WARNING: Hoovers hatchery

[Cheems]

Hello, I know this has been said a million times before, but I just want to tell my story of this because I have never worked with a hatchery so frustrating

They first delayed my order twice, which was a big problem for me because I was hatching chicks out to raise with the hatchery chicks, they never notified me my hatch date was moved, not until the day they were supposed to ship them, and no email about any of this, only when I randomly checked the website did I realize

Then when they finally do ship the chicks out, they shipped them without a heater pack, it’s the winter and I don’t know what they were expecting, 9/15 chicks arrived dead and the rest dying, maybe 1-2 chicks were acting normally?

The customer service was really long and I tried calling so many times, the only way I could ever get ahold of them is by email, and they took forever to respond

Really upsetting scene when I had to open that box, I just want to warn others because I’ve never had any of the other hatcheries I’ve bought from be so careless about what they are doing

 

[Cheems]

Another update, 10/15 died, 3 super weak, 2 semi normal, I’d highly warn against Hoovers hatchery, no response from them either

 

[nuthatched]

Thats terrible! I'm sorry.
But, its not really their fault. It's too cold to be ordering chicks right now. Every year there's scores of posts complaining about every hatchery. It's not the hatchery, is the shipping through cold fronts and negative temperatures. They don't bounce back.
Imo, Hatcheries shouldn't be offering chicks until the beginning of March for non retail orders over a certain distance.

 

[The Moonshiner]

I agree that the hatcheries shouldn't be shipping chicks this early in the year. And I'm not sure why they think they need to since most sell out many of their breeds way before fall.
But the fact that they are shipping them now does make it entirely their fault. Especially when they are in February without a heat pack for smaller orders.

 

[Cheems]

Thats terrible! I'm sorry.
But, its not really their fault. It's too cold to be ordering chicks right now. Every year there's scores of posts complaining about every hatchery. It's not the hatchery, is the shipping through cold fronts and negative temperatures. They don't bounce back.
Imo, Hatcheries shouldn't be offering chicks until the beginning of March for non retail orders over a certain distance.

I agree that the whether is definetely the biggest issue that made things go wrong here, but the fact they didn’t include a heating pack and fix that problem is in my opinion is cruel, I assumed heating would be included and so I didn’t question it too deeply

 

[JacinLarkwell]

I had a snall amount of issues with them when I placed my order years ago. Never informed me that my order had been moved to a later date (found out because I was glancing at my order info while waiting for a class to start, so it was completelyby chance i even knew ahead of time) and basically blew me off when I inquired as to why and the lack of informing about it, saying something along the lines of 'you're still getting the birds, why does it matter its later?'

When I had to get a new shipment because the order had been delayed and I opened a silent box Monday morning, they were much kinder though (different person that was working possibly that day?)

 

[TexasBlues]

That’s too bad. This comment probably won’t be accepted well by the byc community, but I think shipping hatchery chicks is extremely cruel.

 

[The Moonshiner]

That’s too bad. This comment probably won’t be accepted well by the byc community, but I think shipping hatchery chicks is extremely cruel.

A particular reason why?
Without shipping chicks we'd all be pretty limited on what would be available to us.
A necessary evil, maybe?

 

[TexasBlues]

I consider animals dying a slow death in a box as cruel. Something like 11% die during shipment and 50% perish within a week.
If you do a search there’s major single shipments of several thousand chicks dying in transit.
It’s not necessary to me. I reckon people had chickens for 1000s of years before USPS.

A particular reason why?
Without shipping chicks we'd all be pretty limited on what would be available to us.
A necessary evil, maybe?

 

[The Moonshiner]

I consider animals dying a slow death in a box as cruel. Something like 11% die during shipment and 50% perish within a week.
If you do a search there’s major single shipments of several thousand chicks dying in transit.
It’s not necessary to me. I reckon people had chickens for 1000s of years before USPS.

Ok, I was legit curious.
I've ordered 100s of chicks thru the mail in the last several.decades but not so much anymore. And ya I'd be fine if I never do again.
But for real those numbers don't add up in my experience. Not even remotely.
Thank you for answering though.