What the Duck??? Shipping with USPS Can be Quite the Trip.

Some of the ducks that ended up in a box with shipped chicks during transit through the United States Postal Service.

When shipping live chicks, we have only one option: The U.S. Postal Service.

Other shipping services (such as UPS, FedEx, ect.) do not offer services for the transport of live animals, leaving poultry farms with only one shipping option: the United States Postal Service. Express Shipping with the USPS used to be an overnight service, but now it is 1-2 business days before expected delivery--if luck will have it.

With this extended time between the chicks leaving our farm and arriving at their new home, there is more opportunity for some strange things to happen during their travels.

Being new at the whole shipping chicks thing in 2023, we didn’t expect anything out of the ordinary to happen. However, we received a message from one of our customers that caught us completely off guard.

An actual print screen of our text message with a client.

The customer informed us that all of the chicks had arrived safely “including a stowaway

quail”. We were relieved to receive the text that the chicks arrived safely-- but wait…Quail?

We don’t own—and never have owned— any quail.

We informed the customer of this because we just had to know more about what was going on. Upon further discussion, we found out that a Buttonquail arrived in the exact same box with the chicks WE sent to them!

We laughed it off and were glad to hear that however this little quail made it into the box with our chicks, it was safe and sound and made had it to a good home. 

The stowaway quail that ended up in a box with chicks shipped from our farm and was appropriately named by their new owner, "Mystery".

We thought of it as a one-time incident.

Spoiler alert: it happened again.

Two months later, we received a message from a different customer informing us that one chick and one duckling passed away on the journey, but the rest had arrived healthy.

We found that text especially interesting since we also don’t own any ducks.

So we had to ask, discovering that four ducklings had hitched a ride with our chicks.

Yes, they were in the same box with the chicks.

So how could this happen?

First a Buttonquail, and now four ducklings?

We had many crazy theories on how this happned, but will never know exactly how this all played out. Nothing is ever perfect--and we all certailnly know that the USPS is far from flawless. Mishaps can happen anywhere. We are just glad that our clients had a good sense of humor and these stowaways made it to loving homes with great folks who were dedicated to taking care of them just the same.

We are about to embark on our third chick shipping season here at Black Witch Farm. This was written just after we finished out our first season in 2023.  Our 2024 season brought us no fun surprises to blog about.