This week I spoke in front of the US Postal Regulatory Commission. As you may have heard, they are conducting hearings throughout the United States to discuss the consequences of a Saturday closure. One of their stops was in Sacramento, California.
1) The mail order hatchery industry is completely dependent on the US Postal Service to deliver our birds throughout the nation. No one else will deliver day old poultry.
2) I felt their service is excellent as very few orders do not arrive on time and death losses are extremely minimal.
3) Much of the credit goes to their contract with the FedEx, which carries the majority of the birds for the USPS from airport to airport throughout the nation.
4) The hatchery industry can handle nondelivery on Saturday but it is paramount that they not close midweek and keep Saturday open as it takes three continuous days to ship day old poultry successfully: the ship day, the travel day and the delivery day.
5) The mail order hatchery industry is growing – probably one of the few industries that is growing in postage purchases.
My assumption was that they were only considering a Saturday delivery but Commissioner Acton said they had considered closing Wednesday. However, their polls indicated that the vast majority of customers preferred a Saturday closure and that is the only day they are now seriously considering.
In my research for the presentation I did learn that the US Post Office shipped 1.8 million pounds of day old poultry from May 13, 2009 through May 12, 2010. If you add in the adult birds that are mailed, my guess is the total postage paid by the mail order hatcheries is easily over $10,000,000 a year.
For more details on how we mail your birds through the USPS, please visit our website at http://www.metzerfarms.com/ShippingOptions
For more information on the consequences of Saturday closures for you, go to
didnt the usps adopt the R.F.D. just because of this issue
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