Is this you, Barb? I just shipped 2, 6-wk-olds to S. California from Michigan. Talk about a nervous wreck! But, fortunately, mine arrived in one day instead of two and absolutely fine!
13 hrs to 55 hrs are the time ranges that I have received shipped birds. I won't order chicks this way since chicks are so delicate and "iffy" but juveniles to adults travel surprisingly well. My very first time receiving juveniles I kept contacting my local post office for pickup and the idiots still put my birds in a hot little mail truck for delivery. PO's policy is to call customer for pickup so when I found out the idiots had my birds in a truck I demanded delivery immediately and in 20 minutes my girls were at my front door (these sweet birds were the ones that took 55 hrs to reach me).
The key is to keep in contact with USPS online tracking and your local PO delivery destination office. USPS has since been excellent at our local PO to call us for pickup even as early as 6 a.m. but all it takes is one new or temporary employee to mess up so I call or visit our PO often and inform my mail driver a couple days in advance that live birds are on the way! I live in SoCalif and have ordered birds from within my own State, from the Midwest, and from the New England Coast. I have never lost an older juvenile because of being shipped. This is a great testament to those wonderful experienced breeders who have shipped me birds.