Hello. I am new here and this my first post. I apologize for posting on such on an old thread but for people like me who are still asking this question and come across it for the first time like I just did, I thought I might be able to contribute to one more factor. I'm pretty sure I didn't see this mentioned in any of the previous replies on this thread... Anyways, I have a few different friends who work for both USPS and UPS. They have told me that one of the most common reasons fragile packages is get damaged (besides poor packaging by sender, which I'm NOT accusing anyone on here of that!) is the drop off from the conveyer belts that ALL of the packages go through. USPS has I believe a 4 foot drop and UPS has a 6 foot drop! Four feet seem maybe tolerable but six feet is really pushing it to me. And yes that does include all fragile packages that drop off of those conveyer belts too.
I have to say that I've always been very curious about the frequency of how many and how often shipped packages are subjected to an xray. Even more so, what that can cause to live organisms and embryos... At first I thought I was maybe getting a little bit paranoid like some overly curious conspiracy theorist, Lol! I was glad to find this thread and have it basically confirm to me that it is most certainly plausible and worth further research on this xray issue on lIving organisms.
Finding a solution to this issue will only make it better for all three parties involved;
1). THE CONSUMER - will have more assurance and guarantee for safe handling of their order including free of x-ray radiation, and most importantly receive healthy organisms, embryos, live aquadics, etc.
2). THE BREEDER/SELLER/MERCHANT - will have more confidence in their clients orders arriving safe and most important once again, arriving alive and healthy. Which in turn reduces customer returns/refunds, customer complaints and worst of all, lost of clientele with possible negative word of mouth getting passed along throughout your marketplace community.
3). THE LIVING ORGANISM, EMBRYOS/FERTILE EGGS, LIVE FISH, SMALL EXOTICS, etc. All of these listed here and more that I failed to mention are sensitive, vulnerable and defenseless creatures who stress easy and even more so when exposed to what could be considered an alien environment to them, as well posiibly toxic. In my personal opinion, this would be this party here (#3) who would be if it most if we could instill better safeguards.
As I first mentioned, I feel the 4-6 foot drop from the conveyer belt is a bit excessive as well abusive to any living thing. For example, fertile eggs with a live embryo would possibly be scrambled inside the shell after a drop like that even if it was packed better than ever, even arrived with zero shell cracks. The force for the momentum would still pass through the embryo inside and through the egg, think of like a shock wave... Anyways, the drop off height was the main purpose of this post but I also wanted to just share my thoughts on all of this as well.
Sorry for the long post but I hope this can maybe give a little more insight to any future readers. Thanks for all the info from all of the other previous commenters on this thread!
