“Please respect my privacy when I share this. I work part time at Tractor Supply and need this job to bridge my disability income. I deplore Chick Days! The only positive in the 2 years I’ve been there is that they quit housing the birds in the layered trays. They, at least our store, are back to the large metal tubs in the caged area. This still doesn’t negate the fact that the birds come by mail with many squashed to death. The sick ones suffer by themselves in the back of the store in a separate tub. They die and are put in a plastic bag and thrown in the trash like garbage. Although the policy is to sell a minimum of 4 birds per customer, there are still many times this policy is ignored. Parents buy them for their kids and the kids handle them to death, literally. I’m sure the company’s money plays a role in allowing them to continue their irresponsibility and abuse.”
– Email message to UPC, March 7, 2022

Bird Flu, Salmonella, and Tractor Supply:
Urge “No More Baby Chicks or Ducklings!”

“Mass cullings have been implemented as a highly contagious form of avian flu has swept across the eastern half of the United States in recent weeks, killing both farmed poultry and wild birds.” – “Bird Flu Sweeping Through Eastern U.S. – HealthDay News, Feb. 25, 2022.

Poultry factory farms and transport methods, added to traditional farming practices, live bird markets, cockfighting, and the wild-caught bird trade, have created the conditions responsible for the spread of avian influenza (bird flu) viruses capable of infecting birds and humans. Backyard-poultry keepers and their birds are not immune to this contagion. Salmonella infection of backyard birds, children, and adults is also a risk. More and more children have egg allergies and complications of seasonal flu. The risk of infection, says Dr. Pascal James Imperato of the State University of New York’s Health Sciences University, is “especially high for young children who come into contact with baby chicks and ducklings.”

Urge Tractor Supply to stop selling baby birds. Typically shipped by airmail, the newborns come to the stores in a fragile state of food and water deprivation and extreme stress. Many are dead and dying. Their condition weakens their immune systems, making them particularly vulnerable to avian influenza and Salmonella infections. At the store, they receive little or no care, and often have no food or water, or else the food and water bowls are full of filth, as has been reported by customers and employees. Many people who buy these birds simply abandon them once the novelty of the “children’s toys” wears off and the kids lose interest.

CONTACT

• Hal Lawton, CEO
  Tractor Supply Company
  5401 Virginia Way
  Brentwood, TN 37027
  Phone: 615-440-4600 extension 4601
  Website: www.tractorsupply.com

• Customer Solutions:
  1-877-718-6750
  customersolutions@tractorsupply.com

• Post a comment on Tractor Supply’s Facebook page: www.facebook.com/TractorSupplyCo

• Urge your local store manager to provide proper bedding, sheltered resting areas and other comforts for these baby birds.

• Post a comment on your local Tractor Supply store Facebook page where it advertises its “Chick Days” sales.

• Write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper(s) about the inhumane situation.

• Ask your local humane society to intervene to help these suffering chicks and ducklings.