![\"USPS](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.animals24-7.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Picsart_25-05-20_13-18-59-980-e1747772587993.jpg?ssl=1\")
<\/a><\/p>\n(Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n CAMDEN,\u00a0 Delaware<\/strong>\u2013\u201cMore than two thousand\u201d chicks,\u00a0 survivors of as many as 17,000 abandoned for four days at a U.S. Postal Service distribution center circa April 29,\u00a0 2025,\u00a0 remain at the First State Animal Center & SPCA,\u00a0 shelter director John Parana told media.<\/p>\n More than two weeks have elapsed since the baby birds were discovered in New Castle,\u00a0 Delaware,\u00a0 stuffed into 250 to 300 cardboard boxes aboard a tractor-trailer truck,\u00a0 long overdue for delivery.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Department of Agriculture investigator who was here when the birds were unloaded guessed that 8,100 birds were still alive,\u201d\u00a0 Parana added.<\/p>\n (Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n “A lot of them were dead on arrival due to being in the truck for three and a half days with no food, \u00a0no water,\u00a0 and in extreme heat,”\u00a0 Parana said.<\/p>\n Explained WGAL reporter Anne Shannon,\u00a0 \u201cThe birds came from Freedom Ranger Hatchery,\u00a0 in Reinholds,\u00a0 Pennsylvania.\u00a0 The owners are still trying to figure out what went wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cFreedom Ranger Hatchery ships chicks out every Monday and Tuesday, \u00a0except for holidays,\u201d\u00a0 Shannon learned.\u00a0 \u201cThis shipment started out as one of their routine orders.\u00a0 It included chicks, turkeys, geese and quail, \u00a0bound for 80 different destinations around the U.S.,\u00a0 including in Texas,\u00a0 Ohio,\u00a0 and Florida.<\/p>\n \u201cThe hatchery didn’t know anything was wrong until the birds were discovered in Delaware,\u201d\u00a0 Shannon relayed from a Freedom Ranger spokesperson.<\/p>\n (Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n While the Freedom Rangers Hatchery company is headquartered in Reinholds,\u00a0 Pennsylvania,\u00a0 the baby birds actually came from a hatchery in West Cocalico Township,\u00a0 reported Lancaster Online<\/em> staff writer Nathan Willison on May 14, \u00a02025.<\/p>\n \u201cThe inside of the trailer with the birds was 130 degrees when found,\u00a0 according to the Delaware Department of Agriculture,\u201d\u00a0 Willison added.<\/p>\n About 12,000 birds were dead,\u00a0 with 4,000 survivors,\u00a0 according to numbers Willison was given.<\/p>\n Freedom Ranger Hatchery objected to Willison in a written statement that,\u00a0 \u201cThe birds were then given out without permission to a shelter that was not adequately prepared to handle the birds and lost more after that.<\/p>\n (Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n A Freedom Ranger Hatchery spokesperson told Associated Press reporter Mingson Lau that,\u00a0 \u201cDue to biosecurity concerns, \u00a0the hatchery cannot take the chicks back.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe spokesperson said it would have been best,\u201d\u00a0 Lau wrote, \u00a0\u201cif USPS, \u00a0after discovering the chicks, \u00a0had completed delivery,\u00a0 as the recipients would have been adequately equipped to handle the birds \u2014 even if malnourished.\u201d<\/p>\n But leaving the birds aboard the truck would have ensured more deaths from heat stress,\u00a0 while transferring them to other trucks would have significantly prolonged their suffering.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have been in contact with the Post Office but are struggling to get clear answers on this situation,\u201d\u00a0 Freedom Ranger said.<\/p>\n Peking duckling chicks.<\/strong><\/em> The U.S. Postal Service issued a media statement saying simply,\u00a0 \u201cWe are aware of limited instances where there has been a breakdown in our processes and procedures with this type of shipment.\u00a0 We are actively investigating and identifying the cause. \u00a0Local postal teams will work with affected customers to address their concerns and determine timely solutions for any issues with these shipments.\u201d<\/p>\n Opened the First State Animal Center & SPCA in a May 3, 2025 emergency appeal to donors,\u00a0 \u201cYesterday we received between 3,000 to 5,000,\u00a0 estimated as there are too many to get an actual count,\u00a0 \u00a0baby chicks of all kinds, \u00a0including quail, \u00a0geese,\u00a0 and mostly chickens.