This seems stupid but it's important

We recently came across a good deals on some hermit crabs and snails. So we thought we would take the deal and pass the savings along to some of our customer. Well we had no problem selling either one especially the blue leg hermit crabs now the problem we have ran into is shopping. I personally have received hermits and snails via USPS priority mail all alive and well no issues being bagged that long. So we decided to do the same thing. We added about 1/3 water to the bag and the rest was air and we sealed the bags and double bagged them. Now we have been using the insulated bubble envelopes that are silver on the outside instead of styrofoam insulated boxes. Not sure if this point matters as long as it holds heat/cold.

Every customer so far received their hermits doa. They all described the same that the water was brown and the hermits came out of their shells.

Any help or feedback would be much appreciated as we have the last few orders ready to ship tomorrow and for the sake of the animals don't want to have this happen again.

And before someone asks yes we had placed heat packs as it was to be cold I. The NE where we are shipping from

 

Just a few thoughts to bump your question...

The brown water is an indication that the hermits were probably dead for most of the journey.

Heat packs have no way to control temperature.

Thermal envelopes may not allow enough (if any) separation between heat packs and bags.

If all these observations are correct, it seems reasonable to assume that the bags may have gotten too hot and the hermits perished shortly after departure. Perhaps you should consider going back to styrofoam boxes.

FWIW, the only two live shipments I've ever received were sent in extreme weather during winter. Both consisted of several bags in a styrofoam box with only two small heat packs taped inside the lid. Temps were still good and all livestock was in perfect condition in both cases.

 

I should have been a bit more elaborate.

The hermits were bagged and placed in the insulated bubble mailer, then the mailer was closed but not real tight. We placed this in a box and put newspaper all around for more insulation. Then i placed two heat packs on top wrapped loose in newspaper.

I tried to keep enough room to not allow them to cook but still get some heat.

I was thinking they were too hot if they came out of their shells as if they were too cold i would imagine they would stay in their shells?

 

This was all a experiment and i am not sure if we are going to ever come across another deal like we had but it bothers me on what went wrong and I am just trying to figure that out

 

The stryrofoam boxes work but this is more complicated then you might think.You have to have air layers in between insulation for it to work correctly. All the boxes I received had small holes drilled in the lids and or bottom.The problem is you never really know what temperature they are exposed to.Ammounts and placement of heat packs takes some practice.

 

I'm totally guessing, water got too hot