For days, Amy Gholson tracked a shipment of baby turkeys she ordered from an Ohio hatchery. She kept tabs online as the birds began the more than 500-mile trip to her home near St. Charles, Missouri, via the U.S. Postal Service.
The 10 birds needed to arrive in two days to ensure they’d survive the trip. It was late March and temperatures were still low, making the speed of the delivery more crucial than usual. But the baby turkeys, or poults, hadn’t even left Ohio when progress halted.
“I was going to be able to watch these babies digitally, basically, and they went to the Cleveland distribution warehouse, and they stayed there and stayed there,” Gholson said.
Postal Service delays have become more persistent in the years following the pandemic and a new 10-year plan was put in place by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy aimed at ending losses in the billions of dollars a year. Slowing delivery is integral to the plan.
For days, the poults Gholson ordered remained at the Cleveland warehouse. By the time the shipment arrived, three days overdue, she knew what to expect inside the package marked “live birds.”
“I had already assumed they were dead. Our beloved mail lady just set a box of dead birds outside of our garage,” Gholson said. “I got home. I mean, you know what the situation was. A silent box is a dead box.”
Gholson said that inside the package, the fledgling turkeys were as “stiff as rocks.”
This wasn’t the first time that Gholson and her family received a Postal Service shipment of dead or dying birds. Once, after a delivery arrived during a cold spell, they warmed towels in the microwave, bundling the chicks inside the heated towels in hopes of saving them. Only four of the 10 in that shipment survived, and the chicks now roam the Gholsons’ backyard farm.
'Hell' for bird shipments
The Gholsons are a 4-H family, having participating in agricultural programs for years. They have a tradition of showing animals at the St. Charles County Fair, where Evie, now 18, planned to show the turkeys in that doomed March delivery. In the 4-H community, families talk about receiving shipments with dead birds all the time, said Amy Gholson.
In 2020, more than 4,800 chicks died in a single Postal Service shipment to a Maine customer. And the problem has persisted far past the height of the pandemic as concerns mounted about the future of the Postal Service and its performance since DeJoy’s plan kicked off in 2021.
The Midwest Newsroom interviewed four hatchery owners and four backyard farmers in different parts of the U.S. who all say they’ve seen a marked increase in deaths while baby birds are in transit with the Postal Service over the past year.
One hatchery owner described 2024 as “hell” for shipping birds and said customer complaints over shipments arriving with more dead birds than usual are on the rise.
It is hard to know just how many Postal Service shipments of birds arrive at their destinations too late for survival.
In response to a records request from the Midwest Newsroom, the Postal Service said that after a “diligent search,” it could not locate any documents referring to the total number of animals that die while in transit with the Postal Service. The response stated the agency does not compile or track that sort of information.
Delivering birds through the mail is a longstanding practice in the U.S., and hatchers who spoke to the Midwest Newsroom said it’s an effective way for hatcheries to make money, with customers ranging from large-scale operations to backyard farmers.
A hatchery can make anywhere from a few hundred dollars to more than $1,000 per shipment, depending on the breed and number of birds.
In an email to the Midwest Newsroom, communications specialist Mark Inglett said the Postal Service has worked for more than 100 years with hatcheries to “safely transport mail-order chicks seamlessly.”
“The U.S. Postal Service is one of just a few carriers that ship live animals, and we have established procedures for the safe handling of live animals,” the email read. “When properly packaged and labeled, these live parcels are given special handling outside of our normal automated process.”
The hatcheries and buyers interviewed by the Midwest Newsroom said that special handling hasn’t saved their animals.
The Postal Service declined a request for an interview.
Left on a loading dock
Kelly Warren owns and operates Cocktown Funky Orpingtons in Lillington, North Carolina. She breeds Orpington chickens, which are popular as show birds. The small business relies heavily on shipping birds.
Warren estimates she’s lost at least a third of the birds she’s shipped this year to delays and other problems. A recent shipment saw her lose 80 chicks worth about $800. When birds die in transit, Warren has to refund her customers’ money.
“One box last week arrived three days late,” Warren said. “The whole box was dead. All I could do was get my shipping costs back. I lost the rest of it out of pocket.”
Warren said the Postal Service shipping delays greatly impact her business, which relies mainly on customers far from her rural North Carolina location.
“Some breeders are lucky enough to have enough (local customers) to get by. I don't,” Warren said. “All of mine are everywhere: California, Maine, New York, Nevada, Wisconsin, Washington. You name it, I ship there. So it kind of kills me.”
Not all bird deaths happen during transit, Warren said. One shipment arrived in time at a customer's local post office. But, she said, the customer reported the box of chicks had been left out on a loading dock during a thunderstorm. By the time the customer arrived to pick up the shipment, the chicks were dead.
“The babies were drenched,” she said, while sharing photos with a Midwest Newsroom reporter. “They were dead. The box was soaked. There’s nothing you can do about it.”
