VICTORIA, Va. -- In Victoria, Virginia, a rural community built on farmland and forests, Max Thoreson found himself in a new job, right behind his house: Farm Manager for Pamplin Poultry.
The Virginia Tech graduate keeps watch over hundreds of chickens in his backyard, responsible for their growth, until it's time for them to be butchered and packaged as products for the business.
The birds he keeps track of are not native Virginians.
Just about every week, from February through September, about 500 newborn chicks are shipped from a commercial hatchery in Pennsylvania to the farm, by way of the U.S. Postal Service.
Pamplin Poultry has used USPS for their chick shipments for about seven years.
"It's a little odd," Thoreson said. "It's counterintuitive that it would work at all. But often, it works very well. When they hatch, they have energy reserves left over from the yoke in the egg, so they're able to tolerate not eating or drinking for the first 48 hours, no problem. They're pretty durable."
After eight to 10 weeks, about 100 of them are processed to be sold.
But recently, the flow of the farm production came to a halt.
"Normally, it works like clockwork. And it has to," Thoreson said.
Several times this year, when Thoreson went to pick up the chicks at the Victoria Post Office, he noticed something.
"They're very loud when they're just born, they're really, really loud," he said.
At least twice, when he went to pick them up, he heard nothing.
"Two times, we've had 90-90%+ mortality. And then several other instances, three or four separate times, we've had mortality that's definitely higher than we would expect normally, which is 10-20%, which is still a problem, and sort of indicates some potential mishandling because it's so atypical," he said.
Pictures Thoreson shared with CBS 6 showed a truckload of boxes, most of them full of chicks, who did not make the two or three day journey from the hatchery.
"Every time we had losses, that's what I uncover. It's pretty unfortunate," Thoreson said.
The business changed hatcheries to hone in on the issue. But both the folks at Pamplin Poultry, and the hatcheries they've been in communication with, believe the problem may stem from the Sandston Regional Processing and Distribution Center near Richmond, Virginia.
That facility was at the center of an Inspector General Audit this year that found a slew of problems, from neglected mail, to a worker asleep on a forklift.
"I can see that they go to Sandston," Thoreson explained. "I know they leave the hatchery in good condition, and then they show up, they're in Sandston for sure, and then they're dead on arrival."
Thoreson said normally, the chicks only spend about 48 hours on the road and almost always arrive on time.
In most cases the mortality rate is between zero and 2%.
"The weather has been hot, but even at times in the season where it's not extraordinarily hot, and it's always hot in the summer, we've had pretty bad losses, so it kind of leads us to believe that it's most likely an issue with them being handled in some severely incorrect way that leads to them not having enough air," Thoreson said.
Thoreson brought up the issue to his local post office.
"When we talked to post office employees, they sort of, they're pretty pessimistic about being able to reach anyone at that facility. As far as they can tell us, they don't have any customer service, anything. We've definitely tried to reach out, but I'm not sure to what extent those complaints are being received, or if they ara at all," Thoreson said.
The halted flow of production then turns into a cycle of setbacks.
More chicks have to be ordered, usually costing about $900 per shipment and a weeks' worth of wait time.
"The chicks are obviously a big transaction, so that's a loss, but what they mean for the farm, and it's growing season, it's exponentially greater than that, so even just losing it by a week, often more, is cataclysmic for us," Thoreson said.
It leaves the business without enough chickens to process and sell in a timely manner, Thoreson said, to the point of making the business pause its operations.
Customers received a newsletter in July, saying they could not take new orders and that orders could be delayed due to the issue.
USPS told CBS 6 it's looking into the matter.
"The U.S. Postal Services is one of just a few carriers that ship live animals, and we have established procedures for the safe handling of live animals. We have been working with hatcheries for more than 100 years to safely transport mail-order chicks seamlessly. When properly packaged and labeled, these live parcels are given special handling outside of our normal automated process," a USPS spokesperson said in an email.
"The hatcheries/farms are required to ensure that all packaging requirements are met and provide the poultry within 24 hours of hatching. Our delivery guidelines specifically state that we deliver the poultry within 72 hours from hatching. Our processes are designed to meet those expectation, that includes the requirement for all birds to be shipped using Priority Mail Express or Priority Mail products which are designed to meet the specific delivery requirements," the email continued.
It also said that based on applicable government laws and regulations, mailers may ship disease-free adult birds.
CBS 6 asked USPS if the chicks were not properly packaged correctly or if it USPS was investigating if the animals had a disease before they were sent through the mail.
CBS 6 has not received a response to that question at this time.
"It just feels, completely out of my hands," Thoreson said. "I feel kind of helpless, for sure."
In the meantime, Pamplin Poultry is planning to ship chicks through a different US Postal facility further west, despite it tacking on more distance and drive time, since it's still the business's cheapest option.
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