Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I just tried to ship two Geckos with the Post Office. I made the BIG mistake of being honest and labling the box FRAGILE LIVE ANIMAL In my (Ridiculous) belief that if it said that they would take MORE care of the package than if I just put PERISHABLE on it. BOY WAS I WRONG Their policy is EVERY ANIMAL SHIPMENT IS HELD FOR TWO DAY SHIPPING!
That is just pure genius on their part isn't it since we know how well animals do without food and water and the proper temperatures for two days.
The clerk told me they could not guarantee a Next Day Delivery and when I hesitated and told her I would just find another shipping method she told me "OH I WOULDN"T WORRY ABOUT IT THAT IS JUST SOMETHING WE HAVE TO SAY IN CASE SOMETHING HAPPENED"
THEY WILL GET THERE FINE! EXPRESS SHIPPING WITH US GETS THERE BY NOON THE NEXT DAY!"
Of course it did not get there by noon next day. It got there in two days. Of course both my leopard geckos (3 and a half month olds) got there DEAD!
If they don't want to ship live animals they should just make a policy that says WE DON"T SHIP LIVE ANIMALS but I feel they are just trying to deter us from shipping our animals with them by TORTURING AND KILLING our beloved animals!
They even bad mouthed me to my customer and the mail carrier told her it was I that ASKED FOR SECOND DAY TO SAVE MONEY
I promptly am returning the full amount to my customer after apologizing profusely (none of which the Post Office will refund to me They would not even refund the measly $17.85 they charged for shipping Express Mail, the loophole is they CHARGE THE SAME for Express next day as for Express second day)
I feel the ones I need to apologize profusely to are my two beloved geckos. Instead of sending them to a new home I sent them to their death. I FEEL JUST HORRIBLE! I suggest you never ship ANY animal with the post office and actually I only reccommend UPS

I'm very sorry that happened..almost the same thing happened to me, but I got lucky, or I should say the critters were lucky they survived..I live in a very small town, so I have a rinky dink post office, here, I was the 1st person to ever ship live reptiles from here, I called and checked it out first, the woman in charge, called Indy, the airport there to make sure everything was fine, they told her to just call when i bring the animal there and verify it, so she did, everything went smooth the 1st 10 x's or so, then they didn't even have to call Indy to verify it anymore. After a few months of this and NO problems, I shipped a tortiose and a dragon, both were only going a state away 1 to ILL, and 1 to OH, well neither package made it, the guy who was getting the tortiose, got on his end of the phone, and did all kind of calling I did from this end, I never found anything out, on his end he talked to the post mater, in Oh, who told him it was all my fault I did not get next day air, (even though I had a reciept that said I did) I ended up calling him, we had a very heated discussion, but come to find out he was right, after the sept 11th attack, the post office can only ship live animals on a commercial flight, which is 2 days, unless you can drop off, in a big city, (the main airport) my post office here, did not know that, they work they and they should have, but the didn't, it al worked out well, everything got there safe and sound, but I have never shipped with USPS since, and won't I ship UPS you can get an account there, and ship. Sorry for being so long, but other people who live in small towns or their p.o just don't know the new rule that has been in affect for at least 1.5yrs should know that,,I was just doing what my P.O said was o.k to do, and just got kucky the 1st bunch of times, I'am very thankfull, it wasn't this hot when I did my shipping...

n/p
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TheClassyLizard

I took the package at 5Pm 2 hours before the cutoff time to make it by next day. I had called the day before and was told it would be in Portland by the next day.
I did not expect it to be in Florida that long and it would be pretty cool in Oregon so I was afraid a cool pack would harm them by making them too cold. The lows in Portland are in the low 60's right now.

They were being sent to me. They threw them in with the regualr parcel mail. I was on the phone ALL day, trying to track them down. They are supposed to scan the packages at every destination they go through. When they got to St. Louis (I live about 30 miles from STL), they guy told me they have so many packages, they don't scan them all. They are SUPPOSED to!!So from that point they were lost.
My local post office is where they actually got lost, but I didn't know that. I couldn't sleep all that night. It was December in the Midwest!
On the 3rd morning, they called me and said they had been found. The manager said they would put them in the truck and be here before noon. Needless to say, I told them DO NOT put those babies in another truck!! I'll be right there!
Luckily, the heat packs and the styrofoam insulation held up, they came from Utah, and were alive.
And that's my LAST dealing with USPS..one strike, yer out!
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TheClassyLizard

he didnt arrive that morning, or the morning after that one, but the afternoon after that one, it was horrible, never again thats for certian, needless to say he arrived alright from Michigan to San Diego CA, thank goodness, some gatorade and some nice basking and he was doing alright.

