Ordering chicks in the post? Humane?

[dwegg]

I would like to hear BYC's opinions on this..I just replied to a post on here about how many chicks someone lost when they arrived in the mail. i have seen this lately and it makes me sad that people just say.."just get them replaced!"

As I know very little on how chicks are shipped AND also the practices of hatcheries I would like to know what you guys think...

Is it actually humane? or is it that we just want cute little chicks no matter the cost of life (starting with the culling of thousands of day old boys at the hatcheries!), the stress of being handled so roughly at the 'sorting', to packaging, handled by 'the PO', ect...

are we doing ourselves a disservice with this practice..I mean our backyard chicken movement?

 

[cassie]

Life isn't fair whether you are a chicken or a person. A lot of fate is simply the luck of the draw. If you want chickens you are going to have to get them from a hatchery unless you can find a breeder close by. Shipping by post is humane almost all of the time, but accidents happen. Just remember that in the natural state things aren't all beer and skittles either.

 

[asher]

Quote:

 

[Katy]

A great deal of it has to do with people not being willing to wait to order chicks until the weather conditions are condusive to a good outcome. Shipping chicks in the winter is asking for trouble and dead chicks.

 

[Sir Birdaholic]

If a baby chick can survive sky-diving out of the nest 3' off the ground & survive being stepped on by others, I think the P.O. is O.K.

 

[dwegg]

cool..just asking..as i know what I 'feel' should be right but I do not know any facts, nor have I ever seen a hatchery or chicks in the post. Just what I read on here...

 

[lotzahenz]

I have orders 100's of mail order chicks. They mostly do fine, and suffer no ill effects. However, just as in nature, life happens. Our backyard chicken movement would not even be possible without hatchery chicks, as breeders are not always a viable option. These guys are very tough, and except in the harshest conditions most orders arrive with only a rare casuality. The hens have way more losses in my backyard than those in the mail. On the rare occasion things go awry, it is sad but life was never meant to be fair. Just MHO. So, yes, I think shipping is humane, look at how many happy outcomes the hatcheries have. Look at the shipped birds all over the country that do great, if it wasn't the hatcheries would not be in business.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Interesting question.

Some baby chicks are going to occasionally die, whether you get them shipped, hatch them yourself, pick them up from a breeder, whatever. Life's not fair and stuff happens, usually to the weaker ones. The sytem of shipping them through the mail has developed because it usually works quite well. None of my 28 died during shipping.

What is your proposed alternative? The current system enables a lot of chicks to have a chance at life that otherwise would not have that chance. If we could not ship them, most would never be hatched out to begin with. The backyard chicken community would look a whole lot different if we could not ship chicks. With the success rate, the current system gives a whole lot of chickens a pretty good chance at a pretty good life. I personally do not consider that inhumane.

BTW, I've known them to survive skydiving out of a 10' hay loft. They are pretty tough little fuzzy butts.

 

[Keri78]

I had two small orders from Ideal last summer...all babies arrived a day early happy healthy...now spoiled ROTTEN..living out BLESSED little chickie lives in my backyard! If I could have found someone local enough I totally would have bought local...but for the breeds I wanted I had to order from a hatchery(which they buy from local breeders anyway...I believe)...the other upside was that I could order the exact amount of each sex that I wanted and this way I didn't end up with too many boys that would end up on for sale on craigslist(and then someone's dinnerplate!)...NOT THAT I"M opposed to chicken for dinner!!!...or craigslist to rehome roos...it's just that for me I wanted certain chicks to raise and keep and not have to deal with extras.

Anywho...after reading all of these posts of people having dead baby chicks b/c of the cold weather!!!!...I'm kinda thinking the same thing...why are they shipping chicks in Feb!!!!(the coldest month of the year!)...I say this even though a friend of mine is splitting a shipment of day old babies as we speak...order was supposed to arrive today and b/c of the weather it's not being shipped from MM until the 20th....BUT...now I'm thinking that I REALLY DON'T WANT half of my babies dead on arrival just so I can have egg layers by the end of summer! I think I may just cancel the order and reorder the end of May or June??? Or maybe just forego the whole thing and hatch out eggs! Which brings me full circle to having too many roos and resorting to craigslist....oh...what to do????? Blessings, Keri

 

[Keri78]

I think it is more about the time of year when shipping(aka the temp. outside) and the hatcheries knowing that alot are NOT going to make through the mail during those temps! They are willing to take the risk and refund the difference because it is still profitable for them..if not they would wait until May to ship babies! Another thought...mypetchicken adds heat packs to their day old baby shipments...costs more but they know they will die without the heat! My last two hatchery orders(Ideal) were in JUne and August(no issues!)...makes sense...we all know that baby chicks need to remain at 95degrees when in the brooder....shipping in 20degree(or lower) weather is a HUGE RISK! I'm not anti-hatchery...just re-thinking the whole winter shipping policy! Blessings, Keri