New Mailing Standards For Live Birds

As Many of you know, shipping live birds can be a pain! With the new standards coming out, I am unsure whether this will make the transition easier or worse. The link for you to view the proposed plan is here

Now when reviewing this plan, the first paragraph that striked me was:

"If this proposal is adopted, 

the Postal Service will require mailers purchasing special handing to either 

present their mailpieces at retail, or to include an IMpb, embedded with the 

appropriate service type code applicable to special handling and the mail class 

used, on their mailpieces. The Postal Service also proposes that shipments of 

live animals that include special handling must be accepted at either a USPS 

retail unit, Business Mail Entry Unit (BMEU) or a Detached Mail Unit (DMU)."

Aren't we already paying a high fee to ship the live birds. The last shipment of live birds cost me $55.00 and that did not include insurance! I am wondering what the handling fee is and what the handlers are doing at this moment to our live shipments that are properly labeled as quoted:

a. Protection of Postal Service employees and the public against harm
from diseased animals.
b. Protection of the mail and the environment against damage to the
shipping container or the live animal and offensive odors or noise.
c. Protection of animals against death, taking into account the expected
time and temperature in transit (weather conditions), and packaging
sufficient to resist impact, heat and cold, and to prevent suffocation.

Aren't we labeling with our NPIP status and letting the transporter know about what is in the box? According to this proposal, we will be needing to pay a special handing fee with each live animal we ship and certain species will have different standards than others. For instance, Quail and game birds can only be shipped April to August unless we pay extra on top of the expensive postage as is.

I suggest everyone to contact the email provided in the proposal and give you thoughts, let them better understand what we do, because we want to help each other, not make matters worse.