:IMPORTANT - PLEASE READ PRIOR TO ORDERING:

Shipping Options - Shipping for all orders with a live tortoise will need to ship overnight, no exceptions. Orders with larger tortoises will have a slightly higher price than shipments with small ones. If your order has a tortoise as well as supplies, the supplies will probably ship separate from the tortoise via UPS Ground or USPS Priority unless we can get it all in the same box and ship it overnight (tortoise insulated boxes are pretty small). 

Las Vegas Local Pickup
For local customers in the Las Vegas area, orders can be picked up locally in North Las Vegas. Pickup is on weekdays only between 7 AM and 3 PM. We stock 98% of our products in Las Vegas, but there are a very few that are drop shipped from a manufacturer straight to the customer. All tortoises are maintained in Las Vegas. Pick up will be the business day after the order so we can prep it. This is not the tortoise office, so we don't have the supplies stocked at the same location as the pickup. This pickup location is in North Las Vegas near MLK and Cheyenne. Please e-mail us with any questions on this. 

Out of town orders that choose "Las Vegas Local Pickup" will be refunded immediately. We obviously have costs in shipping your order, so if you are unable to pick up, don't attempt to bypass the shipping cost by choosing the free shipping option if you live in Florida, etc. It just won't ship. 

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We do not ship tortoises outside of the US. Live tortoise orders with a shipping address outside the US will be cancelled and refunded immediately. We do ship to Canada and a few other countries for supply-only orders (shoot us an email if your country isn't in the current list, and we can add it. We don't want to open it up to all countries). 

Our cutoff time for same-day shipment of tortoises is now 2 PM Pacific time (or 5 PM on the East coast). We have a daily pickup at 3:00 PM Pacific time each day, but we need time to prep. We generally ship tortoises on the following schedule:

Orders placed Monday afternoon 2 PM Pacific through Tuesday afternoon 2 PM ship on Tuesday.
Orders placed Tuesday afternoon 2 PM Pacific though Wednesday afternoon 2 PM ship Wednesday.
Orders placed Wednesday afternoon 2 PM Pacific through Thursday afternoon 2 PM ship Thursday.
Orders placed Thursday afternoon 2 PM Pacific through Monday afternoon 2 PM ship Monday.

All tortoises ship overnight, so they'd be there the following day (shipping on Tuesday means Wednesday morning delivery).

Ground shipments (for non live goods) ship on the same schedule as much as possible, but occasionally will ship the following day. Certain items can take an extra day or so if it's something we have to harvest or prep (like our cactus pads). We don't ship anything out on weekends or holidays.

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We ship our tortoises nationwide, 12 months out of the year with UPS Next Day Air. We pack our tortoises in insulated boxes with cold or heat packs to keep them at safe temperatures during transit. All our tortoises ship out Monday, Tuesday, Wednesdays and Thursdays for delivery the following day. The tortoises leave my hands around 3 PM on the day of shipment, and arrive to you the following morning, typically before 12 noon, for about a 16 hour trip in total. Our packing techniques and materials enable us to keep the animals warm when shipping into some very cold locations. We generally only ship into areas that are at least 20 degrees or higher the night before they are arriving. We are able to maintain our animals warm enough in their packaging that these temperatures aren't a problem. If you are colder than that, we will generally coordinate with you and watch the weather for a "warm spell" and ship the tortoise within that window. We are very experienced shippers, shipping thousands of live animals to date and have been shipping reptiles almost daily since 2001. Shipping concerns should not be a reason you don't buy a tortoise from us.

If you have a specific request for a shipping or arrival date, be sure that request is made at the time of ordering (in the customer comments box during checkout). Having it in the invoice itself helps us not miss the request. We can't be 100% accurate when requests are made in an email or phone message. 

We can arrange tortoise delivery on Saturdays. Email us for more info and pricing on this (there are additional costs).

We do not give shipping refunds for late overnight shipments. Our third party shipping company does not guarantee refunds to us (in exchange for much better shipping rates). 

Hawaii Shipping:
We are able to ship tortoises into Hawaii, but the state of Hawaii requires a permit from the Hawaii Department of Agriculture to do so. We need to have a copy of this permit to include in the box. We are also required to send a health certificate which for us is currently a $75 cost (to be paid by the customer if it's shipping to Hawaii) per 4 tortoises (more than 4 tortoises would require multiple health certificates). All Hawaii import shipments are required to ship directly to "Animal Quarantine" at the Honolulu airport where they inspect the tortoises prior to the customer picking them up. We can arrange for the shipments to be forwarded on to other islands also. Feel free to ask if you need any clarification on this.

We cannot ship animals outside of the United States.

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Upon receipt of your tortoise, you need to be home to put the tortoise into suitable conditions as soon as possible. Usually a shallow, warm water soaking will help wake them up a bit from the trip. It's not uncommon for tortoises to be a bit shy and not eat the first few days or week, and the sooner it is situated in a proper environment, the sooner things will be getting to normal. 

See our Terms and Conditions page for further information and our guarantee details.