​What You Don't Know About Shipping Live Insects

With the population of people who own reptiles rapidly growing, the number of live insects being shipped everyday is also growing. Ordering feeder insects online is becoming more and more common. This way of getting your pet’s food is easy, fast and cost effective. With that being said, there are a lot of things about shipping live bugs that many customers may not know.

The first thing that many people may not know when ordering their insects is how much work goes into shipping just one order! There are many steps that must happen before we can box your bugs up and ship them out. The mornings at bug farms are typically spent shaking out, sorting and packing bugs. Most companies have a shipping schedule that you can look at to figure out when your order will ship in relation to when you placed the order. It is crucial to check for this just in case you are in a rush to get your order. The next common misconception is that the shipper has control over the transit time of your order.

Regardless of the company you choose to buy your bugs from, there are many factors that can affect your order. These things range from weather, holidays, shipping delays and location. The weather is one of the hardest parts of shipping live animals. Not only can the shipper not control the weather but it is also difficult to predict the weather. We use a national weather map to decide the best way to pack each order depending on what state they are being shipped to. For us personally, our winters are freezing cold and our summers are extremely hot. A lot of companies run into some days during the very cold months when they are unable to ship because of the low temps. For this reason, it’s important to not wait until you run out of bugs to order your next batch. You also do not know what shipping delays the carriers may encounter once they receive your package. These delays are out of everyone’s control and typically cannot be avoided.

When a carrier does experience delays or lost packages, the shipper has no control over it. Although it is out of our control, we are still held responsible for these missing packages or bugs that are dead on arrival. We highly encourage you to read our, and any other website’s, live arrival guarantee before placing your order. Many companies guarantee live arrival if certain things are done on your end. For example, in the winter, we are unable to guarantee live arrival on bugs that are not shipped via FedEx or held at the post office. This is stated clearly on our website and all customers are also required to agree to these terms before placing an order. The terms of a company’s live arrival guarantee can change at any time so it is important to check this each time you place an order. If one company’s guarantee doesn’t work for you, that gives you the opportunity to find a website with terms that better fit your needs.

Although shipping live insects comes with it’s own set of obstacles, taking some time to read up on your companies terms and services and establishing a relationship with their customer service team can make it a smooth and easy way to feed your scaly friends. We hate seeing dead bugs just as much as you do and we do our very best to pack our bugs in a way that they can make their journey to you safely. If your bugs are dead on arrival, reach out to us! We love hearing from our customers and are happy to help with any issues you may have.