McMurray Hatchery- Our Experience :(

[BlessedChaosHomestead]

We ordered a shipment of chicks from MMH on Fri, Feb. 16, 2024. (A week ago today actually.)
12 Bielefelders - Unsexed
15 Special Assorted Unsexed
1 Free Chick

On Tues, Feb. 20 I received the text they had shipped. So I started impatiently tracking them. lol

I did not receive these chicks till the morning of Thurs, Feb. 22.
I went to the post office & was chatting with my postal carrier & peeked in the box. Noticed a dead one, then what looked like more.
I quickly set the box down & popped the staples off one side to find a horrific scene. On first glance in horror it looked like 6 were alive, the rest were dead! Squashed on top of each other. The live ones picking at the dead ones!
My postal carried was grossed out too. But advised me to take pics. In doing so, I gagged as they were already smelling horribly. The drive home I had to roll the windows down on a cool morning.
Once home, we did an official count & we had 10 alive. One was dying; the rest dead.

These guys were STARVING. I mean they probably ate a cup of food within the first hour! We thought we were losing another one, but it was just weak. It started going down last night but has picked up since then & made it through the night.

Customer service apologized profusely BUT didn't try to make it right.
Our options were: 1. Re-Order but we have to pay for 7 more chicks to meet the minimum. 2. Wait till April to get the order as is. 3. Credit our card.
They initially issued us a store credit; we had to call back after we talked about it to get them to just refund our card as we didn't want this experience again plus having to order & pay for more chicks. (That potentially could die too.)

The circumstance we are in now, is trying to figure out what chicks we have as it literally looks like most of what survived where the assorted chicks, with 1 for sure Bielefelder male alive. Plus trying to find locally a breeder, that's NPIP/AI clean for the breeds we want.

This is my 2nd hatchery order ever. The first one was in Jan from McMurray for some Runner ducks. It went fine.
But as I found out then & with this fiasco coupled with it, I'm not pleased.
See McMurray sells itself as a family owned company. Tom's granddad started the hatchery, whatever the story.
You think you're getting chicks from THEIR breeding lines; expecting a cleaner line than say Hoover.
Except that is NOT the case that I have found. (Feel free to prove me wrong.)

McMurray sources their ducklings from Metzer Farms in Cordova TN. (Hoover may also, I haven't ordered from them.)
These Bielefelders & Assorted mix came from St. Paul, MN. NOT Iowa.
My cousin who ordered meat chicks from Hoover Hatchery, came in from St. Paul, MN also.
I've read that McMurray sources Turkeys from Privetts in New Mexico. And I believe Hoover does also.

I understand business side; it might make sense logistics/finances/etc.
But as a consumer this does not. Especially for McMurray, they should be transparent about this. If these are outsourced chickens, it should be clearly stated on their catalogs, that it's not a breed line from them.

So that's our story for those who care. This has left a bad experience for us on ordering from hatcheries.
Granted my local feed store got in 400 chicks today & of all those only 1 arrived dead! That's crazy! But from what I can gather via tracking, those poor chicks sat in St. Paul airport (for USPS) for almost 2 days waiting to be shipped out. No wonder they died. It's been cold there.

-A.

 

[Cinnamon Roll]

I’m sorry you had this awful experience!

I ordered from McMurry last year and ended up with all dead chicks. I reordered with the expedited shipping and that order arrived much sooner and they all lived. I think McMurray needs to add on the extra shipping fee automatically and not send a box of doomed chicks first.

 

[BlessedChaosHomestead]

Update:
We lost the only male Bielefelder today. and past the 48hr window so no refund on that.

 

[Cinch]

Sorry to hear that! Roll off the dice with USPS. “Temperature fluctuations and rough handling” We received an ordered from McMurry on February 1st. Shipped three days prior. All 41 chicks arrived alive, three died within a day or two. It was to be expected! A healthy chick should have no problem living 3-5 days on its yoke sack without food or water.

 

[LuciferRoo]

I had an order of 12 chicks last spring and while they all arrived alive and none died in my care, that experience left a bad taste in my mouth.
I paid for dozen females and received 6 females and 7 males (got 1 free chick).
This year I found a local source and drove almost 2 hours to get them.
Much better experience.

 

[Birdsonghill]

I have ordered from Murray McMurray Hatchery and other well known hatcheries since 1977. Received many from MMH and others, with minimal losses and good stock mostly in healthy condition. However, due to the wild card in the deck, the USPS delivery, disaster has happened to me occasionally. The callous handling or neglect for life of the chicks intentional or not, has caused me to open boxes with birds with broken legs wings and necks or just dead from extreme temperature exposure or lost on a loading dock an extra day or two resulting in casualties. Chicks can survive three days without food or water in transit and that is how we got them in the old days. Now most companies put some gel in the box with a bit of water and nutritional support. After three days casualties rapidly mount up. My worst loss was here at my local post office were they failed to bring the chicks inside the heated bldg. overnight or call me until over twenty four hours later. Ten dead on opening the box and ten more died over the next week, only six survived. They shipped on a Monday, I got them on a Thursday morning after they spent the night on the dock "because they stank" said the postal employee. I have had perfect shipments with no losses occasionally, but one or two is not unusual. Mail order chickens has gotten somewhat, less reliable along with the USPS services in general it seems to me. I have only had a couple hatchery issues with shipping defective birds. I got a cross beak chick and a couple one eye chicks before, one from MMH and a couple from another hatchery about twenty years ago. Seldom has the hatchery failed me. Sexing accuracy has been spotty somewhat, but usually within about 80% accuracy and MMH will refund for Less than 90% accuracy, those chicks wrongly sexed over the 90%. I understand the frustration with having unwanted roosters or less surviving birds than you wished after a botched delivery. I usually take the cash refund for the chicks as reordering does have minimums for delivery that must be met, with the added cost of additional birds. Purchasing good stock locally is a great solution to avoid these problems, if you can find the breeds you want from a reputable breeder of quality stock. You may get better stock as well. You may also not get good stock and bring home disease or pest if you are not experienced. I have enjoyed a wide variety of chicken breeds over the last nearly fifty years of my adult chicken raising efforts, because of Mail delivery chicks coming from reliable hatcheries like MMH. I am grateful for them enriching my coops with interesting birds that I could not have found locally.

