USPS dead chicks, Thousands of chicks shipped from Pennsylvania
USPS dead chicks, Thousands of chicks shipped from Pennsylvania.
The past several weeks have brought stories of seniors and veterans not getting their prescriptions because of the U.S. Postal Service’s slowdown by the Trump administration. Small businesses are now suffering as shipments are delayed and now farmers are facing problems.
The Portland Press Herald reported Wednesday that a Maine farmer went to the post office to pick up 800 baby chicks that he had ordered for his family farm, Pine Tree Poultry. They’ve been processing cage-free chicken meat for years, and for the first time, the baby chicks were all dead.
“We’ve never had a problem like this before,” said Pauline Henderson. This isn’t her first order, but it’s certainly the first to end like this. “Usually they arrive every three weeks like clockwork. And out of 100 birds, you may have one or two that die in shipping.”
She isn’t the only one with the problem, either; any birds that went through the Postal Service’s processing center in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, died, impacting farms in Maine and New Hampshire.
in Shrewsbury, 16 postal sorting machines were taken offline as part of Postmaster General Louis DeJoy’s effort to slow down the mail.
Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-ME) is asking DeJoy about the problem in a letter to him and the Department of Agriculture.
Pingree’s office has been overwhelmed with dozens of complaints from people in the state trying to raise small flocks of chickens in their back yard.
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