Picking Eggs | Packaging Eggs | Shipping Services | Shipping Live Chicks | Tracking Issues
Thank you for Supporting our farm and small chicken adventure! With full transparency as always, here you will find our policies and procedures as to how we ensure you are getting the best eggs/chicks to your farm from ours.
Everything starts off with the eggs! We try and update our farm Facebook page and website with current pictures of all of our birds here at H7! Each season we are able to keep back some of our favorite eggs and the next season pick through and use them to better our flocks. The pictures you see are of the birds we have and use for our hatching eggs. There is no secret stash of hens that are not high quality! When gathering eggs for hatching egg orders or to fill chick orders… we are always using the best. If an egg pigment isn’t up to par, or the egg is too dirty or not properly shaped they won’t be used and will be consumed by our family always.
When it comes to hatching eggs, we assure you that your eggs are fresh and want to explain how that is done. Rather than gathering eggs for a few days and shipping multiple orders at once, we ship as fast as we can collect and most days of the week. So let’s cover the logistics in that and why it has been successful for us. If you have any questions that are not covered below, please send a message on Facebook or through text if you signed up on the website!
USPS is our choice if shipping because we live close by the local PO. It is over 30 minutes one way to the nearest UPS or FedEx and so we do not use their services. Instead, our eggs are gathered and sent to you asap. Typically the eggs in your box are 24hrs old (sometimes even less). We choose to ship every day vs all on Monday. That way, if there does happen to be a delay in your eggs by usps they will still be fresh when arriving to you. We cannot control what happens when the eggs leave our hands and that is the risk taken when choosing hatching eggs. However, just because usps doesn’t deliver 7 days a week, they are still moving through transit even on Sundays. The only time this isn’t the case is holidays and then it is slower and therefore we won’t send eggs end of one week of for example Monday is a holiday.
As for issues during transit, if your tracking number has not been scanned or not moved locations for 12 hours PLEASE go directly to your local post office and ask to speak with the Post Master. The post master at the destination can see additional tracking information, the intended path of the package, and can and will call the managers at the distribution centers to track down your box. Having a relationship with your local PO is great so that they will help and and know to contact you when your box does arrive.
Packaging: packing your eggs is taken very serious. Our eggs are first placed in foam shippers from Souther feathers shippers. We have sets for 14 eggs and 28 eggs. This means we can fit up to 2 dozen safely in each shipment with room for extra eggs. Each is packed into a medium flat rate box and then double boxed in a large flat rate box. Outside of each box is labeled with asking USPS to hold your box and call you for pickup. Please keep track of your shipment so you know when they will be calling. Having that relationship with the PO is importsnt so they will hold and call you. It is not required for them to do, we are only requesting.
Live Chick Packing: we require a 5 chick minimum for shipping but do suggest 10 at minimum. Up to 25 chicks can fit in one box. Chicks are shipped on Mondays or Tuesday less than 2 days old and we choose the fastest shipping option available. Each box has a 72hr heat pack, chick crumbles scattered on the bottom and grogel for hydration.
If your chicks are delayed more than 72 hours please open the box in front of the PO employee and ask for their documentation along with taking your own pictures there. Losses must be documented at your local post office. A post office refund on postage when there are major losses helps us stay in business, so please do communicate with your local post office and get them to document a damaged/perished/very late arrival. It is extremely costly to ship a new box to you without the post office postage fee refunded.
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