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Yes, you CAN order chicks in the mail!

The University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS) explains:

Chicks can survive up to two or three days without eating or drinking right after hatching because they are able to utilize the nutrients remaining in their retained yolk sac during this time. This is how hatcheries can ship chicks all over the country with little or no mortality. 

All across the internet, and many other published sources you hear that it is in fact safe to ship chicks in the mail.

But, Why?

Why order mail order chicks?

I ordered chicks when I started my flock, because I had my heart set on a couple of specific breeds.

Those of you who know me, know how I like to research (overthink) everything. I had a long list of preferences for my future flock: tasty dual-purpose breeds, who lay a lot of eggs, are docile enough to be around kids without flying all over the place, and fairly quiet. I live in town and I want to stay on good terms with my lovely neighbors.

After weeks of ogling beautiful chicken pictures and perusing hatchery websites I settled on my top choices. The beautiful Bielefelder and the Lavender Orpington. I was also coordinating with friends who had their own preferences.

What are the alternatives when starting your flock?

Of course “down South” in the contiguous US you can go to the county fair or the farm store and impulse buy some chicks, but that’s not really the scene here in Southeast Alaska. If you live remotely, like us, you might not have many other options.

There IS a hatchery here in Alaska- Polaris Hatchery. They have a very nice selection and they only ship within Alaska, but they did not have everything I wanted in stock. In the future I would like to try them, since I’m sure the chicks would benefit from a shorter transit time.

You can also incubate eggs, if you can buy or borrow an incubator. Incubating requires a little more skill, time and attention than ordering the day old chicks.

This started as a homeschool project and I had kids really eager to watch eggs hatch. I hedged my bets an did a little bit of everything: I filled the the Brinsea Maxi 24 incubator with half mail order eggs, half locally sourced eggs AND ordered hatchery chicks to arrive around the expected hatch date. #ForScience

I choose to describe my overly complicated approach as a side-by-side comparison and a good way to diversify my acquisitions.

Pros of Ordering Chicks

Price

There are a few advantages of ordering chicks in the mail. It can be a convenient way to start or replenish your flock. You get chicks without the trouble of monitoring an incubator. If you are ordering less than 30 chicks at around $7 each it is probably cheaper to skip the incubator ($200 in this example) and just get the birds.

Variety

With the abundance of hatcheries available you are sure to find the perfect breed of chicken (or quail, duck, turkey, even other fancy poultry!).

Box of Adorableness

I mean, c’mon. Just look at them- talk about “fun mail”!

Cons

There is a pretty big downside to ordering chicks. You guys know by now I’m going to give it to you straight. Skip ahead if you don’t want to read about the sad stuff.

Mortality

The most obvious challenge is when you open up your box of teeny peeping chicks and any number of them are..not peeping. According to the local postman, sometimes the box is completely silent- not a good sign. When I opened my box’o’fluff there were 2 limp and lifeless in the bottom, looking like they had been trampled. Ew and sad. Needless to say, they found the nearest trashcan, but it feels sad to unceremoniously dispose of a fragile little creature. *Shivers*

Vigor

Those mail order chicks that did survive the 3 day journey were looking pretty sad. They either lay down or wobbled like little drunks, barely able to hold up their own weight. Compared to the chicks from my incubator, they were pretty depressing. A few more ended up dying, even with some extra TLC. Many large hatcheries offer some type of livability guarantee, so I was able to get reimbursed, but that doesn’t make the losses easy.

Can be somewhat pricey

As with most things these days , the price of chicks has gone up. $7-10 per chick is common. The lowest I saw was around $5 for straight run (unsexed) chicks, up to $12 or even $35 each for a female boutique breed. Did you notice the difference in price for male vs female chicks? This brings me to my next point:

Mass Culling of Male Chicks

I never even considered this until I read The Small Scale Poultry Flock by Harvey Ussery.

Since the majority of hatchery orders are for pullet chicks only, it becomes impossible for hatcheries to sell the unwanted cockerel chicks–however many “cockerel specials” they offer. It is simply a fact of life in the business, therefore, that excess cockerels are killed, by the hundreds of thousands, by (…). The reader may well choose otherwise, but my choice–since learning that my pullets-only orders necessitate the treatment of living creatures like so much disposable garbage–has been to make straight run orders exclusively (p49).

My experience

Starting out

I had waited years to start my own flock and we finally had space for a coop. Still being relatively new to the area, I didn’t yet have many connections within the “Farm Animal” community. But I did have some good friends who were also wanting to start or replenish their flock. I ended up splitting the mail order chicks with another family and incubating eggs for a friend who lives off grid. We live in town, so my family brooded the whole batch of chicks until they were ready.

Differences in Mortality and Vigor

I was surprised by the results of our little experiment. None of eggs I ordered from a private breeder hatched. In fact, they showed no signs of fertility or development. By contrast, nearly all of the locally sourced eggs developed and hatched.

As I mentioned earlier, the mail order chicks were quite puny compared to these incubator chicks. I doubt you can tell a difference now that they are fully grown, especially since the breeds are different. But for at least a few weeks, the mail order chicks appeared to be several days behind in development. It was almost as if they were on pause, barely growing for their first days in the brooder, while the local chicks thrived.

Eventually everyone seemed to catch up, but the difference was definitely a check in the minus column for me.

You can order chicks, but SHOULD you?

Conclusion:

I would consider ordering chicks in the mail in the future, but it wouldn’t be my first choice.

Don’t take the true cost for granted

I appreciate the convenience and variety of purchasing shipped chicks from a hatchery, but I find some aspects of the process and system to be disagreeable. I do not wish to outsource the unpleasant realities to some other poor soul in charge of disposing the male chicks. I also feel sad about the shipping stress on the teeny little chicks I’m choosing to care for.

Consider alternatives

If I were to order chicks in the future I would feel better choosing a straight run (that is, both males and females) and taking the responsibility of raising the cockerels at least to be dinner. It feels more holistic to me. I think I would try Polaris Hatchery, to help mitigate the effects of a long shipping time.

That said, based on the increased vitality of locally sourced chicks, my own preference is to incubate eggs. I’m happy to have made more friends who are willing to share hatching eggs, but I would also roll the dice on mail ordering eggs to get some fresh genetics to our little island. I will keep you posted on how it works out.

Decide what works best for you!

Now that you have a more complete picture, you can make an informed choice about ordering baby chicks in the mail! Let me know in the comments what your experience has been.