Question about shipping - is this normal?

I decided to buy a gorgeous male Baird's rat snake from a breeder in Calgary while I'm in Ontario. It's a really nice snake and I'd love to have it but I'm feeling a little unsure.

I contacted the breeder and he said he has no problem shipping. I told him I would send the payment over for the snake but I wasn't sure how much to send for shipping and he told me to contact Reptile Express myself to get a quote. There's been a lot of back and forth with questions from the shipping place (exact size of snake, weight etc. so they can get the right packaging) and I have to keep going back and bugging the breeder for the info to pass on to the shipping people.

Wouldn't it have been so much easier for him to contact the shipping people?

I've only had a snake shipped to me once and the breeder took care of everything. She contacted Reptile Express and got the quote and then set up the shipping.

Is it normal for breeders to do this? I feel really iffy about this now =\

I suspect he has no clue has how to ship a snake which to me is a red flag.

Any breeder that ships animals know what they need to ship the snake (box size) and from there if they do not have a flat rate they can get a quote based on the package dimension.

This is the seller's job not the buyer.

I've only ever been asked when I want the animal shipped, and what address I want it shipped to. It's definitely not your job to contact the shipping company.

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Okay, that's what I thought. It doesn't really make sense for me to be talking to the shipping company. It just seems like he doesn't want to go through the trouble.

Darn, I really wanted this snake. It's weird though. He said he works with reptile express all the time for shipping, but then wouldn't he be best to talk to them? Lol

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Just tell him to do it. If he doesn't then just don't buy it.

Never heard of anything like that.
Sounds like he doesn't know what he is doing - in which case the animal probably won't be packaged properly.
I would not risk it.

You are in Canada, so shipping is a lot trickier than here in the U.S., but still, the shipper/seller should be the one getting you a quote. Their unwillingness to do that, or being incapable of doing that, is def a red flag.

Reptile Express in Canada is also not the same as Reptiles Express in the U.S. Sam's company Reptile Express in Canada has been around for a while, he could not have been thrilled to see another company glom his name, nearly to the letter, doing the same type of business in the same industry. That causes a lot of confusion.

I remember when we were still breeding as Pro Exotics, working hard to build a reputation and customer base, for 20 years, and a breeder down south thought it would be clever to become "A&B Pro Exotics", or whatever the two letter addition was they called it. Dirty pool mister, dirty pool.

Good information! Thank you so much!