Heads up on poultry shipments in USA
Posted: Fri Aug 21, 2020 5:00 pm
ATTENTION! PLEASE CONSIDER NOT ORDERING POULTRY VIA USPS AT THIS TIME!
This is NOT a political post and please, NO discussions or comments on this post. This is a PSA to all poultry enthusiasts/producers/keepers.
Postal workers are reporting major mail room backlogs of mail and packages of all kinds due to many factors. The slowdown means that everything is piling up. That includes food, medication, and shipment of animals.
The USPS is the responsible for 99% of the transport of baby chicks and other poultry around the US. All hatcheries ship out day old chicks via the USPS. Most private breeders who ship use the USPS to ship out fertile eggs, baby chicks, and even adult breeding stock. In many postal hubs in the US, baby chicks and other poultry are not being moved along the distribution chain, and so are left to die in their boxes. Adult birds that were fed lots of overly soggy food to ensure that they were well hydrated before their 1-2 day trip are now being left to die in their shipping boxes. The lucky ones will be moved into the office of the local postmaster and s/he will feed and water them until they can be moved along, but once they get to the major distribution hubs and hundreds of boxes of animals accumulate there is only so much extra work that can be done, even by postal workers who care about these birds, so many or most will die.
Please postpone ordering and shipping all poultry until this issue is resolved.
Addendum: While this cannot be made shareable because this is a private group, everyone has my permission to copy and paste it to share it far and wide. I want as many people to know as possible.
Dr. Alicia Nolfi
This is NOT a political post and please, NO discussions or comments on this post. This is a PSA to all poultry enthusiasts/producers/keepers.
Postal workers are reporting major mail room backlogs of mail and packages of all kinds due to many factors. The slowdown means that everything is piling up. That includes food, medication, and shipment of animals.
The USPS is the responsible for 99% of the transport of baby chicks and other poultry around the US. All hatcheries ship out day old chicks via the USPS. Most private breeders who ship use the USPS to ship out fertile eggs, baby chicks, and even adult breeding stock. In many postal hubs in the US, baby chicks and other poultry are not being moved along the distribution chain, and so are left to die in their boxes. Adult birds that were fed lots of overly soggy food to ensure that they were well hydrated before their 1-2 day trip are now being left to die in their shipping boxes. The lucky ones will be moved into the office of the local postmaster and s/he will feed and water them until they can be moved along, but once they get to the major distribution hubs and hundreds of boxes of animals accumulate there is only so much extra work that can be done, even by postal workers who care about these birds, so many or most will die.
Please postpone ordering and shipping all poultry until this issue is resolved.
Addendum: While this cannot be made shareable because this is a private group, everyone has my permission to copy and paste it to share it far and wide. I want as many people to know as possible.
Dr. Alicia Nolfi
