A Lesson in shipping birds
Steve Joneli
Red Rose lofts
Every
day people all over America ship birds from one loft to another.
The express mailing of pigeons through our U.S. postal service is one of
the best things we have going. Ninety
nine percent of the time our birds arrive at their destinations in a day or at
most two safely and rearing to go. But
once in a while a glitch can happen.
Earlier
this year we shipped a box of pigeons to Florida for the A U Convention race.
We live in North West Washington so our little champions were going from
corner to corner of America. Quite
a journey. We always ship early in
the week and we always fill our birds with water before we ship. This turned out
to be a life saviour for our birds.
Our
birds left our local post office Tuesday night and went through Everett to
Seattle WA. Ready to go out of Seattle Wed. morning.
Guess what? Big
earthquake Wed. morning. Sea-Tac
airport was shut down. The U. S.
Postal service had contracted North West Airlines to fly the birds to Tampa. And the ground crew for North West being contentious of
the bird’s welfare put them on the first flight leaving Seattle after the
airport reopened, to Detroit. They were thinking Detroit being a major hub for
North West; the birds could easily get transferred to a flight going to Tampa.
Problem number two. Detroit
got a big snowstorm and it was shut down for two days.
OK so here you have a box full of live birds sitting in Detroit at the
North West depot. It’s now Friday
and the North West ground crew like Seattle’s puts the birds on the first
flight they can going out of Detroit when the airport opens, which happens to be
going to Miami, not Tampa. So we
now have another delay. Our birds
finally arrive in Tampa at our handlers Saturday afternoon.
They were hungry, thirsty, and really upset, but after some food and
water were just fine. That’s
Tuesday afternoon to Saturday afternoon in a box.
Our handler said that filling them with water before shipping them is
what saved them.
Ever
ship a bird to someone and never hear if your bird has arrived safely?
Several times we have had to repeatedly try and call the person receiving
our bird to find out if it arrived safely.
Come on people, show a little courtesy and let the shipper know you got
their bird. Or have you ever
received a bird you weren’t expecting. Some
people will ship birds with our first contacting the receiving people to make
sure if there going to be there to receive the birds.
You don’t know if there going to be home or maybe out of town.
A couple of times I have got a phone call saying “I shipped the bird
yesterday, did you get it?” The
shipper just automatically assumed you were going to be there to receive the
bird.
We
have a plastic syringe with a short length of soft plastic tubing we use to fill
the birds with water before we ship them. This
only takes a few seconds and will really help the bird if it gets held up.
And
please, before you ever ship birds contact the people receiving your birds to
make sure they will be there for them. When
you receive birds let the shipper know you got them so they won’t be worrying
about their birds welfare. Always
ship early in the week so if a glitch does happen they won’t get stranded over
the weekend.
Express shipping of our prized little Champions is a gift we can’t abuse. It’s only common courtesy to our fellow fanciers to be in contact before and after shipping. And most of all, we owe it to our birds.