The internet ordering can take a while. I ordered on line and got the same 10 day message. After 10 days I called. Here's how it works.....
You order online. The online site is managed by another company. Cackle downloads the orders weekly. They then enter each order by hand into their system. From there they decide who gets what when....This process seems to take longer at this time in the year because of the glut of orders. When I called in my order still had not been down loaded. I waited another week and called again when I hadn't received my confirmation.
With my second call I learned that my order was being held up and they just hadn't contacted me yet about the hold. I worked it out over the phone and my card was charged that day and my confirmation sent out via email. for delivery two weeks from that date.
I will be reordering from Cackle in about 2 weeks. I will DO IT OVER THE PHONE!!! It's just a more direct way of doing it. Plus, when I emailed my question it took them over 2 weeks to respond! Sometimes it's just better in person.
As for travel time, they ship out from the hatchery on Monday and Wednesday at 5 am. The boxes go to a USPS central location where they are scanned in and sorted then scanned out again and put on their truck to go to the airport. They are then flown to other airports. They are then loaded onto trucks and sent to another central USPS mail centers, scanned in, sorted and scanned out to be loaded on to regional trucks. The regional trucks ship them to the area post offices where they are again scanned in and sorted to local post offices and loaded onto another truck to send to you.
It's not like getting in your car and just driving directly. My post office in Reading gets all it's mail from Harrisburg. My chicks went from Cackle to where ever the local USPS is for them to their Airport (probably Springfield, MO ). I doubt it was a direct flight to Harrisburg - so the stop over in St. Louis or Chicago maybe Indianapolis...heck with the way airlines do stuff they may have gone to Denver!!! But they come off the airplane and put on a truck to the main USPS sorting DC in Harrisburg. Scanned, sorted and loaded on a truck to Reading. And, if I didn't live in Reading but in a nearby township, the Reading main office would have had to send them to the smaller post office! Good thing I live in a larger town!!!
Although they send them Express Mail, it still has to hit all those stops in between. I work for a sub-contractor for the USPS. I run regular mail from Springfield, MA to Jacksonville, FL. It takes us - all 4 drivers) 24 hours from DC to DC. That run is aprox 1100 miles and by mapquest should only take 17 hours. But we drivers have rules and what not to follow and the whole speed limit/governed truck thing really slows you down!!! And remember, that's DC to DC not post office to post office or from your hand to the receiver's hand - all those stops take more time and all that scanning and sorting!!!!
