Yes, I still have a few and they are on adult breeder mice live. Although they will take f/t off tongs if you wiggle it a bit.
To triple and boid. I do understand your stances, but it also is exceptionally easy for a buyer to scam me. The paypal chargeback, the cc chargeback, the switcheroo with a rock/empty box/something they already had in the freezer.
Ask JNJ, he had a few baby balls die on a large shipment to him, and a single boa on a second shipment, in almost all cases I guaranteed them. If you are a known dealer or licensed dealer I will more then readily guarantee live arrival, but to an unknown unlicensed jobber or a pet keeper I am more apt to run into trouble. A dealer buys multiple animals, knows how to take care of them, and usually has reliable means to obtain the shipment on thier end. They know the varience of quality, and expect what they pay for.
The scenerio is becoming more and more difficult to make a sale to pet keepers and individual animal buyers. They expect to get wholesale pricing and then dicker for reduced or free shippng cost, they buy one animal at a time, want 27 pics, 17 emails, take forever to pay, are are super quick to bitch. I have had several people , including one this year decide it wasn't convient for him to go to the airport so he waited until the next afternoon. Should it be my fault if an animal perished when he intentionally delayed the shipment by 18hours by simply not picking it up due to convience.
Also to send one animal it still costs me the same for the insulated box, the heat packs, the time and gas for me to go to the shipping facility. So it makes it more cost effective to sell mulitple animals to dealers then single animals to the public.
Also shops still understand the seasonal costs of animals, and that a little extra size costs more money. The public is more and more consistently deciding that becuase they saw an animal on someone elses "fire sale" list that the current price should be that price. I had someone this week tell me that they only pay 7.25 for balls in april, so that is what I should be selling my 07s for now.
As far as sending sick animals-that can be avoided by:
1. asking for close up pics with a date reference, which I have never denied a pic request.
2. Only dealing with established reputable businesses
3. make sure they have positive feedback on forums
4. Get references and check them out
5. If they claim to be a business, check them out for a website, phone listing, or check thier states business listings to make sure they are legit
6. Get the agreement written out even if in an email but make sure they put thier info on it
7. Expect to get what you pay for. If its too good to be true it usually is.
8. Do a little digging on how long they have had thier contact info.
I have had my same email since 2000, my same adress since 2001, and my same phone number since 2001. Guess I am not trying to hide from anyone.
For private couriers, just look in your local yellow pages, or talk to the local trucking companies. I have sent snakes to be hand delivered with rodent company trucks, letter/document carrier services, a bike messanger when I was living outside of boston, and several different truckers (both known to the company and hidden from the company).
I just used a reptile dealer-Dale Mitchell-as a courier on a $16k animal trade between a wholesaler and myself. Dale even took a pastel ball as payment-get fedex or delta to take balls as payment. The shipment was over 12 boxes of animals several containing adult balls, and adult boas and weight 20-30 pounds. This shipment would have cost well over $200 for delta or $300-400 for fedex. A pastel ball was much cheaper and the animals were attended for the whole time.
Thanks
ben