The Moderator, Miss Prissy, said it best with the last post before thankfully shutting the thread down. People are complaining that they were just getting close to an answer and the thread should never have been shut down. They were not getting close to a valid answer, they were narrowing down, based on their own assumptions, based on incorrect information, what THEY thought was going on. Here is Miss Prissy's response:
I am responding here as I have done in PM's -
I do not think anyone was getting close to answer. The answer would involved many chicks to have necropsies done, MM finding fault in more than one of the breeders they buy eggs from, the USDA investigating vaccines and many other examinations of facts and circumstance plus the predictable percentages of normal chick loss in the first few weeks (which is a huge window of death in their life).
I know most in that thread don't want to believe it but many of those symptoms described come from chicks having gotten chilled and exposure to extreme temps. this would happen in shipping and therefore would be not the fault of the hatchery but the handling by the USPO. Cold chicks exhibit wide and varied symptoms. There is some fault of the new chick owner as well.
You must also take into acct genetics - which cause symptoms that appear to be illness but are a slow death and failure to thrive. Thousands of chicks never make past the first week. The mortality rate is high. It is a fact of raising chickens. It is not one you get to choose to keep or not. It is fact. Of those chicks there is a large portion that never make it to one year. That is also another fact of raising chickens. New and inexperienced owners need to get past the pet part of owning chickens and realize that chickens are expendable commodities in the large world of hatcheries and livestock.
I know you find yourself staring open mouth and getting angry with me as you read this reply. I can sympathize with the loss because I love baby chicks as much as any of you but I am a realist and I am fully prepared and aware of the life expectancy and the responsibilities that come with animal husbandry. If those chicks were mine and they were sick and suffering they would have been culled immediaitely. They would not be left to flounder and languish on. That is the hardest part of being responsible for the lives you choose to nurture.
The thread was turning into a witch hunt with MM being the witch. I am glad it was closed. Otherwise I was planning to close it myself this evening.
I hope you understand BYC cannot allow an individual or a business or a group to be openly bashed and the finger of blame waggled nonstop. The line was being toed for the past couple of days. It was time to put a stop to it and wait for MM to chose to respond or not respsond. It is up to them how they handle their own PR and customer service policies. BYC is a forum for open discussion but not a mediator for these types of problems.
I do not think anyone was getting close to answer. The answer would involved many chicks to have necropsies done, MM finding fault in more than one of the breeders they buy eggs from, the USDA investigating vaccines and many other examinations of facts and circumstance plus the predictable percentages of normal chick loss in the first few weeks (which is a huge window of death in their life).
I know most in that thread don't want to believe it but many of those symptoms described come from chicks having gotten chilled and exposure to extreme temps. this would happen in shipping and therefore would be not the fault of the hatchery but the handling by the USPO. Cold chicks exhibit wide and varied symptoms. There is some fault of the new chick owner as well.
You must also take into acct genetics - which cause symptoms that appear to be illness but are a slow death and failure to thrive. Thousands of chicks never make past the first week. The mortality rate is high. It is a fact of raising chickens. It is not one you get to choose to keep or not. It is fact. Of those chicks there is a large portion that never make it to one year. That is also another fact of raising chickens. New and inexperienced owners need to get past the pet part of owning chickens and realize that chickens are expendable commodities in the large world of hatcheries and livestock.
I know you find yourself staring open mouth and getting angry with me as you read this reply. I can sympathize with the loss because I love baby chicks as much as any of you but I am a realist and I am fully prepared and aware of the life expectancy and the responsibilities that come with animal husbandry. If those chicks were mine and they were sick and suffering they would have been culled immediaitely. They would not be left to flounder and languish on. That is the hardest part of being responsible for the lives you choose to nurture.
The thread was turning into a witch hunt with MM being the witch. I am glad it was closed. Otherwise I was planning to close it myself this evening.
I hope you understand BYC cannot allow an individual or a business or a group to be openly bashed and the finger of blame waggled nonstop. The line was being toed for the past couple of days. It was time to put a stop to it and wait for MM to chose to respond or not respsond. It is up to them how they handle their own PR and customer service policies. BYC is a forum for open discussion but not a mediator for these types of problems.
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