I think I got scammed…

[JacinLarkwell]

I'm sorry for your loss.
They couldn't have waited to ship, chicks have an yolk sack internally for a few days after hatching so thry dont have to eat or drink. After it's used up, it's not great to ship them. They likely would've been better off if they weren't stuck in a blizzard but this breeder has always been a bit sketchy. What exactly cost $300?

Their paint silkies are 99 bucks I think and I'm sure their others are at that same price. Mareks vaccine is another 60 or so too if I remember correctly

 

[JacinLarkwell]

I ordered from there last spring to get my Ketwas. Ordered 3, got 4 as well as a male belifeilder and a male of something else. I sold the belifeilder as a meat bird in a batch of cockerels (thank goodness he was a freebie) and lost the mystery male and the weakest Ketwa (who had very crooked toes too). My package had a heat pack, 6 live babies and remnants of that special food gel sellers have sometimes. I live far closer to their sire than you do, and my order arrived in early April, when its warmer by about 20-40 degrees. I think someone forgot to put the heat pack in your box.

I also think I was incredibly lucky. I adore my trio (yeah, was lucky I got two females and a male out of my st run) and they appear healthy (though I am not 100% sure they were vaccinated though i paid for the vaccine), but if I had known their reputation before I ordered, I would never have placed the order in the first place

 

[NatJ]

Their paint silkies are 99 bucks I think and I'm sure their others are at that same price. Mareks vaccine is another 60 or so too if I remember correctly

At least today, they're charging $199 each for lavender silkies!

 

[JacinLarkwell]

At least today, they're charging $199 each for lavender silkies!

Good golly.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

Good golly.

Even the laughing chickens weren't that much

 

[Lunes]

I'm sorry for your loss.
They couldn't have waited to ship, chicks have a yolk sack internally for a few days after hatching so thry dont have to eat or drink. After it's used up, it's not great to ship them. They likely would've been better off if they weren't stuck in a blizzard but this breeder has always been a bit sketchy. What exactly cost $300?

Yeah, that’s true, literally the entire order totaled to like 350$ with shipping and taxes…
$50 x2 standard silkies
$199 for “lavender silkie”

 

[Lunes]

I'm in some FB groups and I have seen some really bad scammers post in the groups while posing as a reputable place, but is just a scam. I am sorry this happened and especially sorry for the poor chickies that were shipped that way. Some places have a minimum order of chicks to at least keep each other warmer while shipping.

$350 for 3 chicks though?? And $80 for shipping???? That is crazy. Glad you found the lone one a friend or two. Good luck with your chicken keeping adventures. Let it be a lesson that vultures are out there.

For sure!!! I found a really nice local lady and we were in contact a lot before we met up somewhere public nearby, she charged me $20 and even drove all the way down to me which was really kind of her. the chick I got from her is super healthy and she tried to pick out a smaller one of the bunch because it had a higher probability of being a female which I also appreciated! So far so good. Definitely scammers everywhere though, but I feel like I’ve learned a lot and am being EXTRA cautious now

 

[Lunes]

I'll be honest shipping is hard on chicks and even harder on bantams!


Straight scam artist.. I never got any chick or my money back.. about $350.. posted about it in other threads here on BYC. Very likely still have all my proof, they said they were refunding but never did and my credit card company wouldn't stop payment since I waited long enough to comply with FLF policy.. if anyone files a claim against them.. I may join in, pm me.

FB is NOT trustworthy either.


Lavender is NOT one of the lethal genes. But it does go to show not to believe everything your told.

It's possible they are less hardy than some possibly less inbred colors.. bantam lav ameraucana almost all passed while bantam wheaten ameraucana almost all survived the same shipment.

Express shipping whether paid for or not is NOT valid to my location.. period. I still have to pay it for sellers that require it.. knowing full well my shipping time will be the same.

Spread the word.. Do NOT buy from FEATHER LOVER FARMS!

Oh my gosh I’m so sorry I can’t believe you pretty much had the same exact experience! So they NEVER even sent you anything? Omg. I saw a few threads when I googled them on here but I guess the ones I should’ve read didn’t come up for some odd reason on google: just less damning threads.

since I’m new to keeping chickens I feel like there’s a lot I didn’t know, and a lot (so much) left to learn but I’m learning a lot of hard lessons early on and I hope I don’t make another mistake like the ones I’ve made, again.

What a mess!!! I’m so mad at that seller for doing what they do. I don’t have the heart to scam people. I don’t know how people can just go about their day to day doing this to people…

 

[Lunes]

Can you do a cc charge back? Have you discused any recourse with your bank?

I paid with affirm actually which is like Klarna (a virtual one time use card you pay off over time)- I can actually open a claim with them, and I’m going to!

 

[Lunes]

I just went and looked at Feather Lover Farms website.
Based on the website, and the USPS website, and what you've said:
I think part of what happened is just normal but your research had not prepared you for it, but I also think they were providing substandard service in some ways.

They have a "live arrival guarantee"-- which means they guarantee that the correct number of chicks (in your case 3) are alive when they reach you (they were). This is fairly common among hatcheries: it's their business to get the chicks to you in good shape, and your business to take proper care of them after that.

