6 out of 25 DOA. :( And a couple of questions ...

[birdsofparadise]

I grow and send live orchids via priority mail professionally. I was also a part-time Postmaster in our town, so I think I know both sides of the equation.

First, anyone who ships live material has to be aware of transit time and be sure that its arrival at destination will be on a work day when delivery is available. I ship Mondays for Thursday deliveries.

Second, I can vouch that most (perhaps not all) postal employees have soft hearts and want to expedite any live package. This is even more so in rural areas. But so much of the system is automated now that the human element is really limited. If a barcode is misread or a machine breaks down, things stop where they are until a human has the time to sort it out.

So, there is plenty of blame to spread around. We just have to accept that these tragedies happen and try to deal with them.

 

[sugarbush]

6 out of 25 is a little high death toll, but I have seen much worse. Once I picked up a flat that was 100 out of 100 dead. I haven't ever ordered from MM, but they should have a 48 hr window from arrival that they will refund the money on the losses.

I don't know what kind of pull they have with USPS, but shipping on Sunday sounds like a crock to me. I use to haul mail and mail does not get moved sundays until late in the evening. That is why your monday mail is always so late, the trucks don't arrive at the PO until later than they do the rest of the week.

I don't know why MM ships on weekends when every other hatchery in the world ships monday, tuesday, and wednesday

 

[the1much]

doesnt the PO use Fed-X to do the deliveries ( the trucking or planing from city to city) ? and they work 24/7
i also thought it was best to send on a saterday, that way you KNOW that the package is on the move sunday, and not sitting in a PO.
i thought there was a dude here that worked for the PO and he said he does the sunday run between the airport and the PO.

 

[sugarbush]

It depends on the location. They use a lot of sub-contractors to move the mail, not just fed-ex. I worked for a sub that was not fedex. Most chicks go fedex air for any long distance, but once they hits the airport it depends on who has the contract for that area. The mail does not move 24/7. If the truck hits destination PO on saturday night, it will not get unloaded until sunday night; and even if they did get unloaded saturday they will sit in the PO until 5 am Monday.

Our pickup time at the airport terminal was 2:00 am monday through saturday. All airmail that came in after 2 am Saturday stayed at the terminal until 2 am Monday.

I am sure that larger cities have contractors with 7 day a week pickups, but chicks are not usually going to large cities. We have 360,000 people here and it was a 6 day a week schedule, as of two years ago.

 

[feathrencox]

Something that bothered me when I had my fiasco with the hatchery was the fact that I offered to pay for tracking on my shipment and they were very adament on NOT having any tracking on their shipments. I don't understand why. Don't they care enough to know that their chicks arrive safely especially when customers are willing to pay for it. That just didn't make sense to me.
Heather