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- Oct 1, 2010
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The point of this thread is to help some people new to shipping, and also for long time shippers, because we never know how a shipment will turn out.
To start this off, i had alot of slings to ship out this week. I had 8 boxes with a total of 291 slings going out.
I had made a major mistake during the packaging of these slings. Luckily me and a great buddy on here were able to pinpoint it, and make sure it does not happen again.
For some reason i had it in my head that being wintertime, and shipping with a 72 hour heatpack, the slings would need excess water. So i packed them up as usual, into individual straws, with wads of paper towel corking both ends. The problem arose when i was using my spray bottle to squirt down the wads of paper towels before inserting them into the straws. When i was squirting them, i would do so until they were soaked, and the water would start dripping out of them. Then the excess water would run out as i was squeezing the paper wads into the straws. I thought since there was a heatpack in the box, it would burn out the humidity quickly, so the excess water would be good. Turned out i was very very wrong. Here is a list of the packages that went out.
Package 1: contained 65 slings, there was 21 doa
Package 2: contained 56 slings, there was 30 doa
Package 3: contained 15 slings, there was 2 doa
Package 4: contained 10 slings, there was 1 doa
Package 5: contained 40 slings, there was 24 doa
Package 6: contained 20 slings, there was 2 doa
Package 7: contained 10 slings, there was 1 doa
Package 8: contained 60 slings, read further
Ok, once package 5 made it to the owner, me and him got to talking about it. We came to the conclusion that the paper towels were way too wet. Being they were squeezed into the straws, and blocking ventilation, the moisture level was too high. So the leading cause of death we are blaming on drowning, with the possibility of boiling, due to the heat packs. We talked about winter shipping, and how the excess water in the paper towels will not warm up, and cause the slings to stay too cold also.
Being that we talked over what had been happening, i came to the conclusion to just give each wad of paper towel only 1 squirt each from the water bottle. Remember package 8? Well after talking with my buddy, that night i packed up package 8, with a total of 60 slings in it. I only squirted each wad of paper towel 1 quick time. I finished them up, and shipped them out. They arrived, and every single sling, all 60, were alive and in great shape. So, with that we were able to pinpoint for sure that the excess water had caused all of my problems. So i had made a horrible mistake, and can now move forward a little wiser. I now have a bad experience to learn from, and be sure it never happens again.
So the whole point of this thread is to help anyone just starting out into shipping tarantulas and other inverts. I have learned alot from the experience, please dont make the same mistake. Taking the time to read this through, could help you out alot, and save the lives of some spiders.
Also, in no way does this reflect my usual shipping. This was just a fluke mistake, that is now under control. So if you have the chance to deal with me in the future, please let my reviews reflect my packaging experience, and not this 1 time mistake.
Thanks for reading.
To start this off, i had alot of slings to ship out this week. I had 8 boxes with a total of 291 slings going out.
I had made a major mistake during the packaging of these slings. Luckily me and a great buddy on here were able to pinpoint it, and make sure it does not happen again.
For some reason i had it in my head that being wintertime, and shipping with a 72 hour heatpack, the slings would need excess water. So i packed them up as usual, into individual straws, with wads of paper towel corking both ends. The problem arose when i was using my spray bottle to squirt down the wads of paper towels before inserting them into the straws. When i was squirting them, i would do so until they were soaked, and the water would start dripping out of them. Then the excess water would run out as i was squeezing the paper wads into the straws. I thought since there was a heatpack in the box, it would burn out the humidity quickly, so the excess water would be good. Turned out i was very very wrong. Here is a list of the packages that went out.
Package 1: contained 65 slings, there was 21 doa
Package 2: contained 56 slings, there was 30 doa
Package 3: contained 15 slings, there was 2 doa
Package 4: contained 10 slings, there was 1 doa
Package 5: contained 40 slings, there was 24 doa
Package 6: contained 20 slings, there was 2 doa
Package 7: contained 10 slings, there was 1 doa
Package 8: contained 60 slings, read further
Ok, once package 5 made it to the owner, me and him got to talking about it. We came to the conclusion that the paper towels were way too wet. Being they were squeezed into the straws, and blocking ventilation, the moisture level was too high. So the leading cause of death we are blaming on drowning, with the possibility of boiling, due to the heat packs. We talked about winter shipping, and how the excess water in the paper towels will not warm up, and cause the slings to stay too cold also.
Being that we talked over what had been happening, i came to the conclusion to just give each wad of paper towel only 1 squirt each from the water bottle. Remember package 8? Well after talking with my buddy, that night i packed up package 8, with a total of 60 slings in it. I only squirted each wad of paper towel 1 quick time. I finished them up, and shipped them out. They arrived, and every single sling, all 60, were alive and in great shape. So, with that we were able to pinpoint for sure that the excess water had caused all of my problems. So i had made a horrible mistake, and can now move forward a little wiser. I now have a bad experience to learn from, and be sure it never happens again.
So the whole point of this thread is to help anyone just starting out into shipping tarantulas and other inverts. I have learned alot from the experience, please dont make the same mistake. Taking the time to read this through, could help you out alot, and save the lives of some spiders.
Also, in no way does this reflect my usual shipping. This was just a fluke mistake, that is now under control. So if you have the chance to deal with me in the future, please let my reviews reflect my packaging experience, and not this 1 time mistake.
Thanks for reading.
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We're only human and make mistakes sometimes, what makes a person someone I would deal with is knowing they're good for correcting their mistakes should they happen. I'm about to ship some smaller Ts out, so this is good for me to keep in mind.
