Inside UDJ by Editor K.C. Meadows

For the past couple of weeks I have been looking forward to restocking my hen house. In The Great Chicken Massacre of Christmas 2007, something wiped out 10 of our 11 chickens while we were out of town. New chicks are not available, I was told, until March as they are flown from the mid-west somewhere and the cargo holds are too cold otherwise. OK.
What I have also since found out is that I am not the only one looking for chicks this time of year. There are two farm supply stores in town that carry chicks and they are sold almost before they come in the door. I was working with one of them which was expecting a shipment last Friday. I was ready. I stopped by first thing Friday morning and was told the shipment from the U.S. Postal Service looks late. Then that Friday afternoon the fellow at the store said they still had not shown and he was worried. He said they would like be stressed at this point and he wouldn't want to sell them to me until he kept them over the weekend to make sure they would survive. Out of curiosity I stopped by Saturday morning to see how it went and the fellow told me that the shipment had arrived really late from the post office and almost all of the chicks were already dead and most of the rest had died since.
He said another shipment would come this week and I was welcome to some of those.
He was upset about it, but not nearly as upset as I was with the thought that the U.S. Postal Service would simply allow 100 or more chicks to die in its care. Small as they are, they are not widgets, or steaks that might get a little thawed if late but still be good. These are live animals that the Postal Service simple allowed to die. I am told it's mostly from dehydration, which means they are not given any water for hours and hours on end. How is that possible?
I am hoping some post office employee can explain it to me.