\u201d<\/p>\n Parana \u201csaid the animal center has had to cover the costs of caring for the surviving birds and was told by Delaware\u2019s agriculture department that there were no funds immediately available to assist the nonprofit,\u201d\u00a0 wrote Willison.<\/p>\n U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins has not actually picked up any of the Delaware chickens.\u00a0 (Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Updated Tiffani Amber of WBOC two days later,\u00a0 without citing a source,\u00a0 \u201cThe birds were stranded following shipping delays and repeated rejections from distribution centers across the country.\u00a0 Instead, \u00a0the entire shipment was mistakenly sent to Delaware and left in a hot environment without food or water for more than three days.\u201d<\/p>\n The First State Animal Center & SPCA on May 13,\u00a0 2025 announced that the surviving birds were available for adoption,\u00a0 \u201cbut only a few hundred out of thousands have been picked up,\u201d\u00a0 reported Mingson Lau six days later.<\/p>\n \u201cSome have inquired about buying the birds for meat,\u201d\u00a0 Lau mentioned, \u00a0\u201cbut as First State Animal Center & SPCA is a no-kill shelter, \u00a0those were refused.\u201d<\/p>\n (Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n The Delaware Department of Agriculture,\u00a0 Lau added,\u00a0 \u201cshares a memorandum of understanding with the First State Animal Center as a state vendor. The department said it is responsible for assisting the shelter with funds.\u00a0 For chickens, \u00a0the rate is $5 each per day.<\/p>\n \u201cThe department\u2019s chief of planning, \u00a0Jimmy Kroon, \u00a0said negotiations were ongoing, but Parana claims that the department communicated that they had no funds to allocate for the chicks. Both acknowledged the original rate would be unreasonable in the current circumstances.<\/p>\n \u201cThey said that they\u2019re going to try to go after the post office to get recoupment,\u201d \u00a0Parana told Lau. \u00a0\u201cThat doesn\u2019t help us in the meantime.\u201d<\/p>\n (Beth Clifton photo\/collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n The U.S. Postal Service guarantees that day-old live birds sent by Priority Mail will be delivered within 72 hours of hatching.<\/p>\n Postal regulation 526,\u00a0 \u00a0\u201cMailable Live Animals,\u201d\u00a0 explains that \u201cThe following live, \u00a0day\u2013old animals are acceptable for mailing when properly packaged: \u00a0chickens, \u00a0ducks, \u00a0emus, \u00a0geese, guinea birds, \u00a0partridges, \u00a0pheasants (only during April through August), \u00a0quail, \u00a0and turkeys. \u00a0All other types of live, \u00a0day\u2013old poultry are non-mailable.\u201d<\/p>\n Postal regulation 526 goes on to detail exactly how live birds and other \u201cmailable\u201d animals are to be handled,\u00a0 and when.<\/p>\n But disasters such as the one in Delaware have occurred often before.<\/p>\n U.S. Representative Chellie Pingree.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Chellie Pingree,\u00a0 a Democrat representing Maine\u2019s Second Congressional District,\u00a0 on August 21, 2020 led 23 fellow members of the House of Representatives in asking then-postmaster general Louis DeJoy and Sonny Perdue,\u00a0 then U.S. Secretary of Agriculture,\u00a0 to \u201cinvestigate the recent deaths of thousands of mail-order chicks,\u201d\u00a0 and to take \u201cimmediate action to rectify this issue.\u201d<\/p>\n Explained Pingree,\u00a0 \u201cWe have heard alarming reports that recent shipments of live chicks via the U.S. Postal Service have been severely delayed or mishandled, \u00a0resulting in significant mortality losses. \u00a0For example, \u00a0one hatchery recently reported that a shipment of 4,800 chicks arrived in New England with 100% mortality.<\/p>\n Charged Pingree,\u00a0 \u201cLosses from delays and mishandling are not only hugely problematic from\u00a0an animal welfare perspective, \u00a0but have also taken an emotional toll on the\u00a0recipients.<\/p>\n \u201cHatcheries in multiple states have reported spending thousands of\u00a0dollars to refund or replace orders for customers,\u201d\u00a0 Pingree continued.