Recent comments in /f/todayilearned

Pony_Express1974 t1_jciupd3 wrote

Reply to TIL that USPS ships day old baby chicks in the mail by shelovesbackshots

Yes, and sometimes they all arrive dead. I used to work as a contract driver for the Post office, and one time, I had several boxes of baby chickens in my load. In one box, every single baby chicken save one was dead. Often, there will be a few dead baby chickens in a box. They even ship baby ducklings the same way as well. Almost always just before Easter.

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Plethorian t1_jcitex1 wrote

Reply to TIL that USPS ships day old baby chicks in the mail by shelovesbackshots

In 1996 I was performing implementations of in-house medical repair operations at the (then named) Columbia Hospital system. I had the west coast, and one was in Riverton, Wyoming - a lovely place. I had finished my work there, and was scheduled to fly to California for a meeting the next day.

I got to the airport way early, and the staff was excited. They were hoping I'd be there early, because there was a spring storm front moving in. The Hertz rep had told them that I was due back, and got on the intercom to let them know I was there.

My later, direct flight to Denver was already cancelled, but they had room for me on a flight that stopped first in Worland, Wyoming. If I'd had a map, I'd have stayed an extra day. Worland was north, Denver was southeast.

So we take off, in the ubiquitous Dash-10, heading north. At the back of the plane only a simple partition separated the cargo from the passengers. I was annoyed, because there clearly styrofoam coolers rubbing together, and the squeaking was annoying. I was distracted by watching ice form on the wings as we flew into the storm, though.

We make it to Worland, and we all had to disembark so they could refuel. We're in the one-room terminal, and the baggage gets unloaded. There aren't any styfrofoam coolers. There are boxes and boxes of baby chicks.

Turns out that it's completely uneconomical to keep chickens over a winter in Worland. They get new ones every year, and I got to ride in with them. If you ever wondered what a thousand cheeping baby chicks sound like, just rub a couple styrofoam coolers together. For an hour.

Edit: Worland, Wyoming

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TheCorgiTamer t1_jcit28d wrote

Reply to TIL that USPS ships day old baby chicks in the mail by shelovesbackshots

Not efficiently; we did this with our first batch of chicks when we first started out raising chickens

It was supposed to be "next day" and instead took almost 4 days

Of the 6 we ordered, 2 were DOA, 2 more didn't make it past the first 5 days (the last 2 made it to about 3 month, but fowlpox got them)

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flaminate_strutching t1_jciqixt wrote

Reply to TIL that the NFL made a committee to falsify information to cover up brain damage in their players by KirstenTillson

Yeah, and that isn’t even the racist part where they wouldn’t pay out brain damaged black players as much because they claimed that black players are naturally less intelligent and therefore had less capacity to lose than white players.

That only ended a few years ago because of lawsuits.

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OozeNAahz t1_jcip2mv wrote

Reply to TIL that USPS ships day old baby chicks in the mail by shelovesbackshots

Worked at UPS as a developer back in the mid 90’s. Was on a tour of the hub in Louisville and was chatting with the guide. Evidently someone shipped live baby frogs the previous summer and the box got damaged and they got out on one of the conveyor belts. Not knowing what the hell was going on the were all hopping like mad trying to keep from being swept off the belt. Both hilarious and sad.

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