Cost-Cutting To US Postal Service Means Dead Chicks Delivered To New England Farms

The U.S. Postal Service has found itself at the receiving end of President Donald Trump’s ire in the last few months. This was seemingly sparked by the push in several states to expand mail-in voting ahead of November's general election.

One way the Trump administration has chosen to attack the USPS is gradually cutting and blocking funding. This included a $3.5 billion in relief as part of a new coronavirus relief package proposed by Congressional Democrats. However, negotiations with the White House stalled and a new package hasn’t passed, with Trump pointing to the proposed USPS funds as a reason why.

“[The Democrats] want three-and-a-half billion dollars for something that’ll turn out to be fraudulent, that’s election money basically,” Trump told Fox News on Aug. 13. “They want three-and-a-half billion dollars for the mail-in votes -- universal mail-in ballots.”

To cope, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy said the USPS would undergo several changes to help cut costs including ending overtime, cutbacks in sorting equipment, and ending extra carrier trips. It has put him at odds with Democrats who accuse him of trying to help Trump in the upcoming election, prompting a hearing Friday to address these changes.

While some of the changes have been pushed back past the November election, mounting problems are already starting to be felt by average Americans who have relied on the USPS.

One example of this came from the northeastern U.S. where baby chicks meant for farms have died during shipping.

Pauline Henderson, owner of a family farm and chicken meat processing center in Maine, told the Portland Press Herald a shipment of around 800 chicks meant for her farm were dead when she went to pick them up her local post office.

“We’ve never had a problem like this before,” Henderson said. “Usually they arrive every three weeks like clockwork. And out of 100 birds you may have one or two that die in shipping.”

She was told the chicks arrived at the office on time but the packages were mishandled on the way. She said farmers across Maine have had the same problem as reports say around 4,800 chicks have died while passing through a USPS processing center in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, over the last few weeks. She said the financial impact on the farmers is greater than people realize and could potentially impact chicken availability.

“This is our livelihood, this isn’t a hobby farm,” Henderson said. “We are trying to save our livelihood.”

Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine, said her office has received dozens of complaints as more chicks are arriving dead. She said she has since raised the issue with Postmaster General DeJoy and U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue in a letter demanding the two resolve the issue, citing the changes DeJoy was implementing.

“It’s one more of the consequences of this disorganization, this sort of chaos they’ve created at the post office and nobody thought through when they were thinking of slowing down the mail,” Pingree told the Press Herald.

“And can you imagine, you have young kids and they are getting all excited about having a backyard flock and you go to the post office and that’s what you find?

“This is a system that’s always worked before and it’s worked very well until these changes started being made.”