactly when they said.

This year, 1/20/23 I ordered from TSC online. THe order said it'd be filled within 7 days, which meant they'd have to have hatched 1/24 or 1/25. When I got nothing, I called TSC. They said it'd be the week of 1/30 (Tuesday/wednesday). Remembering my previous experience I called Hoover's, with the TSC order number handy. Hoover's says my birds will ship 2/14. So far the weather in Rudd and Minneapolis (their DC) look good, fingers crossed when you ship chicks in the winter!

I ordered from Hoovers 2 years ago and all 25 birds were DOA. I played hell getting a refund and will never order from there again. Just my experience.