Dead baby chicks

Coreenelane

Songster
Feb 22, 2016
181
30
106
I ordered Silkies from Ideal Poultry and was excited to find them this early in the year. I was notified on Tuesday that they were shipped and expected them in 3 days or less. I notified our Doylestown Ohio post office of the chicks and they assured me that I would be notified as soon as they arrived. When they didn't arrive by Friday March 30th my heart sank knowing that the critical 72 hour mark was past. The call came on Saturday morning to pick the package up after the post office opened at 9am. (Previously I picked chicks up by 6am). I could hear the babies and hurried home to get them in the brooder. When I opened the box I didn't believe my eyes, twelve dead chicks, two chicks not able to stand and four that could stand. After they were settled in the brooder and introduced to the water dish and pulverized chick starter I took a second look at the shipping box and am horrified to see that they arrived in Cleveland Wednesday at midnight and it took over 48 hours to travel 45 miles to Doylestown Ohio. The two weak chicks died 10 hours later. I spent most of my day checking in on the tiny creatures and wondering how do you stop this from happening again. No where on the box was anything stating live animals. even if you do hear peeping I feel the labeling should have been better and the lid of the box was damaged. I left a voice mail with the hatchery after opening the box. I will contact the post office on Monday. This has been a very depressing day!
 
I'm so sorry to hear this and that is tough. Those poor babies. I agree the box should have been labeled much better. I would talk to the hatchery about your refund as well as you only have a short time to get it.
 
Trust me you can write whatever you want on outside of box it doesn't help.USPS,Fedex and UPS workers don't give a crap about packages.They throw them,step on them,drop them and leave them on trailer in blizzard.I did construction job at USPS transfer station while I was working there I couldn't believe how they treated packages.In surprised anything gets shipped without damage.
Sorry,To hear about your chicks.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I ordered Silkies from Ideal Poultry and was excited to find them this early in the year. I was notified on Tuesday that they were shipped and expected them in 3 days or less. I notified our Doylestown Ohio post office of the chicks and they assured me that I would be notified as soon as they arrived. When they didn't arrive by Friday March 30th my heart sank knowing that the critical 72 hour mark was past. The call came on Saturday morning to pick the package up after the post office opened at 9am. (Previously I picked chicks up by 6am). I could hear the babies and hurried home to get them in the brooder. When I opened the box I didn't believe my eyes, twelve dead chicks, two chicks not able to stand and four that could stand. After they were settled in the brooder and introduced to the water dish and pulverized chick starter I took a second look at the shipping box and am horrified to see that they arrived in Cleveland Wednesday at midnight and it took over 48 hours to travel 45 miles to Doylestown Ohio. The two weak chicks died 10 hours later. I spent most of my day checking in on the tiny creatures and wondering how do you stop this from happening again. No where on the box was anything stating live animals. even if you do hear peeping I feel the labeling should have been better and the lid of the box was damaged. I left a voice mail with the hatchery after opening the box. I will contact the post office on Monday. This has been a very depressing day!
That is HEARTBREAKING! i have to say i have given up ordering bantam via mail. i have had so many die. they are just too small to handle the shipping. of course in THIS situation it clearly was the PO that was partially responsible. since i can't get sexed bantams anyway i have just been hatching my own and been very successful. i just get eggs from eBay or local places/breeders and i have a great variety. i hope you have some survivors tho. i lost all but ONE spitzhauben and even that one had leg issues. i took her to the vet on day 2 ($50) and i have to say she is marvelous now and you would never know but losing the rest was very hard. seems to be the same with most hatcheries too...it is not just ideal....
 
I'm sorry for the loss of your chicks!. what was the shipping method? was there any weather that could cause issues with delivery? I would contact Ideal poultry and ask for a refund for the dead chicks. Also it shows poorly on the company to not put something on their stating live animals I would have thought by law they would have had to, which you might want to look up and see if they must label live animals if they need to they fail and can be in trouble! I believe there is at lest 1 thread here from 2011 with someone having issues with I believe is the same company.
 
I ordered 26 chicks and all arrived dead. I'm in OH and the hatchery was in OH (3 hours by car from me). The chicks went to Cleveland (as expected) and once they left that PO, they spent 31 hours without any updates. The box was undamaged, the heater packs were still warm (and there were 26 chicks, too), the hay-like material they are shipped in was undisturbed, hardly any poops. I think USPS mishandled them either through exposure (although heat packs were still warm and chicks were not cold even though DOA), or they were shipped within proximity to dry ice. As soon as the PO called me early in the morning, I was there to pick up the chicks at the back door. I opened them there - see all dead chicks, and refused the shipment. The dead birds were shipped back to the hatchery (since shipment was refused). I was refunded my order price. My 11yo was with me and she was very disappointed, so we ordered chicks from a closer hatchery and drove to pick them up so that we would not risk dead chicks.

You are close to Meyer Hatchery and they sell a large variety of birds - you should look them up. I picked up the live chicks from Eagle Nest Poultry (also in OH, but farther west from you than Meyer). You can look up NPIP hatcheries and breeders by state and they do list breed types by code (breed code key is in another link on NPIP website) if you wanted to go with birds from NPIP certified flocks). Good Luck with your chicks.
 
We have read so many stories about dead chicks arriving in the mail this spring that we changed our order at McMurray. We told them we would drive the 328 miles to pick them up vs them shipping them. We were confused on the fact that they don't put heat packs in the box automatically when the weather is cold. You must request and pay for them. We still have 15 inches of snow in our yard and expecting another foot this weekend. Even our local farm store lost over 1/3 of their order from a different hatchery. My favorite is when people say not to have them shipped in the mail but to buy at your local store, hmmm how do you think those chicks get there when there isn't any local hatcheries.
 
We have read so many stories about dead chicks arriving in the mail this spring that we changed our order at McMurray. We told them we would drive the 328 miles to pick them up vs them shipping them. We were confused on the fact that they don't put heat packs in the box automatically when the weather is cold. You must request and pay for them. We still have 15 inches of snow in our yard and expecting another foot this weekend. Even our local farm store lost over 1/3 of their order from a different hatchery. My favorite is when people say not to have them shipped in the mail but to buy at your local store, hmmm how do you think those chicks get there when there isn't any local hatcheries.
Its just a numbers game if 1/3 of chicks die during shipping they will just ship 1/3 more chicks with each shipment.Lives of dead chicks are not a moral concern just loss of commodity easily replaced.The question is do you blame hatchery or parcel service.They are both in business to make money.If they dont ship neither makes money.
 

New posts New threads Active threads

Back
Top Bottom