<\/p>\n (Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n But Pingree probably knew even before appealing to DeJoy and Perdue that their answer would likely be the sound of crickets,\u00a0 dead in transit along with the poultry with whom crickets are often shipped as potential prey,\u00a0 should the birds become hungry.<\/p>\n Pingree spoke two days after the\u00a0Portland Press\u00a0Herald<\/em>\u00a0reported that 800 chicks mailed to Pine Tree Poultry farmer Pauline Henderson, \u00a0of New Sharon, Maine, \u00a0from a hatchery in Pennsylvania,\u00a0 had all arrived dead.<\/p>\n \u201cUsually,\u201d\u00a0 Henderson said,\u00a0 \u201cout of 100 birds you may have one or two who die in shipping.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThousands of birds who moved through the Postal Service\u2019s processing center in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, \u00a0were also dead,\u201d\u00a0 mentioned Associated Press,\u00a0 \u201cimpacting several farms in Maine and New Hampshire.\u201d<\/p>\n Laura J. Nelson and Maya Lau of the\u00a0Los Angeles Times<\/em> reported the same day that,\u00a0 \u201cInside a massive mail-sorting facility in\u00a0South Los Angeles, \u00a0workers fell so far behind\u00a0processing packages that\u00a0gnats\u00a0and rodents were swarming around containers of\u00a0rotted fruit and meat, \u00a0and baby chicks were dead\u00a0inside their boxes.”<\/p>\n (Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n CentralMaine.com<\/em>\u00a0staff writer Rachel Ohm in a March 16, \u00a02014 article described the deaths of 25 baby chicks whom Mercer,\u00a0 Maine farmer Dan Charles received days late from Moyer\u2019s Chicks in Quakertown, \u00a0Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n \u201cLeon Moyer, \u00a0owner of Moyer\u2019s, said the company sends about 1.3 million chickens all over the world each year, \u00a0including to Europe and Africa.<\/p>\n \u201cHe estimated that between one and two percent don\u2019t survive, \u00a0which amounts to\u00a013,000 to 26,000 chickens,\u201d\u00a0 Ohm mentioned.<\/p>\n Karen Davis & friends<\/strong><\/em> Live poultry transport via the U.S. Postal Service has long been an issue of humane concern,\u00a0 especially since the advocacy organization United Poultry Concerns,\u00a0 founded in 1990 by author Karen Davis,\u00a0 began frequently decrying the practice.<\/p>\n (See <\/em><\/strong>Karen Davis, Ph.D., United Poultry Concerns founder, dead at 79<\/em><\/strong><\/a>.)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n In 2006 the Peninsula\u00a0Humane Society, \u00a0of San Mateo, \u00a0California, \u00a0unsuccessfully sought cruelty charges against\u00a0Northwest Airlines and also investigated pursuing cruelty cases against the Fresno turkey hatchery Zacky\u00a0Farms and Air Canada.<\/p>\n The U.S. Postal Service was not directly named,\u00a0 but Northwest Airlines was believed to be at the time the leading transporter of live poultry for the postal service.<\/p>\n (Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cHybrid Turkeys, \u00a0a commercial breeder in Canada, \u00a0shipped 11,520 turkey chicks on Northwest from Detroit,\u201d\u00a0 explained Hong Dao Nguyen of the\u00a0San Jose Mercury News<\/em>. \u00a0\u201cThe chicks, \u00a0a few\u00a0weeks old, \u00a0were to be picked up at the San Francisco airport by\u00a0Zacky Farms.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHybrid instructed Northwest to divide the birds between two flights to California,\u201d \u00a0\u00a0Peninsula Humane Society spokesperson Scott Delucchi told Nguyen.\u00a0 \u201cInstead, Northwest stuffed all 144 boxes of fowl onto one four-and-a-half-hour flight,\u201d \u00a0leaving more birds competing for oxygen in the airliner hold.<\/p>\n \u201cNearly 2,000 chicks made it to Fresno,\u201d \u00a0Nguyen continued, \u00a0\u201cbut a\u00a0day later,\u201d \u00a0on July 14, \u00a02006,\u00a0 \u00a0\u201cNorthwest called Peninsula Humane to pick\u00a0up 168 others who were left at the airport. \u00a0All but 40 of them died.<\/p>\n (Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cLess than a week later, \u00a0Hybrid shipped 9,360 chicks to San Francisco, \u00a0this time via three Air Canada flights,\u201d\u00a0 Nguyen reported. \u00a0\u201cWhen one plane made a pit stop in Las Vegas, \u00a0the chicks were unloaded in 108-degree heat.