USPS has been handling the shipment of baby chicks for over 100 years

[EleanorR]

I had no idea. It's incredibly sad and detrimental to so many that thousands of chicks are dying because of Dejoy.

The Postal Service is the only entity that ships live chicks and other small animals and has done so since 1918, according to the service’s website.

“Rural Americans, including agricultural producers, disproportionately rely on USPS for their livelihoods, and it is essential that they receive reliable service,” Pingree said.

https://time.com/5882032/dead-chicks-maine-usps-mail-delays/

[dalton99a]

1. And goldfish and tropical fish and frogs

[Hoyt]

2. Personally, shipping baby chicks through PO seems cruel. In any event, can't blame it on sorting mac

machines.

[EleanorR]

4. It is a direct result of dejoy dismantling the USPS

[live love laugh]

6. It's not cruel. There are special ventilated boxes and employees know

how to handle and expedite them. I have heard chirping chicks on the docks countless times and there are hardly ever any complaints about the shipments.

[jcgoldie]

11. Its not cruel

They are built to survive it from the egg unless the mail is delayed which is the issue here. The sorting machines obviously don't handle the box the chicks are in. But if it causes all mail to be delayed due to the backlog then that's what kills them.

[Historic NY]

13. Its a decades old practice.

Of course if someone uncaring is thrown them around like packages are normally, those little chicks are in for a rough ride. Again the USPS delivers where others won't

[Hoyt]

16. Well, so was slavery and discrimination. I think it is rather cruel.

[MineralMan]

3. Yes. One time I asked a clerk at the local P.O. where

I do my mailing if they ever have shipments of baby chicks. He said, "We didn't used to, but these days a lot of people are raising chickens in their back yards, so we're getting quite a few live chick packages these days. Not the big ones like chicken farms get, but small ones with half a dozen chicks in them. Noisy!"

[MineralMan]

7. The USPS ships all sorts of live animals. Here's their page

on the subject, complete with packaging requirements.

https://pe.usps.com/text/pub52/pub52c5_008.htm

[EleanorR]

9. Thanks. Rural areas especially rely on the USPS

Though one of my old neighbors in the city raised bees and sold honey.

[jcgoldie]

10. I get queen bees in the mail all the time

They know me at the local PO and call me early in the morning to come pick em up before they even open. Some people also order package bees which will be a shoebox size box with screen sides and about 10 k bees inside with a queen.

[jcgoldie]

8. The thing about baby chicks

Nature has given them a 72 hour window to survive without food and water due to the nourishment they receive in the egg. This is why they can't mail more mature birds because they don't have that ability they would need water. So they hatch and the producer packages and mails them out that same day as long as they reach the destination within 3 days they have a tremendous survival rate. The exception is normally just if you have extremely cold temperatures then you sometimes get losses. But once the mail is delayed beyond that 72 hours that's whats causing these issues the birds are starving or dying of thirst in the box.

[Zambero]

12. This is "Canary in a coal mine" 2020 version

It's a sadly tragic state of affairs when countless dead chicks become the measure of this administration's corrupt intent.

[crickets]

14. +1

[ecstatic]

15. I didn't know that. Dejoy needs to be fired/impeached immediately! nt

[Midnight Writer]

17. At our PO, we would call the customer the minute they came in. Most would come pick them up.

The exception was the Amish farms. We used our Special Delivery man to run those chicks out to the farms, often at the crack of dawn.

You don't want live chicks riding around in a hot Postal vehicle all day.