Month: December 2025

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Shipping day old poultry

I have always had much better results sending and receiving day old poultry than eggs. I now think of buying shipped eggs as mostly flushing money down the toilet. Shipped chicks sometimes fails, I have had a few boxes that were complete losses, and a few with poor survival after delays in shipping, but well over 90% are what I would call “very successful”.

Materials needed:

  • Shipping boxes – unlike eggs, you must have post office approved boxes for day old poultry (really, for any live poultry). These are available from a number of sources
  • Pads/Liners – usually wood excelsior glued to paper or in mats, cut to the proper size for a 25 chick box. Sometimes these come with the boxes, but often not, so check that and see if you need to buy some
  • Grogel – the green stuff that is sold to give chicks a probiotic boost. They readily eat it and it is a good source of water
  • Cups for the Grogel
  • Hole punch for punching holes in the cups (if using tie wraps)
  • Way to attach the cups to the boxes – small tie wraps or hot glue work
  • Packing tape

Boxes are sized by the number of chicks they hold, 25, 50 or 100. Do not buy 100 chick boxes, it is cheaper to ship 2 boxes of 50 chicks each than a single box of 100. Don’t ask me why, the USPS is run by the government, so probably no one has a cogent answer for that. I use both 25’s and 50’s. It is not much more to buy and ship a 50 chick box, so if you ship a lot of chicks, start with those or get both. Here are some sources for shipping boxes. These also have the excelsior pads to use as liners.

Grogel is manufactured by Dawes for commercial use with day old poultry. I use it for all my newly hatched chicks, as well as putting cups of it in the chick shipping boxes. It keeps well if kept in a dry place, and the larger packs are much cheaper per unit. Here are the sources I have used for Grogel:

Cups for the Grogel can be found at Walmart. Tie wraps or hot glue, and packing tape, are commonly available.

Packing

Get the boxes you need folded before the morning you plan to ship. It can be tricky figuring out how to fold them. You can setup the boxes, put in the pads and attach the cups that will hold the gro-gel. The morning you are shipping, mix up enough grogel to fill the cups. I use 2 of the cups in each section (holds 25 chicks). Now you are ready to move in the chicks. If you are using a double box, divide the chicks between the 2 sides. The numbers of chicks varies by their size, ambient temps (fewer chicks when it is hot) and the number purchased. After putting in the chicks, I usually take a pic of the chicks, then put on the top and use packing tape to attach the top. Add the label and write the customer phone number on the top – “Hold and Call XXX-XXX-XXXX”.

Mailing the chicks

This varies a lot between branches, and sometimes you have to train the postal employee how to mail them. I almost always use Priority, not Express. Express is rarely enough faster to justify the much higher costs. There is a $15 surcharge on Priority chick shipments starting in 2025.

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Selecting breeders from growouts

I am busy now sorting chickens and creating the breeding pens for 2026. I wanted to write down some thoughts about how I go about doing this.

Chickens have a relatively short productive lifespan. I have had some hens lay well for 5 years or longer, most notably my Cream Legbars, but most breeds see a significant drop in egg production much sooner than that. Cocks often have even shorter productive lives than the hens. This all means that you need to select replacement breeders fairly often.

What are your breeding goals?

The first consideration is to understand your goals in running a breeding program. Breeding goals can vary a lot, it is not always to breed toward the SOP. I have a clear goal (or goals) in mind for every breed I maintain. Here are some examples of breeding goals:

  • Showbird Standard of Perfection (SOP)
  • Darkest possible eggs
  • Definitive chick sexability
  • Genetic diversity for long term gene pool maintenance

Culling from the growout pool

So, you have a lot more chicks growing out than you need for the next breeding pen, when can you start culling the ones you want to sell or give away? Again, it depends. Some breeds and some goals require that you wait until they are close to breeding age. An example from my pens are the Welbars. I have been selecting against crooked toes that are obviously genetic (not found in other breeds). The problem is that the chicks do not show any crooked toes until they are at least 4 months old, so early selection is a bad idea. The counterpoint is selecting for the best crests in Legbars. Legbars show their best crests before their combs get large, so you can pick the best crests when the chicks are about 6 weeks old, allowing you to remove the poor examples early. Decide what traits are most important to select for and start looking for those traits early. You will learn about each of your lines as you raise more generations.

Genetic Testing

This is new and exciting! There are a number of companies offering genetic tests, you should familiarize yourself with the current state of these tests. The technology is advancing rapidly, so check for interesting gene tests often. I use sexing tests for geese, and will consider them in other cases as the prices drop. Even more useful are the tests for the blue egg gene. This test is more expensive, but well worth it as it can replace a lot of test breeding or just ambiguity.