anyone order chicks online?

[wjoerob]

I have seen both sides of this. My wife has ordered many times from Murray McMurray, and has been mostly pleased with their service. Also, I used to work at the Post Office, and many times I saw boxes with chicks coming through, besides the ones we received ourselves. There are rules about how soon they must be received, shipping by air, etc. MOST of the time we received all of ours alive and healthy. If not, they are usually willing to credit you for the ones lost -- sometimes it's just unavoidable. Post Office treats these with care, sometimes drivers even keep them in their truck cabs, they're passed in to buildings ASAP upon arrival. Customers are called ASAP to come and pick them up at their local post office. Treated very gently, always marked "Live animals", etc. You must check them and give food and water right away when received.
Wife has also been pleased with Mt. Healthy hatchery. Recently had to replace most of our chickens when neighbor's dog broke in and killed 35 of them.

[wjoerob]

Many years ago, when we were first looking at raising chickens, we were looking at the question of "How do you know how many hens you will get, and can you tell the sex yourself?" (It is pretty difficult, hatcheries actually have guys from Japan brought in just to do this). So I entered on a search engine the phrase, "Sexing chicks". Brought up some pretty surprising results. Luckily I can still laugh about it with my wife.

[dave1949]

Many years ago, when we were first looking at raising chickens, we were looking at the question of "How do you know how many hens you will get, and can you tell the sex yourself?" (It is pretty difficult, hatcheries actually have guys from Japan brought in just to do this). So I entered on a search engine the phrase, "Sexing chicks". Brought up some pretty surprising results. Luckily I can still laugh about it with my wife.

LOL

My wife works with school kids and the internet. Can you imagine how difficult it can be to keep 'clean' search results with the most innocent queries? It's a problem. 'Sexing chicks' is exactly the right term for the process you were researching.
Dave.

[Mike Costello]

I ordered chicks from McMurray also. Ordered 25 Buff Orpingtons and actually received 28 including a mystery bird that turned out to be a Black Star. All survived. The post office called me when they arrived at 6am in the morning and I picked them up right away.
They were immediately put into a homemade brooder with a heat lamp, food (chick starter) and water. Mix a little sugar into the water bottle which gives them an energy boost. Within 24 hours they were running around full of energy.

[dgl24087]

I have seen both sides of this. My wife has ordered many times from Murray McMurray, and has been mostly pleased with their service. Also, I used to work at the Post Office, and many times I saw boxes with chicks coming through, besides the ones we received ourselves. There are rules about how soon they must be received, shipping by air, etc. MOST of the time we received all of ours alive and healthy. If not, they are usually willing to credit you for the ones lost -- sometimes it's just unavoidable. Post Office treats these with care, sometimes drivers even keep them in their truck cabs, they're passed in to buildings ASAP upon arrival. Customers are called ASAP to come and pick them up at their local post office. Treated very gently, always marked "Live animals", etc. You must check them and give food and water right away when received.
Wife has also been pleased with Mt. Healthy hatchery. Recently had to replace most of our chickens when neighbor's dog broke in and killed 35 of them.

I have hauled live chicks, honey bees, ducklings, and turkeys in my tenure as a contract driver. They are shipped air express to the postal sorting center then by truck to the destination post office. Yes, we treat them with great care. And yes, on occasion one or two do not survive, but that is primarily in the summer months when temperatures and humidity are high.

[Mike Costello]

Many years ago, when we were first looking at raising chickens, we were looking at the question of "How do you know how many hens you will get, and can you tell the sex yourself?" (It is pretty difficult, hatcheries actually have guys from Japan brought in just to do this). So I entered on a search engine the phrase, "Sexing chicks". Brought up some pretty surprising results. Luckily I can still laugh about it with my wife.

Japanese are primarily the only ones who can "sex" baby poults correctly. They spend about a year studying in Japan to learn how to do it. Their accuracy rate is about 97-98%.
In my high school days, I worked at a turkey hatchery and it always amazed me how those guys worked. We would hatch out 20,000 birds and they would have them "sexed" in just a few hours, innoculated etc. and on their way to delivery. Just for fun one day, one of the sexers gave me a 5 minute course in sexing turkeys--with the results coming in at about less than 10%!

[jayste]

I have seen both sides of this. My wife has ordered many times from Murray McMurray, and has been mostly pleased with their service. Also, I used to work at the Post Office, and many times I saw boxes with chicks coming through, besides the ones we received ourselves. There are rules about how soon they must be received, shipping by air, etc. MOST of the time we received all of ours alive and healthy. If not, they are usually willing to credit you for the ones lost -- sometimes it's just unavoidable. Post Office treats these with care, sometimes drivers even keep them in their truck cabs, they're passed in to buildings ASAP upon arrival. Customers are called ASAP to come and pick them up at their local post office. Treated very gently, always marked "Live animals", etc. You must check them and give food and water right away when received.
Wife has also been pleased with Mt. Healthy hatchery. Recently had to replace most of our chickens when neighbor's dog broke in and killed 35 of them.

I know a fellow who does this. He's had good results. One time he had some die and they replaced them and then some.

[Tororider]

I have heard good things about both McMurray and Mt Healthy. I agree that now is not the time to order unless you have a large indoor area to make a pen. I hatched my own last winter and ended up with a bunch of chickens in the garage all winter to stay warm and an unhappy wife who was unable to use said garage.

Your local feed stores will likely have chicks around easter, I know most tractor supplies do.

[moeh1]

Neighbor does this, got 50 this year, some were close but not the exact species he ordered, they credited his account right away and will be shipping him correct birds in the spring. I think he lost 1 out of 50 this year (well until butchering time). I think he had 24 females, 26 males, plus the surprise. I was surprised how fast they grew. I don't think they ship except at the appropriate time ofyear.

[MikeInEburg]

One of my favorite childhood memories was getting a box of chicks in the mail. I was maybe five - roughly 1969. My mother has gotten chicks many times since - all via USPS. No significant issues.

Mike