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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.