TSC chicks keep dying despite ideal conditions

[GoldieFlocks]

I went to our new TSC just an hr ago. I asked the cashier if she'd heard of the recent chick deaths at TSC. She hadn't. I informed her of what I read on here. I walk over to look at their chicks......they're stumbling, eyes closed, some huddling, others so sick they're unable to huddle or stand, ducks and others chicks piled under the new brooders. I couldn't feel any heat coming from the air slots and the clear plastic was very cold. I went straight over and told the same cashier. She got on her walkie and told the employee in charge of the animals. He raced over and started checking the brooders. I left. I sure hope their quick response was enough. WTH is going on??

 

[Tilhana]

I say find a breeder in your local town that is selling chicks they hatched. Yea you are going to pay more but they wont be held up over the weekends in the post offices very cold shipping facilities.

That's what I do. But some people say there are no local options.

 

[Tilhana]

I don’t think it would be cost effective. Otherwise Fedex and UPS would already be doing it. I have heard of courier services that will transport pets, but their fees are very high.

One factor to remember is that chick sales for the most part are in the livestock and food industry, not the pet industry. Apples to oranges.

I'm not really comparing it to the pet industry...most pets aren't mail order.

If it's not cost effective, how does the post office do it? Poorly, yet subsidized by tax dollars? I'm not planning to start such a business myself, but if I was, I'd talk to the many breeders of pastured meat poultry who order hundreds of Cornish Crosses per season through the mail, and as them how much they'd be willing to pay for guaranteed delivery within, what, 2 days of their order being shipped? Chicks are so cheap, it might be worth it to pay a little more to avoid the packages of 100 dead chicks. And the hatcheries might pick up some of that cost since they're often sending complimentary replacement chicks when that happens.

As I've said, I'm not crazy about getting birds through the mail. I'm not looking to get into the shipping business because I don't want the inevitable deaths and trauma on my conscience. But since people ARE ordering chicks through the mail, I'd prefer that they were handled responsibly to minimize the number of deaths. The post office seems to be failing there.

 

[tigger19687]

It is all like the Puppy mills/ Back yard breeders... if there is someone to sell it to they will come and pay $$$$ for their mutts.
I think TSC wanted to do good and have been for years in the tubs But they really need to learn about these new brooders as their Bad Press is going to stop people from going there.

To be honest I don't buy my feed there, unless it is an absolute Bestest price on feed and I am desperate.

BTW, they guy at my Feed store where I just bought the best looking and healthy chicks from has a little kids plastic HOE to round them up They have had these same LOOKING brooders but in Metal and have had no issues. But it is a Family run Biz and been there for FOREVER. https://www.dodgegrain.biz/ On their home page there is pics shuffling in the background, they show the brooders.

 

[Tilhana]

It is all like the Puppy mills/ Back yard breeders... if there is someone to sell it to they will come and pay $$$$ for their mutts.

There are probably some of those but I've mostly found the people I get birds and eggs from to be either a) small farms that keep several different types of animals and let you look around at their establishment and confirm the birds are kept in sanitary conditions with ample space, etc., or b) someone raising backyard chickens who sells eggs for both food and/or hatching to make a little money on the side.

The latter is something I've done myself when my flock is big enough, and the former is what I'd like to do someday. I hope I know enough about raising animals that, upon visiting a place, I tell whether it's a real farm or a sustainable backyard chicken operation like mine, versus something resembling a puppy mill.

 

[aart]

upon visiting a place, I tell whether it's a real farm or a sustainable backyard chicken operation like mine, versus something resembling a puppy mill.

I would not buy birds from someone who let other chicken keepers visit their place.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Re PTFE (Teflon).

The problem with teflon is associated with off-gassing of PFOAs at high temperature (PFOA is, of course, and acronym for something none of us can spell, and need a deep breath before pronouncing). PFOAs aren't "part" of the teflon, but they used to be used in the teflon-making process, most of which were burned off in production. They've been either banned or phased out of use in first world countries and by major manufacturers for more than a decade.

