F 1.0
The organism sets the calendar
Preserved material travels any working day and does not care when. Living material leaves Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday and never later, so that nothing is sitting in a depot over a weekend.
There are two shipping policies on this page because there are two genuinely different products in the catalogue, and treating them the same is how a culture arrives dead.
A preserved specimen has already been fixed. It can spend a long weekend in a truck in Nevada and be fine. It is heavy for its size, which is what makes it expensive to send, and if it is formalin-fixed it is a regulated shipment, which is what makes it more expensive again.
A culture is alive. Protozoa in a tube have a window measured in days, live invertebrates have a temperature range, and both of them lose it over a weekend. So living orders leave at the start of the week and land before it ends. That is a constraint the organism sets, and it is published here rather than discovered at checkout, because the thing it changes is which week you have to order in.
The two rules
- Preserved material
- Ships any working day, 24 to 48 hours after the order is released. Keeps once it arrives, so it can be ordered well ahead of the lesson.
- Living material
- Ships Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday only. Expedited service and insulated packing are not optional on a live order, which is why the shipping line is higher.
A living order sent on a Thursday risks a Saturday in a depot. We will not do it, even where a carrier promises otherwise, because the carrier is not the one explaining a dead culture to a class of thirty on Monday morning.
F 2.0 Working backwards
Start from the lab week, not from today
The useful question is not “how fast can you send it” but “what day does it have to leave to be in my prep room the day before the class”. This table does that arithmetic for living material.
| Class is on | Should land | Ships | Order released by |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monday | Thu or Fri prior | Wed prior | Mon prior |
| Tuesday | Mon | Mon | Wed prior |
| Wednesday | Tue | Mon or Tue | Thu prior |
| Thursday | Wed | Tue | Fri prior |
| Friday | Thu | Wed | Mon |
A planning table, not a guarantee. Transit time to your address, the organism, and the weather at both ends all move it. The ship date for your order is confirmed on the quotation, and if the week you want is not achievable we say so before you raise a purchase order rather than after.
F 3.0 Cost
What shipping costs, and why it is quoted separately
Folding shipping into a unit price is exactly how two catalogues stop being comparable, so it is itemised on every quotation instead.
| Line | Typical | What moves it |
|---|---|---|
| Preserved material | $18.00–$145.00 | Weight and destination. Preserved specimens are heavy for their size, and a case of cats is a freight problem rather than a parcel. |
| Living material | $42.00–$190.00 | Expedited service and insulated packing, neither of which is optional on a live order. |
| Hazardous-materials surcharge | $32.00 per consignment | Formalin-fixed material only. Choosing formalin-free avoids it entirely — see holding fluid. |
| Cold pack or heat pack | $6.50–$14.00 | Added by us when the forecast at either end calls for it. We add it rather than asking, and itemise it rather than absorbing it. |
Catalogue prices are USD per unit at the pack size stated, exclude shipping, handling, hazardous-materials surcharges and any applicable tax, and are catalogue ranges for planning a requisition rather than an offer or a quotation. Reviewed September 2026. Shipping is quoted against your actual destination and consignment weight on the written quotation. A figure for your order is confirmed on a written quotation. See the disclaimer.
F 4.0 On arrival
The first ten minutes after the box lands
Unpack against the packing list on arrival rather than on the morning of the lab. The packing list repeats all five fields — species, grade, size, holding fluid, pack — so a delivery can be checked by whoever signs for it, without the original quotation to hand.
For living material this is not optional. Open it the day it lands, check it is alive, and get it out of the shipping container and into whatever it is going to live in. The packing slip states how long that particular organism will hold and under what conditions.
If something is wrong: preserved material has a one-week window from receipt, living material should be reported the day it arrives. Both are set out in the payment and refunds policy.
Check on arrival
- Count the boxes against the consignment note before the driver leaves.
- Open living material first, whatever else is in the delivery.
- Check the packing list against what is in the box, field by field.
- Get living material out of its packing and into its container the same day.
- Store preserved material sealed, cool and dark; what ruins a stored specimen is drying out.
- Telephone us the same day if anything is wrong with a living order, within a week for anything else.
F 5.0 Where we ship
Where we ship
Throughout the United States. We are in Sacramento, so the west coast has the shortest transit and the widest choice of ship dates for living material; the further east an address is, the more the living-material calendar matters.
California, Oregon, Washington and Nevada are typically one to two days in transit, which means a living order can realistically be ordered for the same week.
The mountain and central states are typically two to three days, and the east coast three or more. For those addresses a living order wanted for a Tuesday is a Monday shipment arranged the week before, and the table in F 2.0 is the one to work from rather than optimism.
We do not currently ship internationally. Live organisms and preserved animal material cross borders under permit regimes that vary by country and by species, and we would rather say no than promise something that gets held at a border.
Transit, typical
| Region | Typical |
|---|---|
| California | 1 |
| Pacific north-west, Nevada, Arizona | 1–2 |
| Mountain and central states | 2–3 |
| East coast and the south-east | 3–4 |
| Alaska and Hawaii | by arrangement |
Typical working days for standard service, excluding the day of despatch. Living orders move on expedited service, which is faster and is priced accordingly.
Tell us the week, and we will work backwards
Give us the date of the class rather than the date you would like it sent. We will name the ship date, confirm it on the quotation, and say plainly if the week is not achievable.
Niles Biological, Inc. · 9298 Elder Creek Rd, Sacramento, CA 95829