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cZacky Farms left boxes containing an estimated 3,240 dead and dying birds at the San Francisco airport,\u201d \u00a0said a Farm Sanctuary media release,\u00a0 \u00a0picking up the account.<\/p>\n \u201cBy the time the Peninsula Humane Society\u00a0arrived, \u00a0Northwest Airlines cargo workers had already thrown 26 of\u00a0the 28 boxes into a trash compactor. \u00a0In the two remaining boxes,\u00a0 investigators found 22 of 62 chicks still alive. \u00a0Sadly, \u00a0all but one died.\u201d<\/p>\n The Farm Sanctuary facility at Orlands, \u00a0California, \u00a0took in 11 of the turkeys who survived the earlier incident.<\/p>\n Zacky Farms in 2007 lost 57,000 turkeys to a heat wave,\u00a0 in 2012 went through a Chapter 11 bankruptcy,\u00a0 and in 2019 was subsumed by Foster Farms.<\/p>\n (Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cSuch deaths are routine but seldom publicized,\u201d \u00a0said Karen Davis. \u00a0\u201cNewborn birds are shipped by the U.S. Postal Service and the airlines as \u2018perishable matter\u2019 \u00a0and treated like luggage. \u00a0Millions of baby birds are delivered dead and dying each year,\u201d\u00a0 Davis charged, \u00a0\u201cand postal workers who find boxes of suffering birds are forbidden by law from intervening. \u00a0Northwest Airlines announced in 2001 that it would no longer carry chicks as mail, \u00a0but the hatcheries persuaded Congress to force airlines,\u201d\u00a0 including Northwest Airlines, \u00a0to continue.<\/p>\n Northwest had stopped hauling chicks for the U.S. Postal Service after the postal service refused to triple the payment per pound of chicks carried from 31\u00a2 to 93\u00a2,\u00a0 to cover increased fuel and security costs.<\/p>\n (Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Ironically,\u00a0 companies mailing live birds still pay a base rate of just 20\u00a2 per pound.<\/p>\n American Airlines, \u00a0Federal Express, \u00a0United Airlines, \u00a0and the United Parcel Service had already stopped hauling chicks when Northwest Airlines briefly quit,\u00a0 leaving Delta, \u00a0U.S. Airways, \u00a0and Continental as the only airlines that still flew live chicks for the Postal Service before Congress compelled the others to resume.<\/p>\n Federal legislation passed in mid-2000 requiring airlines to report all instances of animal loss, \u00a0injury, \u00a0or death in transit had already caused major airlines to seek ways to get out of the high-risk, \u00a0low-return live animal traffic,\u00a0 even before the terrorist acts of September 11,\u00a0 2001 required costly additional security measures.<\/p>\n Beyond keepers of backyard poultry flocks,\u00a0 major users of the postal service for bird delivery include cockfighters and operators of pheasant and quail shooting venues.<\/p>\n Oklahoma governor Kevin Stitt consorts with the Oklahoma Gamefowl Commission.<\/strong><\/em> The Humane Farming Association and United Poultry Concerns,\u00a0 among many other animal advocacy organizations,\u00a0 have called for the abolition of live bird transport via the U.S. Postal Service for more than 35 years.<\/p>\n Animal Wellness Action has since November 16, 2022 recommended amendments to Section 26 of the Animal Welfare Act\u00a0which would \u201chalt the shipment of mature roosters through the U.S.\u00a0mail,\u00a0 at least.<\/p>\n All has been so far to little avail.<\/p>\n Simply put,\u00a0 the poultry industry,\u00a0 including the illegal cockfighting part of the industry, \u00a0has a lot more legislative clout than does animal advocacy.<\/p>\n Cockfighting gaffs.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n But U.S. Customs & Border Protection did on May 3,\u00a0 2025 intercept 10 pairs of leather cock spur covers and 10 cockfighting knife sheaths from the incoming international mail at the Cincinnati Port of Entry.<\/p>\n This rare interdiction of cockfighting-related postal traffic again spurred the question when,\u00a0 if ever,\u00a0 the taxpayer-funded U.S. Postal Service is going to enforce federal law already on the books since 2007 against anyone mailing gamefowl anywhere,\u00a0 at any stage of life.<\/p>\n (See <\/em><\/strong>Feds bust cockfighting spurs in the mail but ignore mailings of gamecocks<\/em><\/strong><\/a>.)