My 55 new chicks arrived today! ALL DEAD

[atlantachickenwhisperer]

Hey,

As I stated in another post about Cackle Hatchery:

Yes, Ideal Poultry is a good hatchery. You have to take into consideration that many of these hatcheries ship millions of baby chicks each year! Most vent sexers for example can vent sex about 1000 chicks an hour! WOW! Some customers are bound to get a DOA or a deformed chick every now and then. Just call them. I bet they will make it right!

Chicken Whisperer

 

[WestKnollAmy]

Ideal may make it right but another hatchery I just dealt with wouldn't credit for roos or cross beaks! I will never order from that hatchery again!

 

[Enchanted Sunrise Farms]

i'm so sorry for your loss, greenesacres. i ordered some silkies from Ideal, expecting them to ship mid-March, then got a call this past Wednesday afternoon that were shipping. i put in a call to my local PO to alert them, asked about delivery times, and just kept calling and checking in. Then i learned that all the mail comes in through the Sacramento main PO first. So i called and chatted with a man there. He made a big sticky note to call me as soon as the chicks arrived, and said he would tape it to the phone so it couldn't be missed.

While we were chatting, he also mentioned all the layoffs the PO was doing. He said he was starting to get worried, not just about his own job, but he said he couldn't imagine everything getting done with so few people. These layoffs and downsizing may be occurring across the country, which might account for the unusually long delivery times for chicks.

i got my call at 1am Friday morning and drove the extra distance to get my chicks home as quick as possible. i ordered 15 silkies and received 18 silkies and 10 packing peanuts. One silkie was DOA and another died the next day. The others are looking okay, though. The other thing that i think helped is that for those couple of days in transit, we were experiencing unusually warm weather. So, i'm happy with Ideal, but i think next time i will wait till later in the year.

 

[Funky Feathers]

I had a very bad experience recently w/the postal system too. I bought 2 gorgeous SQ Bearded Buff Silkie hens, top of the line, from a reputable breeder, he shipped them on a thurs., they were late, no one could tell me anything, and by Sunday I found out they were dead!!! Some idiot at a p.o. kicked the box real hard & killed one with "blunt force trauma to the head", then said they smelled, assumed (without checking) that they were both dead, and put a plastic bag over the box, suffocating the other one! I paid $260 for them. I did get a refund from the seller, but he may not get his money back from the idiot p.o. I am still recovering emotionally from this ordeal. I had plans (showing & breeding) for them, I had names for them, dang it!!!

 

[mjane]

So sorry about your chickies. Try another hatchery or try a little later in the year when it's a bit warmer.

 

[Enchanted Sunrise Farms]

Fattie - That's horrible! How did you find out someone kicked the box?

 

[asher]

Quote:
I'm curious about that, too. I cannot imagine anyone admitting it even if they'd actually seen it or done it. IMO, at least in my office, they'd likely (if not definitely) lose their job for something like that.

 

[the1much]

ive ordered THOUSANDS of chicks from ideal, have had less then a handful of problems, and every problem that was in the "control" of ideal, they made right,, but theres nothing other then a refund or more chicks, that they can do about the PO. you should ask the people who have shipped eggs and things to me in the last 2 or 3 months,,, the PO has been so slow, most times we think the package is lost, then 2 weeks later it arrives

 

[Ginny]

I ordered from Ideal last March, the 12th. I believe. They arrived here in La. in two days, no problems. My post office called first thing in the morning and I picked them up. They did substitute five for a breed I ordered, but I did not think to say "no substitutions". Out of 35 I lost two the first two days.

 

[Funky Feathers]

How I found out someone kicked the box is the seller said it had to have happened. He took the dead birds to his Vet for necropsy, and the vet said one died of "blunt force trauma to the head". So either the box was kicked or someone opened up the box and smacked her head with a baseball bat. Go figure.