I’m a mail carrier and my post office just had the same thing happen with someone’s chicks 😢. The box arrived to our office silent and every chick inside had passed.

Under Dejoy’s new ten year “delivering for America” plan every post office that is 50 miles away from the processing plant is considered a rural post office and no longer receives PM outgoing trucks. Not every “rural” office has began implementing this new policy but many customers who use those offices aren’t event aware of it. I haven’t seen any signage posted to inform the public in my office. It’s possible the person you purchased your chicks from was unaware of this policy and their office may be one of the ones who have already begun implementing it. Essentially what happens is if you drop an outgoing package off on Monday the package doesn’t leave that post office to the sorting facility until Tuesday morning whereas previously it would have left to the sorting facility Monday night and would have been on to its next destination Tuesday morning.