No one person/business is at fault. A lot of it has to do with your postal route. I live in Missouri, which isn't that far from TX but it took three days for my chicks to arrive from Ideal each time. They get to ST. Louis within a few hours but then have to travel to a processing center and then on to my local, very rural, post office. The first time we suffered significant loss with 11 DOA, 2 who died later, and 18 surviving. Replacements were shipped two weeks later. They also took three days, but all 17 arrived alive (3 died later). So the postal system is somewhat at fault. So am I for wanting our poultry to be as mature as possible by our fairs in late summer. However, the Hatchery shares part of the blame. I was told it would take 1-2 days to receive my shipment. It is their business to have accurate information. I also assumed that if they were shipping all over the country during this time of year, they must know how to do it so that the birds arrive alive. They included extra males for warmth in the first order, but there was little packing material in the box and the vents were somewhat open. The second shipment had the chicks packed in a nest of of the packing material so there were several inches of insulation around them and they were kept close together. I assume that they took extra precautions once they knew how long they would take and because they were sending a smaller order. Because they replaced my order and were great to work with in that respect, I will consider them in the future. However, I will likely choose to order from Cackle for my winter shipments from now on.