The obvious problem with a guarantee like that is you don't have any recourse if the chicks arrived alive but then do poorly even when you take good care of them. That could be the hatchery's fault, or the fault of the way the Post Office treated them, or sometimes the fault of a new owner who didn't do enough research (I'm not accusing you of that, just saying it happens to some people.)


Some hatcheries ship for more of the year than others.

It is partly based on where they are shipping from, because a northern hatchery doesn't want to send out chicks in the middle of a snowstorm.

And it is partly based on when most people want to buy chicks, so the hatchery doesn't waste their effort hatching chicks earlier than people want to buy them. People often wait for nice spring weather before they get chicks, and that happens in different months depending on where they live in the US.

Shipping chicks in very cold weather or very hot weather has more risk than shipping in moderate weather. So if a hatchery starts shipping in March, and stops in June, they avoid the worst of the cold winter, the worst of the hot summer, and the fall when few people would be ordering chicks. But that isn't as convenient for people who DO want chicks at those times!


The only way they could "wait" would be to send your chicks to someone else, and send you chicks from a different hatch date. The chicks absorb the yolk right before they hatch, which provides enough nutrients for about 3 days. So shipping them a few days later would practically guarantee them arriving dead. (USPS policy also requires that chicks be under 24 hours old when shipped, for exactly this reason.)


The Post Office has a list of exceptions, when they will not give a refund if the package is late. "Live animals" is one of the exceptions.

https://pe.usps.com/text/dmm300/604.htm


So paying for upgraded shipping may not be worth the money. (There is another hatchery, I forget which one, that has a page talking about exactly that: it's not worth the extra money, because the chicks don't arrive any faster, and the Post Office won't give any refunds.)


That is completely normal for any chicks, from any hatchery, shipped through the Post Office. Better tracking would be really nice, but choosing a different hatchery won't help


That is definitely poor customer service.
Also, their website states,
"Heat pack(s), plenty of nest material under and/or around the chicks and professional packaging are included with the cost of shipping."
https://featherloverfarms.com/pages/feather-lover-farms-faq

So leaving out the heat pack was not right, unless they had specific reason to think the chicks would do better without it in those specific circumstances.

But three chicks did arrive alive-- so maybe they were right to pack them that way in this case. (A heat pack and 4 cooked chicks would not have been any better, but a heat pack and 4 healthy chicks would have been much better. I have no idea which would be the more likely outcome with a heat pack in this case.)


Lavender should have been pretty pale in color too, so it might have looked yellow. If you've got photos, someone here might be able to pick out the lavender. If they did not send it, then logically they owe you a refund for at least the price difference between it and what they did send.

I've never heard of a "death gene" in lavenders of Silkie or any other breed, but that could just meant that I haven't looked for information in the right places. If that is true, it might explain why the lavenders are priced higher than other colors on that site.


Yes, their prices are very high compared to many other hatcheries.
They say their silkies are very good quality-- if that is true, they may be worth that much, for people who care about those details (like taking them to a chicken show). But for people who just want cute pets, I would consider them overpriced. And I don't know if their Silkies really are good quality or not.


If they are shipping unhealthy chicks, then yes it would probably happen again if they ship new chicks. If they shipped healthy chicks and the storm + Post Office caused the trouble, then new chicks might be fine.


And that is why I'm explaining some of these other details, too.
Hopefully some other newbies can have a better idea what to expect, and avoid the heartache and lost money.

You've had quite an unpleasant introduction to ordering chicks
Hopefully things will improve with your new ones that do not have to be shipped

You made a lot of good points honestly (things I didn't really think about because of my inexperience but also people I was just seeing red lol)
Yeah- they prob couldn't wait because I forgot about the egg sack thing with hatchlings.

the shipping thing not updating and taking forever seems to be normal from what people are saying (but also I had just reached out to the seller and they didn't really say anything, which made me really nervous/think something was wrong because this was my first chick order ever)


the post office actually was super super nice and said to reach out to the seller/shipper for a refund on the shipping, it was totally refundable in full, and that I couldn't do it, but the person who shipped it to me could begin the refund process for that. Well, I did email about that a few days ago, explaining that and they never replied or refunded me.
Definitely wish I knew that about the shipping though or I would've left it be! I emailed them a few weeks after I ordered to pay the diff to upgrade it and they happily obliged.

Yeah...the guarantee thing is something I keep thinking about. I feel like they're going to ghost me since they technically arrived alive but died shortly later. Really sucks though because I feel like they were in rough shape.

Someone else mentioned that lavender chicks don't actually have the death gene so who knows, maybe the person who told me this was wrong or misinformed, but the chicks died either way </3

From what I've read people are saying their silkies are *not* worth the price, or that they even inbreed...which is concerning. But again I only saw these posts after I had already ordered



Thanks for explaining all of this though, it is nice to be able to get different people's perspectives on this, especially since...I have nothing to compare it to being that it was my first time. This forum is suuuuuuuper helpful and enlightening since there's so many of you who have infinitely more experience with all of this stuff.

& My new chick from the local lady is doing great!! Thank god. :')