Last month the U.S. Postal Service said the death of more than 600 chicks en route to Swanzey and Keene stores in April and May via the U.S. mail was an anomaly, but such deaths are a regular occurrence, others say.

“There have been incidences of dead chicks all along,” a worker at the U.S. Postal Service distribution center in Nashua said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. In fact, the hatcheries that ship these chicks from out west anticipate the deaths and usually send extra chicks, the worker said.

Stephanie Bell, associate director of PETA's cruelty investigation department, said newly hatched chicks are so cheap, some hatcheries use chicks as packing material to keep other live shipments such as ducklings warm en route. There have been reported cases of these shipments arriving with almost all of the chicks dead, she said.

“We are aware and obviously we have grave concerns about the shipments of live animals. We routinely receive reports about dead and dying animals who have been shipped,” she said, adding. “Certainly it's an issue postal workers are aware of. They are often the people that contact us.”

Cans of chicks

The postal worker said “cans” of these live shipments are flown into Manchester's airport via another carrier, then delivered to the Nashua distribution center to be sent to post offices in New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine and some parts of Massachusetts.

“We're at the very end of their trip from the hatchery,” the worker said.

The U.S. Postal Service does not have an air fleet, but instead uses FedEx or private carriers to deliver mail and packages sent by air.

“If you get a can of chicks in, you put everything aside and deal with the chicks first,” the postal worker said.

The cans are large metal containers that can hold several boxes of these live shipments, and are sealed while en route There are always fatalities, the worker said, adding: “Yeah, it's pretty sad when you see their little beaks and feet sticking out of the holes.”

But postal workers cannot refuse a package or open it; they can only send it to its next destination.

“You could smell the death coming from the truck before the doors were even open,” the worker said. “It was just horrible.”

For some time this year, there seemed to be “pretty significant deaths,” said the worker, who wants to see people use local hatcheries instead.

Bell said while postal workers are not in a position to refuse or open crates of live animals, they can contact their local law enforcement officers or animal control.

“We certainly ask anyone who has seen animals languishing to report that to their local animal control,” Bell said.

Police and sheriff's departments also have the authority to intervene, she said.

“One of the challenges we face is that until Congress makes the shipments of live animals illegal, the U.S. Postal Service can't refuse these shipments,” Bell said.

High mortality rate

In May, Elizabeth Mitchell, assistant manager of Cheshire Horse in Swanzey, said she went to the Keene Post Office the morning of May 3 to pick up an order of 250 chicks and found most of the chicks dead.

The Cheshire Horse has been ordering chicks through the mail for the past five years from a hatchery in Ohio, and had never received a dead chick, she said.

But this year, the store was asked to start picking up their chicks at the Keene Post Office instead of the post office in Swanzey. After Mitchell complained, the Postal Service asked her to resume picking up her shipments in Swanzey.

Dana Coe, manager of the Achille Agway in Keene, said she also picked up an order of 350 mostly deceased chicks on April 18. Agway order its chicks from a hatchery in New Mexico,” Coe said, and was expecting an order of 350 chicks.

“When they came in, 325 were dead and we lost another 15 overnight. Somewhere along the chain they had gotten chilled,” Coe said in May.

Newly hatched chicks need to be kept warm. The first week they fare best in temperatures between 90 and 95 degrees.

Postal regulations

Tom Rizzo, spokesman of the Northern New England division of the postal service, said the large number of deaths in May was a fluke.

“Our investigation at the local level revealed that all normal procedures were properly followed,” Rizzo said in an email last week.

Rizzo also said he has not heard of any other complaints, nor has he seen deaths in live shipments in his more than two decades with the U.S. Postal Service.

“In my personal experience working for more than 20 years in both our mail processing plants and post offices, I haven't observed receipt of anything but live chicks that were both very numerous and 'vocal,' you could say.

“Postal employees handle live cargo expeditiously and with care when they arrive at our plants and post offices. And I think that is a very human, as well as professional, reaction to living beings entrusted to us,” Rizzo said.

He added: “The postal restrictions for mailing birds, along with other kinds of warm-blooded animals, and our delivery procedures have existed for many years. These rules are based on humane consideration and the ability of the animals to survive without food and/or water while in the mail.”

Coe said her hatchery always adds a few extra chicks in its shipments in case of a few deaths, which occur occasionally. There were no dead birds in the two recent shipments she received, she said.

Increased interest

“In recent years there's been a lot of interest in people producing poultry at home,” said Carl Majewski, University of New Hampshire Cooperative Extension Field Specialist, Food and Agriculture.

People want to eat local and, “It doesn't get more local than your backyard.”

Raising a flock of chickens can be fairly easy, he said, as you don't need a great deal of space or special equipment.

Majewski said he has ordered chicks through the mail a few times and never experienced any fatalities himself, but it happens, adding that that's why the hatcheries include some extra chicks.

“Sometimes these chicks are being shipped halfway across the country. And that being said, it can work, and most of the time it works really well,” Majewski said. “Even though they are a day old, they can survive through the mail without any additional food. Occasionally you do get one or two that don't make it.”

mpierce@newstote.com