Even if you have one of the old 1980s/90s teflon pans, and you've not scratched it to $#!+, at reasonable temperatures they are safe for use, even in confined environments.

Offgassing typically started around 500 degrees F, which is why you weren't supposed to leave the pan empty on high heat, or to slip in under your broiler. Total degradation (and REALLY toxic fumes) occurred closer to 650-700 degrees F, a temperature not achieved in home kitchens absent some other problem first occurring (many common fires aren't this hot, actually). For reference, sugar burns around 350, a grease fire 450-500.

I can state with absolute confidence that those heat plates are not achieving temperatures in the 500 degree range at point of contact, even if they still contained PFOAs, which they don't. The plastic housing would start melting at less than half that temp, assuming it was ABS, about 2/3 that temperature for nylons, some of the most heat tolerant plastics there are.

Whatever the issue, its not toxic chemicals being released into the air from the warm plastics.

 

[TheAlrightyGina]

This past year the postal service has been SO BAD. I order a lot of stuff online, and lately there have been so many lost packages, delays, and ridiculous problems suggesting incompetency at multiple organizational levels. I've watched the tracking information show packages sit in a facility for 2-3 weeks, then finally make it to my home state, only to be re-routed back in the other direction, and sit in limbo for another week. I've had to contact multiple vendors to ask them to reship packages because of long delays, and had them tell me they've had a deluge of similar complaints recently. I know USPS is blaming covid for the delays, but I suspect serious management issues, because reductions in staffing don't explain this level of fail.

Anyway my point is, if shipping chicks was risky before, now it feels almost reckless. I realize not everyone has the resources to find local sources or hatch their own chicks, but maybe people need to pressure the hatcheries to start using private carriers. At least for carriers like fedex and ups there's some market pressure when they screw up because they're not the only game in town.

The problem is the latest post master general actively sabotaging the organization by removing sorting machines and eliminating overtime (which would be how they would compensate with the abrupt lack of sorting machines). There's a lot of burnout in the USPS right now because they're having to work super hard to catch up with all the delays caused by that man's shenanigans, and he's still there. The drivers that deliver to me are working multiple routes for the first time ever, and some are even driving back out, late at night, to ensure packages are getting delivered. IN MEMPHIS. I wouldn't make deliveries after dark here no matter how handsome the pay, depending on what part of town we're talking about. So it's definitely not a worker problem, it's a management (at the top) problem. They're currently looking at firing the entire postal board so that they can hire a new postmaster general since this guy has made such a mess of things and the postal board (who oversees and is technically said post master general's boss) has done diddly squat about his muckups.

I wouldn't want Fedex and UPS to take this stuff over, because they aren't obligated by service, they are obligated to profit. The USPS is a service for us, by us, and no, it doesn't use tax money. All of their funding is covered by the sale of goods and services. They have loss leaders just like everybody else, and cover it with things that make more.

 

[Tilhana]

I would not buy birds from someone who let other chicken keepers visit their place.

I guess that's your choice, but I hope you're not suggesting that TSC is going to have better biological controls. I know some farms are very strict about visitors but then they're raising chickens that have never been exposed to any diseases.

I mean you have to decide what's most important to you. I want hardy birds that don't need to be vaccinated and medicated and kept in a plastic bubble. Joel Salatin lets people visit his farm any time, without an appointment, and he's kind of the gold standard among a lot of homesteading folks. If you want to go for the antiseptic, biologically controlled environment, that's one way to go, but I am trying to breed hardy birds that don't need that kind of pampering.

 

[Cinnamon Roll]

I just got 16 chicks through the mail on Wednesday and have had no losses so far. USPS has good employees who are trying their best, and in my case they did a fantastic job getting my chicks here.

I got chicks at TSC last summer and the employees did not do a good job caring for them. I think it was lack of time and training both. I decided this year to order chicks and not support TSC’s chick sales.