About 4,000 birds were found dead in the truck, and 10,000 others were stranded there for three days, state officials said. The hatchery that shipped the chicks said it did not know why the shipment had never made it to its destinations.
Thousands of chicks that spent three days in a United States Postal Service truck in early May have overwhelmed a Delaware animal shelter, frustrating the hatchery that had shipped them to various farms, the shelter and hatchery said.
On May 2, the Delaware Department of Agriculture received a call from the Postal Service saying that it had “an undeliverable box of baby birds.”
The department contacted First State Animal Center and SPCA in Camden, Del., and employees there, along with agriculture department employees, reported to the Postal Service’s Delaware Processing and Distribution Center. There, they found 4,000 dead chicks and 10,000 living ones abandoned in a delivery truck, according to a news release from the Delaware Department of Agriculture. They also found turkeys, geese, quail and chukars, state agriculture officials said.
The chicks were part of a routine shipment from a Pennsylvania hatchery sent out on April 29. The department and First State Animal Center, a shelter, “worked tirelessly” to transport the chicks there and provide them with care, according to the news release.
