Cockerels LOST BY USPS - How Long Can They Live?

[chick-n-pigs]

They are on a real farm with real friends. The new owners are going to get them some ladies soon.

 

[Rhoise]

so glad they made it, i woke up this morning and asked the girls to pray for them!

 

[cheeka]

Good Morning and Great News that they made it...! as an Express Carrier for the USPS, I want to let you know that as frustrating and wrong that it was to let the parcel go astray... most postal workers and contract drivers really do take extra care with live animals... and I'm sure the folks you talked to, while not able to locate them for you, were apologetic (I hope!) most "hub" locations will do their best to maintain the animals til the next departure if they've gone astray. Many actually have heat lamps for the very young chicks, and will provide water at the very least. I have a friend who is a pilot for USPS. he "lost" a rooster (left it on the plane... !) and it cost him $12,000, you know he will never be so careless again!
not all areas have Sunday and Holiday express delivery anymore, due to the financial crisis of the USPS, but if you have an Express with live animals, you are more than welcome to go to the GMF (general mail facility) in your area and pick them up as soon as they arrive ~ if you make sure you put phone numbers on the shipping label, the supervisors at the Express Expediters will call you...

In Albany, NY, we still run Sunday and Holiday Express routes, I love chick season... I wear layers, so in March when they start shipping, I can wear a t-shirt in the car so I can keep the heat blasting! Folks are always so pleased to receive a toasty warm box of chicks...

but... mistakes do happen. that is how I got my chickens. on my normal Express shift, a box was discovered in the cart bound for another state, and all the trucks were gone for the day. they were 2 days old and would not all make it another day... I had a box of 200 chicks for an aggie store, and offered the waylaid box of chicks to them for free and they said "no". I thought about slipping a chick or two into each of the other cartons I had... but these were all dark chicks and all the rest of my shipments had yellow chicks... didn't think it would go over all that well, so I kept them. I divvied them up and shared with my good friends. they all made it
(my supervisor had already contacted the hatchery and the customer, it was decided that she would get a new shipment and we would do our best to not let them expire)

I'm so relieved that your story has a happy ending!

 

[chick-n-pigs]

Thanks Cheeka for providing us some experience from the other end. I am not unhappy with any of the PO employees I worked with. They are all good hearted, well meaning people. The unfortunate event in this experience came from (1) misrouted box from the Denver sorting facility (not sure where it went for 24 hours) and (2) the lag time in displaying tracking information.

With regard to item 2, I don't understand why the USPS has such a lag in its online tracking. When the box was finally located, the date and time stamp log was hours behind. The 12 hours it took for the tracking system to catch up with the birds only added to the stress we felt as the customer. Hopefully they can get that part of the process more efficient.

I won't make too much of a stink for a couple of reasons. I don't believe in berating a postal service employee when they are not the individual who was at fault for misrouting my shipment. The other reason is that I don't want the post office to end service for live birds. With the sharp decline in first class mailings and the other financial downfalls faced by the post office, I expect that many "special" programs will be reviewed for elimination. Fortunately, you can't email a chicken and demand for chicks is escalating. I can imagine a future where only packages containing physical items (as opposed to communications or payments) will be all that is sent in the post. If I make a big stink about my package being delayed, I think it will only increase the risk the Post Office gives up on live birds altogether.

 

[cheeka]

all true, but you are entitled to a refund because we failed to make the time deadline that you paid for...
the tracking system is outdated... it seems that all the info from the daily scans gets uploaded at 7pm, so yeah... huge lag on everything... but with the literal millions of scans going on all over the country every day, I don't know how to manage the flow of data any better myself... I do have lots of advice to give politicians on better ways to spend their postal allotment tho', lol, stop using slippery heavy duty paper that cuts our fingers...!

bottom line, the boys are safe and sound in their new home, and happy to be outta the box!

 

[littlethorn]

Oh Thank God! I have had scares before as well with the post making birds take forever and it is always good to hear about a happy ending.