Every year, 20 million day-old chicks are thoughtlessly thrown into boxes and shipped as "perishable goods" through the postal service.
When allowed to, a mother hen communicates with her chicks through the shell before they hatch. In hatcheries supplying individual buyers or feed-stores, chicks are born in an incubator with no mother in sight. Within hours of their life, they are sexed, vaccinated, stuffed in boxes, and sent through the mail.
According to the United States Postal Service, they are supposed to arrive at their destination within 72 hours. This means that in a best-case-scenario, these chicks are crowded in a dark box without food or water for 3 days.They are shipped year-round, no matter the weather, including below freezing temperatures and sweltering heat.
Without a doubt sending day-old babies through the mail is cruel, but recently it has become horrific. Thousands of chicks have arrived dead due to delayed shipments and chaos within the United States Postal Service in the wake of Covid-19. Typically 1-2% percent of chicks die during transit. In August of 2020 entire shipments of chicks were arriving at their destination dead.
The shipment of live-day-old chicks is unethical. We must demand an end to this cruelty. Sign the petition today to tell the United States Postmaster General to end the practice of shipping live chicks in the mail.
