Shipping a turtle-help!

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Mount_Prion

Mount_Prion

Piranha
MFK Member
Jan 31, 2012
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I'm thinking of getting myself a large aquatic turtle as a birthday present. The guy who has the turtle isn't a vendor but says he's an experienced shipper, although there's no live arrival guarantee. This is pretty expensive, so if I decide to risk it I want to do this properly.

I know a fair amount about shipping fish, but obviously a reptile requires much more air. This isn't a basking turtle, it's fully aquatic, so I'm not sure exactly what I should ask for/expect. People at my LFS said that I might want to ship it in something wet (like wet paper or something) but actually have holes in its container so it can breathe. This sounds a little sloppy to me, but it also seems like you couldn't really bag it for very long--even with pure oxygen pumped into the bag.

The turtle is about 12'' in size.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated, I'm a total n00b in this field.
 
that's a pretty large turtle. a website i found said to put it in tuppleware with sphagnum moss to keep it moist.
 
Wiggles92 said:
I wouldn't bother getting that turtle. It sounds like the guy isn't as experienced as he says he is not to mention that he's probably not certified by FedEx or UPS to ship reptiles; this certification is needed in order to ship reptiles on your own without using a site such as ShipYourReptiles.com.
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What makes you think he's not experienced? I haven't talked to him about how he's going to ship yet, I'm asking these questions cause I don't know anything about it myself and want to make sure it's done properly.

As for certification, you're almost certainly right. Maybe there's an LFS or something that can do it. Cause when I tried putting together a vague quote of what I figured it'd be on there, it was like $500 to ship!
 
Mount_Prion said:
What makes you think he's not experienced? I haven't talked to him about how he's going to ship yet, I'm asking these questions cause I don't know anything about it myself and want to make sure it's done properly.

As for certification, you're almost certainly right. Maybe there's an LFS or something that can do it. Cause when I tried putting together a vague quote of what I figured it'd be on there, it was like $500 to ship!
Click to expand...

The lack of a live arrival guarantee is concerning because it is possible to get insurance on reptile shipments & most experienced shippers will do so just to be safe.

Overnight shipping is pretty expensive, but I think you might have be a bit too vague in your estimates. Most store typically do not do any shipping by the way.
 
Don't do it, many dealers offer live arrival, better safe than sorry.I myself use ship your reptiles and always offer live arrival, I see this as a mandatory thing for both buyer and seller.
 
I bought a turtle from a popular Reptile place down in florida and they did it over night thru fedex.

They used pieces of Styrofoam to make a box and out some kind of wet plant. Maybe it was moss. Turtle came healthy and ate right away when i put him in the tank.

But if i were u, i would not trust any place that dont offer live arrival guarantee bc they can ship u a dead turtle from the start.


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