Can I order supplies and live animals in the same order?
To ensure the safety of the animals and to fascilitate a streamlined automated checkout process we do not allow animals and supplies to be purchased in the same order and shipped in the same box. That being said, you can fill out our support form and we may be able to bill you with a custom invoice outside of our automated checkout process if we deem your request to ship animals and supplies in the same box possible.
Where do you ship to?
Currently we only ship to states in the US and we do not have plans to expand to other countries at this time.
When will my order ship?
Supply orders will typically ship within 3 business days of the order being placed. Live animal orders placed after noon Sunday will sometimes not ship until Monday of the next week. Orders placed before noon on Sunday will always ship Monday or Tuesday of the same week. We only ship live animals on Mondays and Tuesdays to ensure the fastest shipping times for the safety of the animals.
Returns, refunds, Live Arrival Guarantee, and hold for pickup
LAG (Live Arrival Guarantee):
- Must contact us within 1 hour of the delivery time posted by the carrier service and provide photo or video proof if you want a return or replacement due to DOA (Dead on Arrival). Orders which are held for pickup at a post office have an extended 24hr LAG. Some exceptions can be made, we wish to be as accomidating and understanding as possible.
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-Isopod orders will be automatically sent to your specified USPS post office address, or the nearest one to you if no address is specified, if temperatures are below 50F or above 80F. If you cannot get to a post office to pick up your animals please reach out to us before ordering and we'll do our best to accomodate.
-Any order can be sent to a post office instead of your home if you specify an address in the order comments field at the final page of the checkout.
- Once we have confirmed that the DOA is within our return/refund policy we will offer a full refund or a reshipment of the order on the following Monday/Tuesday. We understand that excessive deaths during shipment are not always the customer's fault so we'll offer exceptions in certain cases. Always feel free to reach out to us!
All other products:
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-Product returns are done on a case-to-case basis. We will need a reason provided to help us understand the nature of the return/refund for the product.
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Please reach out to help.springtails.us@gmail.com for all inquiries regarding DOAs, refunds, returns, and reshipments.
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Springtail Shipping Methods
We use three shipping methods for springtails:
-Paper towel in 2 or 4oz cups
-Clay in 8oz cups
-Soil in 2oz cups (currently only used for A. caecus)
-We use paper towel for species that we suggest culturing on soil. We use paper towel because it is a secure and clean way to safely ship springtails which we transfer from soil into these shipping cups. They can survive on the paper towel for a week or more. To get the springtails off of the towel and into the culture you can either put the whole thing into their new culture and wait for them to get off or unfold the paper towel and gently knock them off and into the soil.
-We use clay for the species which we suggest culturing on clay and which handle shipping on clay well. You can keep these springtails in their clay lined shipping cups and continue culturing them in there or tap them out into a new culture.
-We use soil to ship Arrhopalites caecus because soil is what we culture them on and being a soil dwelling species they handle shipping in it quite well. To transfer them from their shipping cup you can simply dump them soil and all into their new culture. They culture best on soil but we suggest trying clay as well once you have a good soil master culture going. We do culture them on clay as well but shifted away from shipping them on it because people were struggling to keep them alive on clay.
Isopod Shipping Methods
Isopods ship in ventilated cups with damp sphagnum moss. They'll typically be provided a food source such as leaf litter to keep them in good health on their journey.