 

[BlessedChaosHomestead]

I’m sorry you had this awful experience!

I ordered from McMurry last year and ended up with all dead chicks. I reordered with the expedited shipping and that order arrived much sooner and they all lived. I think McMurray needs to add on the extra shipping fee automatically and not send a box of doomed chicks first.

They state that even though you pay for that, it doesn’t guarantee you’ll get them any faster though.

 

[Molly77]

I just received 1 dead/8 dying chicks from McMurray Hatchery. Took them 69 hours in transit. They sat in MN for a whole day, and NJ for a whole day. McMurray doesn't use USPS priority express, my local post office guy was very shocked by that. I would have paid for the fastest shipping available at any cost, but they offer no options. This was some pretty upsetting animal torture of these little babies. 48 hours after delivery only 1 is alive. I question the whole idea of ordering chicks online now, but would especially warn anyone off of this particular hatchery.

 

[BlessedChaosHomestead]

That’s unfortunate. Good reason to buy local.

Very true but at the same time, trying to find what breeds you want locally that are also NPIP/AI clean is hard.

 

[realsis]

We ordered a shipment of chicks from MMH on Fri, Feb. 16, 2024. (A week ago today actually.)
12 Bielefelders - Unsexed
15 Special Assorted Unsexed
1 Free Chick

On Tues, Feb. 20 I received the text they had shipped. So I started impatiently tracking them. lol

I did not receive these chicks till the morning of Thurs, Feb. 22.
I went to the post office & was chatting with my postal carrier & peeked in the box. Noticed a dead one, then what looked like more.
I quickly set the box down & popped the staples off one side to find a horrific scene. On first glance in horror it looked like 6 were alive, the rest were dead! Squashed on top of each other. The live ones picking at the dead ones!
My postal carried was grossed out too. But advised me to take pics. In doing so, I gagged as they were already smelling horribly. The drive home I had to roll the windows down on a cool morning.
Once home, we did an official count & we had 10 alive. One was dying; the rest dead.

These guys were STARVING. I mean they probably ate a cup of food within the first hour! We thought we were losing another one, but it was just weak. It started going down last night but has picked up since then & made it through the night.

Customer service apologized profusely BUT didn't try to make it right.
Our options were: 1. Re-Order but we have to pay for 7 more chicks to meet the minimum. 2. Wait till April to get the order as is. 3. Credit our card.
They initially issued us a store credit; we had to call back after we talked about it to get them to just refund our card as we didn't want this experience again plus having to order & pay for more chicks. (That potentially could die too.)

The circumstance we are in now, is trying to figure out what chicks we have as it literally looks like most of what survived where the assorted chicks, with 1 for sure Bielefelder male alive. Plus trying to find locally a breeder, that's NPIP/AI clean for the breeds we want.

This is my 2nd hatchery order ever. The first one was in Jan from McMurray for some Runner ducks. It went fine.
But as I found out then & with this fiasco coupled with it, I'm not pleased.
See McMurray sells itself as a family owned company. Tom's granddad started the hatchery, whatever the story.
You think you're getting chicks from THEIR breeding lines; expecting a cleaner line than say Hoover.
Except that is NOT the case that I have found. (Feel free to prove me wrong.)

McMurray sources their ducklings from Metzer Farms in Cordova TN. (Hoover may also, I haven't ordered from them.)
These Bielefelders & Assorted mix came from St. Paul, MN. NOT Iowa.
My cousin who ordered meat chicks from Hoover Hatchery, came in from St. Paul, MN also.
I've read that McMurray sources Turkeys from Privetts in New Mexico. And I believe Hoover does also.

I understand business side; it might make sense logistics/finances/etc.
But as a consumer this does not. Especially for McMurray, they should be transparent about this. If these are outsourced chickens, it should be clearly stated on their catalogs, that it's not a breed line from them.

So that's our story for those who care. This has left a bad experience for us on ordering from hatcheries.
Granted my local feed store got in 400 chicks today & of all those only 1 arrived dead! That's crazy! But from what I can gather via tracking, those poor chicks sat in St. Paul airport (for USPS) for almost 2 days waiting to be shipped out. No wonder they died. It's been cold there.

-A.

So sorry and what a awful experience! Shame on them for not making right on your chicks!! You and your family were tramatized to have to go through that! I know loosing only one is upsetting but to loose half your flock is more than disappointing! They should ship the number of loss back to you free! Now you've lost half of your new flock. That's unacceptable! It's also harder to try to make up for this and brood different ages together. I am so sorry they won't make this right. What a awful story. So sad.