The majority of the time, shipping live poultry and waterfowl with the U.S. Postal Service is problem-free, according to one poultry industry representative.
But it’s that one occasion when things go wrong that can have a significant impact.
John Metzer, owner of California hatchery Metzer Farms, has an idea to improve shipping of live chicks and, hopefully, reduce those instances when losses do occur.
Most of the time, Metzer said, customers get their birds within one or two days and losses are at a minimum. Postal Service guidelines state that chicks must be delivered within 72 hours of hatching.
But Metzer estimates there are at least 2 million packages containing 50 million day-old birds shipped each year, and problems are bound to occur. The issue can include trucks left unattended, customers not called when shipments arrive at the post office, inadequate ventilation on trucks, forgotten packages and even late arriving planes.
To make the process even better, Metzer said it would help if hatcheries could apply their own distribution and routing tags on-site.
