Abandoned Chicks at the Post Office

[dcduck]

Hi, I’m just seeing this post today and my heart breaks for any animal like this. But, a police officer can do a kind of welfare check at the address to see if someone is at the address. Since covid and all any numerous things can happen so just maybe something can be done in that legal since to care for the chicks or contact the sender where they came from to allow for fostering up to a certain time. I’ve heard of this before around my area. I hope they didn’t pass away, it would be a cruel thing. But, before covid stuff didn’t happen like this much. I do love baby chicks.

 

[jspeese]

I know it's illegal for the PO to handover someone else's mail to another person (I've seen Miracle on 34th Street several times!) and that any PO employee who did so would potentially be in a lot of trouble, but I agree that in this particular case it sucks. I don't know how much authority or weight associations like the ASPCA would carry in such cases but it might be worth contacting them. Mercy and common sense SHOULD prevail, but in real life they DON'T always, and I can't blame any PO worker for not being willing to lose their job or worse.

 

[NatJ]

These people shouldn’t be given the chicks at all, unless there’s some insane extenuating circumstance.

a police officer can do a kind of welfare check at the address to see if someone is at the address. Since covid and all any numerous things can happen so just maybe something can be done in that legal since to care for the chicks or contact the sender where they came from to allow for fostering up to a certain time. I’ve heard of this before around my area. I hope they didn’t pass away, it would be a cruel thing.

There is an update, on page 2.

Here are quotes of part of it:

one of the letter carriers who has chickens of his own drove out to the address after closing and was told by whoever answered the door after 3 rounds of banging on it that they didn't order any chicks. No one knew it, but this person wasn't the one who ordered the chicks and was only staying at the house temporarily.

Somehow word got back to the person who DID order the chicks, who showed up to the post office panicked within 10 minutes to claim them. According to her, she had a spam blocker on her phone that blocked "government" calls, so somehow the voicemails never got to her.

So the chicks did get safely to the proper person.

 

[MROO]

So, without reading the entire thread through, what happened to the chicks? I asked about that in my own small town a few years ago, offering to take in or feed the extra box of chicks when I picked up my own. I was told that they couldn't do that, but that if the chicks went into the next day, they would have a local police officer hand them off to someone from the SPCA. They would be classified as abandoned pets or livestock and released for "adoption" when their time was up. To date, that hasn't happened yet, but at least they have a plan in place, just in case. The babies I offered to take in were picked up very late that evening, so all ended well ... for now.

 

[NatJ]

So, without reading the entire thread through, what happened to the chicks?

Look at the post above yours for a summary.

 

[MROO]

Look at the post above yours for a summary.

Thanks - that post was apparently put up while I was typing mine ... perfect timing?

 

[TheOddOneOut]

100% and not unless you held a gun to my head. PETA is horrible, and I would bet serious money that at least half of the folks who give them donations haven't dug deep enough to understand the true philosophy behind the group, which sees pet ownership as a form of slavery and exploitation. There is an enormous difference between animal welfare and animal rights, and Ingrid Newkirk and Peter Singer were all about the latter. "A rat is a pig is a dog is a boy" is the rationale that the group uses to put rescued animals down, set them free in unsafe circumstances, and poison them. I used to train and show dogs as a kid, and these idiots who put antifreeze in dogs' water were always the reason that we had to have a friend watch our kennels if we needed to use the bathroom. There is nothing good about the organization.

I feel a rant coming on, so I'll stop with that.

PETA is horrible. They believe it’s a bad thing to own chickens and that we should feed every one their eggs back to them. I mean, what??? My hens wouldn’t like eggs after a week if I fed every one back to them.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

...roosters can be sold as food. and in fact, are sold as food. Unwanted males of production sex links become poultry meal, poultry byproduct meal, etc. Just not food for humans.

You may not care for it, you might consider maceration terrible, however brief, and consider asphyxiation by carbon dioxide poisoning somehow superior, but they are put to productive use.

Defending an extreme organization by attacking extremists is hardly a halmark of effective rhetoric.

Personally, when I think of PETA at all, I think of them as misguided, inefficient, and largely irrelevant. Take the win.

Can we move back to US Postal Service policy now?

 

[HeatherKellyB]

I have ordered chicks that were delivered via USPS pre COVID-19. They arrived perfectly happy and healthy, even though I only ordered a few. Since COVID-19 came into play, chicks were extremely hard to find so more people turned to mail order hatcheries. Most of those orders were placed well in advance of the actual ship date. I am the first to admit that a date can quickly sneak up on me, so as irresponsible as it sounds, I can see how the recipient missed the email stating their order of chicks was being shipped. Sometimes a hatchery will ship them before the scheduled date and problems can arise from that as well. I also don't answer calls from any unrecognized number, so that could explain the recipient missing the calls. This is something that has become far too common in the past 1.5 years. It'd be wonderful if there was a way to have an amendment added to the USPS policy that requires at least 2 contact phone numbers for the recipient, before they accept the package. Of course things can still happen, but this could be one proactive tool that may be possibly helpful. As far as shipping chicks through the postal service being cruel, chickens are treated so poorly world wide, without the postal service being involved. Other than cock fighting laws, I'm not aware of any laws that are in place to protect the actual well being of chickens. Most laws and regulations that I've read seem to be in place for the comfort of humans. I like breeds that I was unable to find locally. I don't like to buy from any farm, local or not. With Mareks and other diseases being so widespread, I'm extremely hesitant purchasing birds from just anywhere. In all honesty, at this point, I'm hesitant to add birds from outside my flock. Hatcheries do tend to take biosecurity much more seriously, so if I ever add more, I'd probably purchase from a mail order hatchery again.

Please don't take my comment for anything other than personal opinion, an inexpierenced opinion at that

 

[HeatherKellyB]

PETA is horrible. They believe it’s a bad thing to own chickens and that we should feed every one their eggs back to them. I mean, what??? My hens wouldn’t like eggs after a week if I fed every one back to them.

Agreed. An organization of holier than thou closed minded idiots that places the wellbeing of animals above humans or in the very least, equal to humans. They're also all about animals having rights, equal to an American citizen born human I mean I don't agree with or tolerate the mistreatment of animals but they take things to the absolute extremes