Every Year, Millions of Chicks Are Mailed to Their Deaths The U.S. Postal Service ships live baby birds as ordinary mail with no climate control, no welfare standards, and no accountability. It's legal. It's common. And it's causing immense, preventable suffering.
When you order day-old chicks from an online hatchery, they are classified as perishable goods within the U.S. Mail system, handled in the same logistical category as items like food and plants. This distinction matters. Because they are treated as parcels rather than live animals, they are not subject to the animal welfare standards required for other forms of live animal transport.
The chicks travel in cardboard boxes through cargo holds where temperatures and humidity levels become lethal. They receive no food, no water, and no welfare checks across truck depots, airport tarmacs, and distribution hubs that may have "known issues."
When delays occur, and they do, there is no alert system, no rerouting protocol, no one responsible for the living cargo going dark in a sorting facility.
Every year, millions of chicks are mailed across the country under these same conditions. While some survive the journey, countless others do not, lost to delays, extreme temperatures, or simple neglect within a system never designed to transport living beings.
What makes this especially troubling is that it is entirely preventable. Other forms of live animal transport are subject to basic welfare standards, including temperature regulation, monitoring, and contingency planning. But chicks sent through the mail fall into a regulatory gap where none of those protections apply.
One of the most immediate ways to reduce this suffering is to lessen the demand that drives it. Every time chicks are purchased for shipment through the mail, it reinforces a system that treats living beings as disposable cargo. Choosing not to buy mail-order chicks, and instead supporting adoption, local sanctuaries, or simply opting out altogether, helps break that cycle. When demand drops, fewer animals are bred, boxed, and subjected to these conditions in the first place. 
Another powerful way to take action is by contacting USPS leadership directly. Sending a clear, personal email to the Postmaster General helps put public pressure on the agency to reevaluate its policies and implement basic welfare protections for live animals in transit.
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 Tell the USPS Postmaster General to End Live Chick Mail Shipping

Last month, a Georgia resident opened a cardboard box and found every single chick inside dead, cold, decomposing, delayed for four days through facilities your own staff described as having "known issues." No one intervened. No one was required to. This letter is about why that has to change.

I am writing to urge immediate review and reform of U.S. Postal Service policies governing the shipment of live poultry and other live birds as ordinary U.S. Mail. Each year, millions of day-old chicks are shipped through the USPS system in cardboard boxes, classified as mail rather than live animal cargo. This classification means they travel through cargo holds, sorting facilities, and distribution hubs with no requirement for climate control, no mandatory welfare checks, no delay protocols, and no accountability when systems fail. The consequences are predictable and documented: mass die-offs, chicks arriving dead or dying, and a systemic indifference to the suffering of living creatures entrusted to postal service care.

The Georgia case is consistent with decades of documented losses. Peer-reviewed research has established that:

• Day-old chicks begin experiencing increased mortality by 48–60 hours without food or water, even in ideal conditions. Transit times routinely exceed this threshold.
• Temperatures in uncontrolled cargo environments, both too high and too low, are lethal to newly hatched birds within hours of exposure.
• Humidity levels in aircraft cargo holds at cruising altitude drop to 10–15%, causing severe dehydration from breathing alone within 48 hours of flight.
• Mortality rates for shipped chicks are significantly higher than for non-shipped chicks, with elevated death rates continuing for weeks after transport.

The problem is not getting better; it is getting worse. Especially in larger hubs and distribution centers. In the 2025 chick season alone, 12,000 day-old chicks were left in a USPS truck at a facility in Delaware for three days without food or water, and 4,000 had died by the time they were discovered. In 2020, postal delays in Maine resulted in the deaths of roughly 5,000 chicks. In 2022, 4,000 died after being left on a Miami runway. These are only the cases that made the news.

I am asking the USPS to take the following steps: 

1. Conduct an immediate internal review: Track mortality data, complaint records, and facility conditions related to live poultry shipments, with particular attention to known problem hubs and distribution centers.

2. Establish mandatory welfare standards: All live poultry shipped via USPS should be subject to maximum transit time limits, temperature and humidity monitoring requirements, and clear protocols for when delays occur.
 
3. Work with Congress and federal agricultural agencies: Pursue reclassification of live poultry as live animal cargo, ensuring they receive the handling standards that designation requires.

4. Establish a transparent complaint and reporting system: Customers who receive dead or suffering animals should be able to report incidents in a way that creates a documented public record and triggers an investigation.

The USPS is entrusted with the care of everything placed in its system. When that includes living creatures capable of suffering, that trust carries moral weight. The current system fails that trust routinely and without consequence.

I urge you to act.