So, I used to have on my website a thing saying that we did ship. Now, it seems sometimes that I ought to put something up saying that we don't. Since I stopped shipping, I have never run into so many people asking if we do ship.
I tend to think this is because the same company that we used to ship -- PetSafe -- is the same company almost everyone used to ship chinchillas, so all of a sudden, it went from a handful of breeders shipping chinchillas, to almost no one shipping chinchillas, and the people wanting chinchillas shipped, left high and dry.
Unfortunately, nothing I can do about this.
I actually went on PetSafe's site a few days ago, just to check that nothing had changed, but nope, they are currently still only shipping cats and dogs. As chins aren't cats or dogs... can't ship them.
Did I look into other airlines? Of course I did. The cost is severely prohibitive with anyplace else (and it wasn't exactly cheap with PetSafe). With using PetSafe, the total passed-on-cost to the purchaser was $200-250 to ship 1-4 chinchillas. That included the flight, carrier, paperwork, etc etc etc. The flight ALONE on some of these other airlines starts at $220. YIKES. The carriers are $30-50, and then... these other airlines require health certificates for the pets. Those run ~ $125 per pet at our vet. So figure, $220 flight, $30 carrier, $125 health cert (1 chin) = $375. That's not counting the little bit I'd add in for gas and my time... yeah no. People balked at paying $200-250 to ship a chin... so when shipping basically went up to $400+ for ONE chinchilla, I took the shipping part off the website.
I've still had people say they can find our website when they search for breeders who ship. Here's the thing. Search engines aren't smart. Every word is single and by itself. My ads that are on other websites all have the same line in them. It goes:
This chinchilla is located in Hammond, Indiana (zip code 46324). Sorry, but we do not ship.
Now, consider that each word is considered individually. See the problem? The word "ship." It sees the ad and sees that we are a breeder and sees that the word ship is in there, and is like, "oooh! a breeder who ships!" Yet... if I take that line out, or even remove the part about shipping... then I get even more people asking about shipping (versus just the ones that can't read, or see the ads on our site, where it doesn't say anything about shipping). So.. can't win there.
Even if someone wanted to pay $400+ to ship a chin... there's an awful lot of effort involved in shipping animals. Of that money, as you can see based on numbers above, I'd make very little on shipping. Maybe $20 plus my cost for gas. Let's be honest, that's not much for all the time it takes to set up the flight, the time at the airport, the time getting everything organize and set up and everyone on board... and this isn't including the new regulations which would require the time to get the animal to the vet and get the vet cert (only a few days prior to shipping), plus the time spent at the airport with these other airlines that are clueless about chin shipping (Jim spent 2.5-3 hours shipping with American cause they were so disorganized and clueless)... it's not really worth it for the average $100 chinchilla. Yes, of course, we make the $100 (well... minus the costs incurred to care for the animal while here), but probably lose an entire day or two to adopt out one chinchilla. Yes, the chinchilla is being adopted, I acknowledge that. But...there is such a thing as time better spent. So, until the day PetSafe decides to ship small animals again, they are currently only available for pickup, or meeting at someplace we are already going (like an expo or chin show). Sorry for the inconvenience. I'd like to ship too... but not with the current state of things.
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