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n The main obstacle to enforcement,\u00a0 supposedly,\u00a0 is that while the U.S. Postal Service forbids transporting any \u201clive animal for the purpose of participating in an animal-fighting venture,\u201d\u00a0 postal employees have no way to distinguish birds mailed for one purpose from birds mailed for another.<\/p>\n (Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Yet there is a way.<\/p>\n Adult birds may be mailed via Priority Mail Express if weighing less than 25\u00a0pounds.\u00a0 This is more than twice the weight of a typical fighting gamecock.<\/p>\n Accordingly,\u00a0 one way to at least inhibit the fighting rooster traffic without either requiring postal workers to be experts in bird recognition, or interfering significantly in egg and hatchling commerce of any species, \u00a0would be to simply lower the weight limit for birds in the mail to five pounds.<\/p>\n Few people other than cockfighters ever mail any birds after they reach anything approaching full adult weight.<\/p>\n Merritt & Beth Clifton with Henry the rooster.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n The post Postal error kills up to 15,000 newly hatched chicks, leaves SPCA with 2,000+<\/a> appeared first on Animals 24-7<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" (Beth Clifton collage) Delaware disaster draws attention yet again to inhumanity of mailing live birds CAMDEN,\u00a0 Delaware\u2013\u201cMore than two thousand\u201d chicks,\u00a0 survivors of as many as 17,000 abandoned for four days at a U.S. Postal Service distribution center circa April 29,\u00a0 2025,\u00a0 remain at the First State Animal Center & SPCA,\u00a0 shelter director John Parana […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":250405,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12022],"tags":[30126,990,87167,7784,8605,16700,5258,17461],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-250404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-activist","tag-chicks","tag-error","tag-hatched","tag-kills","tag-leaves","tag-newly","tag-postal","tag-spca"],"yoast_head":"\nDelaware disaster draws attention yet again to inhumanity of mailing live birds<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n“Three & a half days with no food,\u00a0 no water,\u00a0 in extreme heat”<\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n“Inside of the trailer was 130 degrees”<\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n\u201cDue to biosecurity concerns, \u00a0the hatchery cannot take the chicks back.\u201d<\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n
(Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n“Too many to get an actual count”<\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n“Rejected by distribution centers across the country”?<\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nState contract offers $5 a bird per day,\u00a0 but state has no money to pay it<\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nGuaranteed delivery within 72 hours of hatching<\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n\u201cInvestigate the recent deaths of thousands of mail-order chicks\u201d<\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nThe Hill was alive with the sound of crickets<\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n“Between one and two percent don’t survive”<\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n
(Beth Clifton)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n2006 Zacky Farms case<\/strong><\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nLeft their birds in San Francisco<\/strong><\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nGambled against the sun in Las Vegas<\/strong><\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nAirlines forced to continue hauling birds for post office<\/strong><\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nU.S. Postal Service handles birds at a loss<\/strong><\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n
(Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\nPoultry industry has more clout than animal advocates<\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nCockfighting paraphernalia seized,\u00a0 but not birds<\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nWatch the weights<\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nPlease donate to support our work:<\/strong><\/h2>\n
www.animals24-7.org\/donate\/<\/a><\/strong><\/h2>\n