More than 10,000 chicks were left in a USPS truck for days. Now they need a home.

A central Delaware animal shelter has spent the past two weeks rehabilitating and finding homes for over 8,000 chicks that were stranded in a U.S. Postal Service truck for 3 ½ days.

The birds were shipped from a south-central Pennsylvania hatchery.

The First State Animal Center and SPCA in Camden shared the news on social media, documenting the shelter’s attempts to care for them and place them in homes. 

The postal service said in a statement the afternoon of May 20 that the agency has "established processes and procedures for the safe handling of these shipments." 

"We have been working with hatcheries for more than 100 years to safely transport mail-order chicks," the agency said in a statement to Paste BN.

The postal service said when packages are properly packaged and labeled, the live animal parcels receive "special handling," and that hatcheries and farms are required to make sure all packaging requirements are met. One of these requirements the hatcheries are responsible for is that the poultry is dropped off to the postal service within 24 hours of hatching.

"We are aware that there are unfortunate rare instances where loss of life occurs with this type of shipment, including the recent May incident after which birds were sent to Delaware for rescue and delivered to a shelter within an hour," the postal service said. "We are working directly with the hatcheries, other carriers involved, logistics partners, and our processing and delivery operations experts to prevent these incidents in the future."

While the animal shelter initially estimated that there were between 3,000 and 5,000 quail, geese, and chicks left in the postal service truck with no food, water, or temperature control, there turned out to be over 10,000 of the birds.

“First State Animal Center took delivery directly from the postal service,” the shelter wrote, later adding that it worked with the Delaware Department of Agriculture to sort and care for the animals.

The Delaware Department of Agriculture shared news of the dilemma on May 9 and said about 4,000 birds were dead upon arrival. 

Where are the surviving chicks?

Shelter employees said there was an  “amazing” number of survivors. Workers cared for the birds around the clock with heat, food, water, and survival care, the shelter said.

The shelter asked for donations to pay for the birds' care. Adoptions began on May 13. About 3,000 of the chicks have been adopted so far, John Parana, executive director of the animal center, said on May 20. There were about 2,000 left as of that afternoon.

 Parana said that in order to adopt the birds, individuals must agree to the center's "no kill" policy.

"They need to be used for laying birds, or live out their natural life," Parana said, adding that the birds are doing well and are eating quite a bit.

Three days after the shelter took the birds in, they shared that nearly half of the birds were in stable but cautious condition, then on May 13, the birds were available for adoption in batches ranging from 5 to 100.

The Delaware Department of Agriculture said the shipment was headed to multiple states in the U.S. but became “misdirected” and ended up in Delaware. 

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'Don't know how they ended up where they did': Questions remain over incident

According to the department, the Freedom Ranger Hatchery in south-central Pennsylvania is certified with the National Poultry Improvement Plan, which was created to decrease the spread of diseases in the poultry industry. 

Paste BN reached out to the Freedom Ranger Hatchery and they released the following statement: "This shipment was part of a routine shipment that never reached its intended destination due to USPS error. This loss has compounding effects with the many small family farms across America that were counting on these birds for their summer grow out schedules. We have not gotten any clear answers from the post office about this situation. We are unsure if we will receive any compensation for the loss."

The hatchery ships birds to backyard growers and companies who use them for egg or meat production, said Stephen Horst, owner of Fifth Day Farm, which is under the same ownership of the hatchery. The family company has multiple hatcheries, he said.

The company also ships guinea fowl, which are used for tick control, and they ship all over the U.S., Horst told Paste BN on May 20. 

Regarding the orphaned birds, the Delaware Department of Agriculture said as many as 2,000 of the birds were supposed to be sent to Spokane, Washington.

The birds were first sent out around April 29, Horst said. They are typically delivered within two days.

“I don't know how they ended up where they did, but I do know that we’re asking questions too,” he told Paste BN. He added that since the incident, the company has shipped birds with no issues.

How were they able to survive?

According to the Delaware Department of Agriculture, someone from the postal service’s  Delaware Processing and Distribution Center called the department on May 2 about “an undeliverable box of baby birds.” 

The Department of Agriculture’s Poultry and Animal Health got involved, and the agency helped transfer the orphaned chicks to the First State Animal Center and SPCA in Camden. 

Horst, one of the hatchery owners, said the hatchery sometimes works with agencies outside of the postal service to ship birds, such as UPS and FedEx. For larger orders, they sometimes work with airlines such as Delta, American, and Alaska.

He said companies like Freedom Ranger Hatchery often face criticism from those who say it’s inhumane to ship the birds, but the birds are actually equipped to survive for three days, he said.

Issues with shipping led to chicks being abandoned

When chicks develop, the yolk is the last to form. It’s in their abdomen and acts as an energy source. He said the shipment misdirection is “disappointing,” but more often than not, the system works. 

When asked, Horst said he can’t recall the hatchery having an issue like this before, where birds are misdirected and left in a truck for days. 

“When the shipping system fails, which it does sometimes, that's unfortunate,” he said. “But overall, we have really good success shipping them.”

This story has been updated to add new information and to correct a typo.

Saleen Martin is a reporter on Paste BN's NOW team. She is from Norfolk, Virginia – the 757. Email her at sdmartin@usatoday.com.