“Normally, they arrive every three weeks like clockwork,” she said. “And out of 100 birds you may have one or two that die on transmission.”
Thousands of birds migrated through the Postal Service’s processing center in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, were also killed, affecting several farms in Maine and New Hampshire, Henderson said.
Steve Doherty, a spokeswoman for the USPS, said the agency “could not find a claim filed for this loss.” Some animals, including live chicks, can be safely placed under proper conditions.
“It’s one more of the consequences of this disorganization, this kind of chaos that they created at the post office and no one thought through when they thought of carrying the mail,” Pingree said, adding that her office has received dozens of complaints from farmers and others trying to raise a small herd of chickens in the backyard.
Pingree said she’s not sure if Perdue is aware of how the changes in the Postal Service are affecting smaller poultry farmers in the U.S.
“This is a system that has always worked before and it worked very well until these changes started to happen,” Pingree said.
DeJoy, a Republican donor who is the first postmaster general not to come from the ranks of the Postal Service, took control of the agency in June and has since made rapid technical cuts and operational changes affecting postal delivery operations. disturb. In Maine, two mail sorting machines were dismantled at the state mail distribution hub.
He announced Tuesday that he would halt some email delivery changes that critics blamed for widespread delays and warned the election could disrupt November’s election, which is expected to bring a stir in post-vote voting due to the coronavirus pandemic.
DeJoy is scheduled to testify before the House on Friday.
President Donald Trump made it clear last week that he was blocking $ 25 billion in emergency aid to the Postal Service, acknowledging that he wanted to limit election post operations, as well as a Democratic proposal to provide $ 3.6 billion in additional election money to states to help process post-in-ballots.
Those funds are tangled in a broader coronavirus aid package that was approved in the House but stopped in the Senate.
The Postal Service is the only entity that sends live chicks and other small animals and has been doing so since 1918, according to the service’s website.
“Rural Americans, including agricultural producers, are moving relative to USPS for their livelihoods, and it is essential that they receive reliable service,” Pingree said.
