Best way to ship large tortoises

Hi All,

I have four 20 lb torts to ship. They are each about 12 inches long. It's been a while since I've shipped and when I last shipped large torts like these, I used Delta Air Cargo.

I was wondering how DHL would be? I know DHL seems to be ok for smaller animals but wasn't sure how'd they be for large heavy animals.

Thank you

Craig

I had a large alligator snapper shipped by Airborne Express (now DHL) years ago, and had no problems with it. My experiences with DHL over the past few years have not been nearly as good...but they are being very reasonable so far with a current problem (this problem is NOT their fault, but the are being very helpful in assisting me with trying to reach resolution). Personally, though, I would probably still use Delta.

Air cargo is going to be FAR cheaper as well. Just last week I shipped a box of snakes that was about 15lbs total from NC to TX. Priority overnight was $89 including all the fees and surcharges.
Out of curiosity I ran the estimate for shipping one 80 lb package from here to TX and it came to $275.
This is assuming DHL doesn't give you any problems with accepting the shipment. They've been taking an active approach to stopping reptile shipments since they took over Airborne.

Clay, I use DHL all the time. I do not have a account with them. But with a company called Unishippers, they are DHL's largest account. I did sign a waver with them to ship reptiles. I have not heard anything about DHL stopping the shipment of reptiles. I do not think they would tell their largest account, they would not accept their packages. It might be different if my account was with DHL directly. As for being reliable. They are much better than the rest of the shippers, now that they worked out the bugs buying Airborne. It was a nightmare for a while though. IMO, they are the best out of the whole lot now. I ship on average, 10-15 packages a week. It has been a good while since I had a late shipment. KNOCK ON WOOD!!! LOL.

After DHL bought Airborne, I talked with a couple of people who had their accounts terminated because they were shipping reptiles. These were not people like us, these guys had $30-50,000 annually in shipping fees.
It was buisness as usual for a while, then one day the driver picked up the days shipments and they got a phone call that evening to come to the hub to pick them up and their account was terminated.
I heard numerous reports of low volume shippers like us having to go to the hub to retrieve their shipments, but the fact they refused those large accounts was the most notable.
Perhaps since then they have revised their stance on reptile shipping, but at that point at least they were actively working to stop it.

Every area of the country has one shipper that does better than the others. Here it's FedEx. In my area DHL is very bad to damage packages. UPS does too, but not as bad as DHL. A friend of mine bought a DVD burner and it was shipped DHL. When the package arrived he didn't have to use a knife to remove the unit from the box it was destroyed so badly.
I used Airborne exclusively for a few years until DHL took over. Chronic issues with double billing, the numerous badly damaged packages I saw here (thankfully no animal shipments), and the hassle they were giving people at the time caused me to switch to FedEx.

I can understand that too. I have had to drive 15 miles to the FedEx hub to pick up late packages, more than once. They told me flat out, if it's late, then I will need to pick them up. I ordered tegus from Agama International before, and Ups left the packages at their drop off. So I understand how they differ from one place to the next. But I will say this, FedEx here is running a real close second to the post office.

It was buisness as usual for a while, then one day the driver picked up the days shipments and they got a phone call that evening to come to the hub to pick them up and their account was terminated.
I heard numerous reports of low volume shippers like us having to go to the hub to retrieve their shipments, but the fact they refused those large accounts was the most notable.

I had this same problem happen to me on the receiving end not so long ago. I was expecting a relatively large (3 lbs) tortoise. When I got home the day the tortoise was supposed to be shipped there was a message waiting for me in the answering machine. It was an irate Kinko's employee (FedEx drop-off location) that was furious because there was a live animal scratching to get out of the package. He refused to ship the package and threatened to call animal control if I didn't get a hold of the shipper within one hour to have him pick up his package.