A statement from the Postal Service said its guidelines require delivery of poultry within 72 hours of hatching. All birds must be shipped using Priority Mail Express or Priority Mail services, which are designed to meet specific timing standards.
Tracy Brown Kelly owns a small hatchery near Warren's called Satin and Silk Ranch. She said she’s completely stopped shipping her chicks because of Postal Service problems. Now she relies only on local buyers to sustain her hatchery.
“We've been shipping for a very long time, and we rarely have any death or loss when we ship chicks,” she said. “But this year has been a nightmare, and it's not just me and Kelly; it's everybody.”
Hatcheries that rely on shipping chicks, poults and other live baby birds to customers have no choice but to use the Postal Service. Neither FedEx or UPS offers the service. However, FedEx planes are used to transport live birds across the country when needed as part of an agreement between the Postal Service and FedEx.
Blaze Baxter, who operates Bad Baxter Farms in Pottawatomie County, Okla., stopped ordering animals through the mail in 2017 after boxes full of ducks showed up at her farm looking like they were “used as pinatas.”
Of the 200 birds in the box, only 20 survived the journey. She remembers her mail carrier crying as she delivered the package.
Baxter decided she and her family would hatch and raise their own chickens to avoid more birds dying while in Postal Service transit. But in early August, roughly eight years after the failed shipment, she took a chance, placing an order for 10 ducks from a hatchery in August. She said she’s still beating herself up about it.
“I made the mistake and decided to try and trust the Postal Service one more time and completely regretted it,” Baxter said.
On the second day of tracking her shipment, she saw the package had made its way to California and stalled. From there, she knew what she would find when her shipment arrived. Only two of the eight ducks survived the trip.
“I told my post office lady last week that that would be the last time she’ll see me picking up birds from her,” she said.
Baxter isn’t the only person raising ethical concerns about the shipment of baby birds. Animal safety advocacy group United Poultry Concerns and other organizations have called for the end of the long-standing tradition, calling it a cruelty to the animals.
In a 2020 post on its website, United Poultry Concerns said newborn chicks “quietly” die while in transit with the Postal Service.
“Recent postal service changes have caused many thousands more baby chicks to suffer and die in transit,” a post by the group read. “Shipment of live birds and other animals through the Postal Service is one of the many hidden cruelties inflicted on chickens and other animals.
‘A huge problem’
In July, the Postal Service inspector general’s office conducted an audit in the Kansas City region. The audit concluded that mail delays have been caused by a lack of management oversight and staffing shortages.
The audit also found that employees were skipping important steps in the processing and transportation of mail and that management allowed such practices to persist.
According to Postal Regulatory Commission data, roughly 83% of first-class mail arrived on time in Kansas and Missouri in the first three months of 2024. That rate was the sixth worst of the 50 postal districts in the country.
Further mail delays may be ahead for rural communities as a new Postal Service plan announced in late August aims to shave even more costs from its operations.
Part of that plan includes overhauling logistics, a move DeJoy said could increase slowdowns in mail deliveries, especially in rural areas where delivery could take an additional 12 to 24 hours.
It’s a decision that’s drawn the ire of customers and lawmakers.
U.S. Rep. Sam Graves of Missouri said complaints about the mail are a top concern for his constituents in the northern third of the state, which is largely rural. He told the Midwest Newsroom that mail delays and delivery problems are among the most common complaints his office receives, especially from rural communities and farmers.
“Other members of Congress all over the country are getting the same sort of complaint,” Graves said. ”It is something that the government should do, and should do well. And right now, it's not being done well at all.”
Graves blamed management at all levels of the Postal Service, noting that local mail carriers are caught in a system that’s working against them.
“It's just a huge management problem,” Graves said. “(Postal Service management) is not doing the job when it comes to doing what it is that they do, and that is getting the mail out to the post offices so it could be delivered on time.”
Graves, U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver and U.S. Rep. Mark Alford, also of Missouri, introduced the Pony Up Act to Congress to offer consumers protection from mail delays. If passed, the act would require the Postal Service to pay late fees incurred due to delayed delivery service.
Blue-ribbon bird
The Gholsons’ story didn’t end with a package of dead turkeys. The Ohio-based breeder they ordered from sent a new package that arrived on time and with all 10 birds alive and well.
Evie Gholson can’t forget the dead turkeys that arrived in March.
“It’s not fun,” she said. “You have to sort through the box and see which ones are stiff and which ones are floppy, essentially. There’s only so much you can do.”
Evie Gholson showed one of the replacement turkeys at the St. Charles County Fair in July.
“It makes me very happy,” she said of her nameless bird. “She’s not too big. She’s just the right age. She can walk around well and I can pick her up. It’s perfect.”
The turkey earned a blue ribbon.
Isa Luzarraga contributed to this report.
This story comes from the Midwest Newsroom, an investigative journalism collaboration that includes Iowa Public Radio, KCUR, Nebraska Public Media, St. Louis Public Radio and NPR.
Do you have a tip or question for us? Email midwestnewsroom@kcur.org.
