MyPetChicken FAIL, need alternative

[21hens-incharge]

I think it all boils down to humans. Every post office AND Amazon is staffed by humans. Even when doing their very best they cannot control the weather.
Human error and perhaps on occasion human attitude or neglect comes into play.

The hatcheries do their best to get chicks to us alive. Post offices by in large do the same. The weather plays a part of course.

Buying local greatly increases the odds for the chicks. Ordering in batches large enough for warmth increases the odds. Ordering for delivery when the weather is more mild increases the odds. Those are things we as consumers can do to provide the chicks the best chances of survival.
It does not take chance completely out of the picture though.

That being said...... Although some chicks do not make it every year millions do.

Have faith in the current system. It has been running many many years and improving all the time.

 

[SunHwaKwon]

I know that in most ways the comparison I made is apples to oranges, but my essential point is that there are better and faster methods to ship. It would be great if someone got on board with the hatcheries other than USPS because it's a crap shoot with them.

For instance, our mail lady (at my house) is a grouch. About 3 weeks ago we got 3 packages delivered. Nothing heavy, but too big for the mailbox. She apparently hates having to get out of her mail truck, so she brings our packages to the house and DROPS them on the porch. I was in the office which has a window onto the porch so I saw and heard what she did. Thankfully, nothing was breakable, but she didn't know that! Fast forward to 10 days ago. One of my boyfriend's employees accidentally backed into our mailbox in the morning. That same day another package (too big for the mailbox) was attempted to be delivered. She didn't bother bringing it to the door because the mailbox was broken. She wrote "mailbox down" on the box and went on her merry way. She's just not nice, end of story.

I work in a neighboring town and the mail man at my office is super nice. Always friendly, always says hello. If there's too much mail for the box he brings it into the office instead of cramming it in.

Postal service is alllll over the place.

Ours is friendly and lives right down the road from us, but she is lazy as well. She drives into the driveway and honks and waits (and I don't go out a lot of the time unless I know its a box of my husbands truck parts because she needs to stop being so lazy) or she opens the mailbox door and precariously sets the package there so, you know, anyone can drive by and grab it.

She has also just decided to not deliver packages sometimes, but update it as delivered in the system I guess so she won't get in trouble, and then delivered them the following day.

 

[Bocktobery 10]

This might have already been asked (I didn't read the whole thread) but why are you blaming MPC when it could be a situation outside of MPC's hands? It might have been weather conditions, or some sicko mail person shaking the box to be cruel (its sad, but there are such sick people in the world Ive come to find out).

I've not had anything but really good success with MPC, so that's why I'm speaking up. I'd be very surprised if it was something that they did or didn't do to cause the deaths of your chicks. If anything they have always been tremendously helpful and look after the welfare of the chicks during delivery. My birds were exceptionally healthy and vibrant when they arrived. I'm sorry you went through this though, it can be heartbreaking.

=

 

[JS69135]

Agreed. Ordered chicks from MPC, and they arrived perfectly safe and healthy last Tuesday.

 

[SoCalClucker]

I would be livid about the cost of the shipping! I honestly for the life of me can't figure out how Amazon Prime WITHOUT FAIL in the hundreds of orders I have placed with them over multiple years, has gotten every package to my door in 2 days, occasionally less, and hatcheries can't seem to figure out how to do the same. There's another BYC'er whose chicks never got scanned in by anyone in the postal service other than when the label was created, and they arrived 3 days late, all DOA. How can one company get it down to a science and others just fail miserably?

On top of that, hatcheries charge insane shipping rates. I pay Amazon $100 a year for Prime shipping. So far in 2017 I have placed 19 orders. That breaks down to $5.20 an order, but that number gets smaller every time I order! In 2016 I placed 60 orders, which breaks down to $1.66 an order. Every order gets here in 2 days. I have ordered a patio umbrella, a pool vacuum, a bureau. Bulky stuff. EVERYTHING CAME IN 2 DAYS. FOR $1.66!!!!!!!!
The hatcheries need to get their heads out of their butts and find a more effective means of shipping. Alternatively, Amazon could start selling chicks and then life would be a dream...

I completely agree. I know USPS to Amazon is hardly apples to apples, and yet Amazon showed great innovation in transforming the way we think about online shopping (remember the days when it took 2 weeks to get your order? Yes, it used to be that way!) and that's why they're an industry leader. USPS plods along, more or less doing things the way they always have, and unfortunately the experience pretty much is a hit-and-miss. I ordered fertile eggs and they got them here on time, but I ordered chicks to arrive today and I have no idea where they are. The tracking data says they got picked up from the hatchery in OH yesterday afternoon, but absolutely nothing since. So are they not even coming out to CA until tomorrow, to be delivered on Thursday? Oh and of course, regardless of how long it takes and whether the chicks survive, we still get stuck with the $70 USPS Express bill. How can you offer an exorbitantly expensive service, then not have to deliver on it, but no refund is required? It makes no sense.

I'm on the phone with USPS now, and it's a 35 minute hold time. I have the feeling they'll have nothing to tell me aside from what's already on the tracking page, which is... nothing. My anxiety is through the roof. I ordered these chicks for my broody to adopt, and today is day 19 of her cycle, so if the chicks don't come in time, the whole plan just might fall apart. People have lives, things going on, and obviously reasons they're willing to shell out $70 for shipping costs, and if they don't understand that... well then, I guess somebody else needs to step up and show them how it's done. In a day and age of curing cancers and sending space shuttles to outer space on a whim, shipping day-old chicks for a reasonable cost with a decent success rate CANNOT be THAT hard.

 

[NorthTexasWink]

Since Amazon has bought Whole Foods, I'm thinking Amazon wants to be America's grocery store? How much different is shipping ripe strawberries from shipping live chicks? OK, a bit different. But if the market is profitable enough, might Amazon try it? I wonder if anyone at Amazon even knows how many live chicks are shipped in America yearly and at what cost, both in dollars and deaths?

 

[SoCalClucker]

Since Amazon has bought Whole Foods, I'm thinking Amazon wants to be America's grocery store? How much different is shipping ripe strawberries from shipping live chicks? OK, a bit different. But if the market is profitable enough, might Amazon try it? I wonder if anyone at Amazon even knows how many live chicks are shipped in America yearly and at what cost, both in dollars and deaths?

They've been pretty clear about their ambitions to become the one-stop shop for, well, everything. They're blending all the technology they own in shipping/supply chain, voice recognition, etc. to pretty much be part of every aspect of your life. If they wanted to, I think something like shipping chicks would be easy peasy for them. They could probably even do it smarter than today, like letting you pick a breed you like and then them showing you all the various hatcheries to choose from, or setting up their own hatcheries in major markets and getting the chicks to you in hours vs. days (like Amazon Prime Now), or some other crazy thing that I can't even think of. How about letting you pick from fertile eggs that are at various stages of incubation so if you want to put them under your broody, you don't have to have her sit for 21 days from when the eggs come, even if she's been broody for days already? That'd be kind of cool... And then, of course, getting the chicks to you in a RELIABLE, affordable way would be right up their alley. I suppose it just comes down to whether they feel like it's a market worth their time.