sorry they lost your geckos, they really are terrible with packages.
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reiko
photos

I'm so sorry to hear about your geckos, that is horrible! Shipping through any company is risky business, but as we all know shipping plays a huge part in this hobby unfortunately. I have never shipped an animal, but I have had quite a few shipped to me, and I am always nervous about it, and with good reason. Most of the people that I buy from use Airborne, and believe it or not, I have had tons of problems with them! Once I ordered some baby turtles, needless to say, they didn't show up when they should have, I called airborne and the lady told me "we can't find the package". I was worried sick about the poor babies. Well, the next day I got a call from them saying that they had found my package. The poor little guys arrived dead. I was so heartbroken! Well, a year later, I ordered animals from someone else, and guess what? Yep! Same thing happened!
I have also had problems with USPS, I bought 2 baby tortoises and it took them 2 days to get here. Luckily african tortoises are hardy little critters and they made it here ok. All that we can really do is hope that one day the companies that we ship through will be more careful with living beings. Christy

You guys are lucky your post office or UPS even ships them. I tried to ship a ball python about 4 months ago from the post office , the said absolutely no live animals can be shipped. I went to 5 different shipping companies and NONE would ship them, not UPS, FedEx, or American Express, they even called those companies and asked if they would ship them and ALL said they could not and would not ship and live animals, especially reptiles, unless I was a pet shop, then they would ship maybe some fish or something.
I ended up shipping it UPS with proper packing, but just labeled it Glass, Fragile, but of course it arrived DOA.
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The Drunken Jedi Master

There was such a thing as a Reptile Transport service.
Or even if Airborne,Fed-Ex, UPS or USPS would commit to specialize in it, it'd be really nice. Dream on.....
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TheClassyLizard

I was wondering how come people tend to use Airborne over Fed Ex? I know in aquaria most people only ship Fed Ex cuz they seem to be the most reliable.

Reefer's have the same issues with getting shippments done right... I think perhaps we should all get together on this
go look at the msg. boards at Reef Central .com and see few sad cases where fish and coral have been left in transit too long and died....

It's sad that most folks will understand say a dog or cat can't be left in a box in the cold etc....

but something like a $$$$$ box of corals (which are animals too)
or lizards just is not given the same respect
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I'll be sending out my first shipment of seahorses on September 8th. I plan on using Fed Ex. I've received at least 10 shipments from them with no problem.

*GENERALY* Fed Ex seems to be good.... but they goof bad sometimes....

the local place I got live rock from www.tampabaysaltwater.com
( I Live in St. Pete so I can just drive over )

likes to have the customers pickup boxes of live rock at the air freight terminal / fed ex office so that the box can't sit in a van in high / low temps for hours....

also they ship rock in super tough bags with water so it's never left out to get dry.

good folks if you ever need stuff from them....
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Oh yes!

TampaBaySaltwater and GulfView are the BEST places to get aquacultured live rock. The main difference is that tampa bay ships them in water so there's less die off. Really amazing stuff!

Im sorry you lost your little ones to their delay in transport... and hopefully this info will help in the future.

Following Sept 11th, the USPS stopped carrying all live shipments due to contract negotiations. The outcome was that FedEx picked up the government 'mail transport' contract. FedEx in turn, does NOT carry live animals... Therefore the boxes marked "live" are re-routed onto commercial flights.
USPS sent out notification of this ASAP and also posted the information on their web site, which is applicable for live animal transport. It clearly states that they will provide "limited service" for those live animals which require delivery within 72 hours/air transportation.

Granted, this is not common knowledge nor is it readily available to the general public - but it is still the responsibility of the sender to 'clear' all live shipments through the proper channels before actually shipping the package through USPS.
(((The computers the P.O. uses do not have the ability to foresee these routing issues. But when I call in a shipment, the guys at the airport depot give me the flight departure/arrival times and also the expected delivery time. It's a 'best guess' on their part but usually goes well.)))
The News Release can be found here - http://www.usps.com/news/2001/press/pr01_liveanimal.htm

UPS requires a shipper to hold an account with them for live shipments - but no shipping of snakes. AirBorne also requires an account for shipping live animals - but will carry no snakes or lizards. FedEx will most likely just laugh… Unfortunately, I believe all snakes are required to be shipped via air cargo.

No matter whom you choose to use for your shipping requirements please remember to mark all packages appropriately (You can get into serious trouble if you dont - and get caught.) and package them for unexpected delays.

Good luck,
V.