As the purchaser of live poultry, it is your responsibility to provide a safe and suitable environment for your birds upon arrival. This includes ensuring proper heat, bedding, feed and water as outlined in our "A Guide To Successfully Brooding New Chicks" care card received with all chick orders. By placing a chick order with us, you acknowledge and accept the following responsibilities:

• It is your responsibility to read and understand all care instructions.
• It is your responsibility to be available and flexible to pick up your chicks within 2 hours of delivery notification from the post office.
• It is your responsibility to have your brooder prepared in advance of chick arrival.
• It is your responsibility to report any unsafe delivery conditions and losses within 48 hours of chick delivery.

Proper preparation and education are essential to raising healthy poultry. Deer Run Farm is happy to offer quality, healthy poultry to responsible purchasers that are able and willing to provide safe and suitable environments for their poultry. We are happy to answer all poultry related questions to ensure the best care can be offered to your new chicks.

All chick orders are required to select a hatch date from our hatching calendar before checking out. Mail order chicks will hatch and ship on the selected hatch date. Orders for pick up will hatch on the selected hatch date and customers will be contacted to schedule their pick up for the rest of that week into the weekend. Please write down your hatch date selection before checking out.

Our day old chick orders do have quantity and minimum requirements.

Chicks for on farm pick up must meet the 3 quantity minimum. Chickens are social creatures and require companionship to thrive. This minimum ensures the chicks have hatch mates to bond with one another.

Mail order chicks have a minimum quantity requirement of 10 and orders must be in quantities of 10. This is to ensure that there are enough chicks in their appropriate shipping box to be able to stay warm enough amongst one another during their transit to the customer.

Unfortunately we do not have the skill to correctly and confidently sex most of our chicken breeds and therefore offer them as straight run (unsexed) only. We are, however, able to sex our Welsummer breed. When available, the Welsummer chicks will be offered as "Welsummer - Female", "Welsummer - Male" and "Welsummer - Straight Run". We maintain a 90% accuracy policy on all sexed chicks.

All day old chicks are vaccinated for Marek's Disease automatically. If you do not wish for your chicks to be vaccinated please leave a note with your request not to vaccinate them in the comments section before checking out. Chicks with this request will be pulled from the hatchers and separated for fulfillment so they do not receive the vaccine.

Our Ameraucanas and Copper Marans come in multiple color varieties. Our BBS Ameraucana and Copper Marans produce blue, black and splash colored chicks. All three color varieties can be bred to one another and still produce pure bred blue, black and splash offspring. We do not separate color varieties and therefore can not offer specific colors for customers as we wont know what colors will hatch until the day of hatch. Our Wheaten Ameraucana are the same: Wheaten (black), Blue Wheaten and Splash Wheaten.

Our Self-blue/Lavender Ameraucanas include black-splits to Lavender. This is to reduce the feather shredder gene commonly found in connection with the lavender gene. Black-split chicks can still be bred together to produce lavender chicks. We aim to fill most orders with majority Lavender colored chicks, but splits are a potential and should be expected.

Customers may make specific color request by adding a note of their request to the comments section before checking out. We can not guarantee our ability to meet those requests, but we will do our best to do so.

Chicks are able to live off of their absorbed yolks for 72 hours after hatch. To ensure their ability to survive shipping as day old chicks, we hatch and ship the chicks the same day. Chicks are shipped via USPS either standard Priority or Priority Express (our recommendation). All orders are shipped with grogel (an electrolyte solution in gel form) for hydration and a 72 hour heat pack when necessary. Chick orders are delivered to the local post office for customer pick up only. Customer phone numbers will be on the box for the post office to call upon arrival and when chicks are available for pick up. Chick orders must be picked up within 2 hours of postal notice to be eligible for our 48 hour live arrival and livability policy.

Chick orders shipped USPS Priority Mail may take up to 5 days to arrive. We do not recommend this option to states where the chicks have further to travel.

Chick orders shipped USPS Priority Mail Express have a guaranteed arrival time with the USPS. Most express shipments will arrive within 2 days, but could take up to 3 days. Express shipments that do not meet their USPS guaranteed arrival time can file for a shipping refund request with the USPS.

Priority Mail orders come with $50 of insurance. Priority Mail Express orders come with $100 of insurance. We understand that these insurance amounts may not cover your entire purchase cost. For this reason, we ask customers to REQUEST additional insurance in the comments section during check out. Please note: USPS insurance does not cover the loss of baby poultry unless the loss is caused by physical damage to the shipping container. Per the USPS's Domestic Mail Manual, chapter 609, section 4, article k: baby poultry destroyed by physical damage to the package, otherwise, the USPS is not presumed to be at fault. Insurance claims for poultry can only be processed on chick orders with damaged boxes upon arrival. For other losses without physical damage, refer to our 48 hour live arrival and livability policy.

**2025 SHIPPING UPDATE**

As of January 19th, 2025, the USPS will be implementing a $15 surcharge on all USPS Priority Mail shipments that contain live animals or perishable goods and a $7.50 surcharge on all USPS Priority Mail Express shipments of the same contents. Deer Run Farm's shipping costs of all live birds will reflect these surcharges.

All chick orders will come with a VS9-3 form through the National Poultry Improvement Plan that we are participants in. Mail orders will have this form attached to the BOTTOM of the chick box and include all necessary information regarding your new chicks. A copy of this form can be requested for up to 6 months after the chicks have been received.

Deer Run Farm has a 48 hour live arrival and livability policy. We guarantee the safe arrival of your chicks, but do not cover mortality or health issues beyond 48 hours after delivery date. Customers must contact us through email (info@deerrunfarmmd.com) within those 48 hours to be considered for any loss adjustments. A total count of all chicks received, a live count and a loss count must be provided, along with photos of losses for refund, replacement or credit consideration. Reimbursements are limited to the cost of the birds only and will not include cost of shipping charges as these are considered services, not products.

To ensure successful delivery, we often include extra chicks of the same breed(s) at no additional cost. Extra chicks are factored into any loss adjustments. If you receive fewer live birds than ordered due to losses or improper fulfillment, we reserve the right to determine if refund, replacement or credit is best suited for reimbursement. By placing a chick order with us, you acknowledge and accept our 48 hour live arrival and livability policy and agree to report losses no later than 48 hours after chick delivery.

For all other questions and concerns or for more information not found on this page..