That's really sad, and 30% dying is totally unacceptable, IMO. How did the hatchery people respond? Hope they were helpful, at least. Mary
I don't recall exactly what the hatchery said, as my wife was the one dealing with them. They gave us a refund for the dead chicks (and I think they offered to ship some more, but we declined), but you can't put a price on a life, you know? It was my idea to give them vitamins and probiotics and I only wished I had done it sooner, it was day 3 before I did that. I just googled it and it's about 2000 miles between the hatchery and us. I don't know exactly how long they were in the mail for, but if I ordered from a hatchery again, it would be one closer to the Pacific Coast. We had raised chicks before but it was ones we got from the feed store or had hatched from our own flock, never had any casualties with them.
It wasn't until all these chicks started dying that did I start suddenly seeing all the threads about the stress of shipping chicks. It can (key word is "can") be VERY stressful on them, from what I learned. I think I would prefer to order hatching eggs next time.