Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Forecast lows are near freezing almost every night for the next ten days at the Fedex hub in Memphis. I know some people do ship with it that cold but it just seems too risky to me. Does anyone here on the forum have experience with cold weather shipping and care to share info on ways to make it work safely? I suspect some people who have to make a living selling reptiles cannot stop shipping for the winter and so take the risk and do occasionally lose animals because of it.

I don't ship when it's this cold - PERIOD!

My thoughts and "rules" on shipping:

Temps have to be above 40 night time lows and below 90 day time highs. And yes I have run into the situation where one location requires a heat pack and another is too warm for one - sorry won't ship.

My temps during the evening, night time lows at Memphis and final destination. Also daytime highs at final destination. Re-confirm the temps on shipping day. Kind of like Santa, make my list and check it twice!

Always use longer duration heat packs when heat packs are required. My last order was a case of 40 hour ones and I'm thinking maybe my next case will be even longer ones. The intent that if the package does get delayed, te heat pack won't expire before the second night is over.

I always leave a "spare" weekday for delivery. Again, just in case the package is delayed. No Friday or Saturday arrival.

Ship "Hold at Fedex" - to the local Fedex office copy center whenever possible. Deliveries are earlier and therefore inside sooner. Not left on cold or hot porch without signature.

I do understand the customer quite often wants the new baby ASAP. IMO ASAP = Always Safe Arrival Period!
-----
Thanks,

Dave Colling

www.rainbows-r-us-reptiles.com

0.1 Wife (WC and still very fiesty)
0.2 kids (CBB, a big part of our selective breeding program)

LOL, to many snakes to list, last count (02/01/2010):
42.61 BRB
27.40 BCI
And those are only the breeders

lots.lots.lots feeder mice and rats

Dave,
...Your thoughts on this are exactly the same as mine. I know I have had a few people unhappy with my shipping policy. I would like to hear from people who do ship in colder weather. I know some of them have to accept the greater risk because they cannot afford to shut down for the winter. If someone knows how to make it safer I would like to hear their ideas on this subject.
Jeff

Jeff,

Funny I find most people while not exactly jumping for joy are very accepting of my safe shipping policies. While they want their new baby right away, they also want it to be safe and arrive nice and healthy.

They can be shipped in colder temps but like you already stated, that comes with greater risk. Thicker insulation including full on cooler (instead of styro pieces) would help. Using a larger box, more than the minimum size also allows for more insulation and more heat packs - more heat packs means less risk of one single heat pack failing or not lasting as long as it should.

Of course all these things add to the cost of shipping at the same time the add to the risk of loss. Not a win/win situation in my book.

One other option I've exercised is same day Delta Dash shipping. Clearly more expensive, easily 2X Fedex but is same day so no night time temps and requires both parties to go to their respective airports.
-----
Thanks,

Dave Colling

www.rainbows-r-us-reptiles.com

0.1 Wife (WC and still very fiesty)
0.2 kids (CBB, a big part of our selective breeding program)

LOL, to many snakes to list, last count (02/01/2010):
42.61 BRB
27.40 BCI
And those are only the breeders

lots.lots.lots feeder mice and rats

When I ran my own company in Maine for about 5 years we shipped year round.

Here are a few tricks we used to make sure everything got there nice and warm.

We used standard superior boxes with 3/4" foam to ship with. We put 2 small air holes on each of the arrows on the box with a 16 penny sized nail to allow air to get to the heat packs.

One 40 hr heat pack for a 12x9x6 box, and 2- 40 hour packs for a 16x16x9 box.

Each box got a layer (about 1"-1.5" thick) of newspaper that had been crumpled into a ball them straitened out to fit into the bottom of the box. This allows some air flow but also adds more bulk layers to it to protect from being placed on a cold cement floor of a loading dock. This also allowed more bulk so if cold air did get threw it had more bulk to get threw than reg. flat paper would offer. The animals were then placed inside the box in the deli cup, and more paper was wrapped around the out side of the cup to fit just below the air holes on the deli cup. From there all the empty space in the box if filled with the same paper until it was full. If using multiple cups, fill the gaps with paper as well. From there a few layers of the same go on top of the cup to cover the box with a small corner on each end not completely covered. The heat pack (5 hrs to warm up properly) was them wrapped in one layer of reg. newspaper with ends open to allow heat to escape, and taped to the lid. This protects the pack from any moister that could cause it to short out. Top of the box gets three stripes of tape to seal it,same as bottom (one to close and one of each side to keep the cold air out. We shipped around 300 boxes a year this way and never lost a animal due top the cold. More than half of those boxes were shipped in temps between 15*-25 * as a low.

If using a snake bag, same way as a cup, just fill in any voids with thick layers of paper and you are good to go.

The purpose of this is to make the box insulated enough that if the heat pack is defective you are still covered.

We have shipped anything from baby colubrids and rainbow boas, up to $10k ball morphs like this with no issues at all.

If at all possible, snake bags work best even for babies as they do not retain the cold like deli cups do.

I have received animals packed like this as low as 0* out when we have had a temp drop unexpectedly that other than being a little chilled were fine after a few hours warm up.

Don't be afraid to use to much paper in the box, as that is what saves the animals when the unexpected delays, or temp drops happen.

Hope this helps, as it has worked very well for me.

>>When I ran my own company in Maine for about 5 years we shipped year round.
>>
>>Here are a few tricks we used to make sure everything got there nice and warm.
>>
>>We used standard superior boxes with 3/4" foam to ship with. We put 2 small air holes on each of the arrows on the box with a 16 penny sized nail to allow air to get to the heat packs.
>>
>>One 40 hr heat pack for a 12x9x6 box, and 2- 40 hour packs for a 16x16x9 box.
>>
>>Each box got a layer (about 1"-1.5" thick) of newspaper that had been crumpled into a ball them straitened out to fit into the bottom of the box. This allows some air flow but also adds more bulk layers to it to protect from being placed on a cold cement floor of a loading dock. This also allowed more bulk so if cold air did get threw it had more bulk to get threw than reg. flat paper would offer. The animals were then placed inside the box in the deli cup, and more paper was wrapped around the out side of the cup to fit just below the air holes on the deli cup. From there all the empty space in the box if filled with the same paper until it was full. If using multiple cups, fill the gaps with paper as well. From there a few layers of the same go on top of the cup to cover the box with a small corner on each end not completely covered. The heat pack (5 hrs to warm up properly) was them wrapped in one layer of reg. newspaper with ends open to allow heat to escape, and taped to the lid. This protects the pack from any moister that could cause it to short out. Top of the box gets three stripes of tape to seal it,same as bottom (one to close and one of each side to keep the cold air out. We shipped around 300 boxes a year this way and never lost a animal due top the cold. More than half of those boxes were shipped in temps between 15*-25 * as a low.
>>
>>If using a snake bag, same way as a cup, just fill in any voids with thick layers of paper and you are good to go.
>>
>>The purpose of this is to make the box insulated enough that if the heat pack is defective you are still covered.
>>
>>We have shipped anything from baby colubrids and rainbow boas, up to $10k ball morphs like this with no issues at all.
>>
>>If at all possible, snake bags work best even for babies as they do not retain the cold like deli cups do.
>>
>> I have received animals packed like this as low as 0* out when we have had a temp drop unexpectedly that other than being a little chilled were fine after a few hours warm up.
>>
>>
>>Don't be afraid to use to much paper in the box, as that is what saves the animals when the unexpected delays, or temp drops happen.
>>
>>Hope this helps, as it has worked very well for me.