Hare -Today & Shipping

Last night I ordered from Hare-Today. When it was check out time I realized that 3 day shipping was over $70 so to save some money I chose 4-day ground delivery. Now I am worrying that I made a mistake. Have any of you ever used the 4 day delivery?

On the site Tracy says that with 4 day the items will arrive somewhat thawed but would be safe to either make and freeze or put in the fridge and use.

 I assume that because the option of 4 day was available to me the meat should be fine right?

It will ship tomorrow and I am a little nervous.

 I plan on making it all up and freezing the day it arrives.

Opinions?

I live in Louisiana so the ground shipping to me is 2 days so that is what I have always done and everything was always frozen solid.

How many pounds did you order? The more food you have in the box, the longer it will stay frozen.

To make you feel better though, this is a Q & A from the Hare Today website:

Q: My food arrived thawed?

A: I have done extensive testing and have packed boxes with frozen food, dry ice and freeze packs and left the box sit in 85 degrees for 4 days. After 4 days I tested the internal meat temperature and it was at 40 degrees which is what your refrigerator is set on.
The meat although thawed is still fine to feed. Put back in freezer or put in refrigerator and use with in 2-3 days. You may also portion into smaller serving sizes first and then refreeze.  

Thanks Abby- I did read that on the HT site. I am not sure why but, last night I started worrying about it. I ordered 39 lbs.I am just going to be ready to mix it all up when it comes. I hope it really is okay because the cost of 3 day shipping is a killer and I just can't stomach spending $70 shipping.

I bought a few different things this time and am looking forward to getting the food. Maybe I should worry less about shipping time and more about the fact that I am so excited about cat food arriving!

My HT order arrived today. It we out on four day ground on Monday.It has arrived ( with the exception of one chub) totally frozen. I am so impressed as this is almost 3000 miles. On the down side, I have everything ready to spend the evening putting the food together but it is to frozen to do so.

 If any of you live a great distance from HT don't worry that you should  pay for the much more expensive two or three day air shipping, the 4 day ground saves lots of money and the food arrives frozen. I did place a big order so a tightly packed box probably helped .

Hi Maureen, I didn't see you'd already ordered from Hare Today - congrats and enjoy!  It's wonderful stuff.

It being the dead of winter probably helped keep your food frozen.  It might be more of a problem in the summer.  There must be places closer to the West Coast...what about "wholefoods4pets"?

Sophie- Wholefoods4pets only offers Rabbit. I was thinking about ordering from them but, I want a lot of other proteins. In order for HT to cost efficient I need to order in bulk, so I get my rabbit from them too.

You are right about why the order was still frozen. I keep forgetting it is winter. It was in the 70's here today.

There really is no one from the west coast to order from. I did join a co-op here but I have never used them. I was going to get a grinder but have decided against it. For now I will go with HT and some commercial.

 I wish I could afford to buy land here. There is a big gap on the West Coast waiting to be filled by someone offering raw food.

Rad Cat is local but as far as I know that is it.

Maureen, a friend I trust in CA just told me about Primal's raw meat cat food, which she uses with great success with her cat.  (You doubtless recall from the "Opinions on Feline's Pride?" thread that I'm looking for another vendor, myself, because FP left me in the lurch - and thank you for the suggestion you made there!)  Primal is apparently distributed in pet stores nationally (I haven't seen it where I live, but where I live is pretty remote) but is based in San Francisco.  If you're looking for something made closer to home you might check it out:

http://www.primalpetfoods.com/company/about

Gerry

I started by feeding Primal Grinds. The cats liked it fine but if you consider that the least expensive chub is $8.99 for 2 lbs it gets expensive. I still buy a chub once in awhile if I am running low. Primal grinds don't have the really good meat they use mainly necks and backs.I always have Primal Pheasant nuggets around though. One of my cats has FIV so I don't feed him anything that isn't HPP or that I haven't cooked for a few minutes to make sure bacteria is killed.

 On the whole Primal is good. I like having Stella and Chewy's freeze dried ( duck) around but suddenly my store can't get them.

I really love HT and will stick with them for most of what I feed.The shipping price is really reasonable if you have to buy a lot of food so it works out.

 Thanks for posting this- that post on Felines Pride was a good heads up. They charge far to much money for me to deal with that kind of customer service.

 
My HT order arrived today. It we out on four day ground on Monday.It has arrived ( with the exception of one chub) totally frozen. I am so impressed as this is almost 3000 miles. On the down side, I have everything ready to spend the evening putting the food together but it is to frozen to do so.

 If any of you live a great distance from HT don't worry that you should  pay for the much more expensive two or three day air shipping, the 4 day ground saves lots of money and the food arrives frozen. I did place a big order so a tightly packed box probably helped .

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Just wanted to say thank you for posting this! I was on the fence regarding 3 or 4 day shipping and decided to take the chance and do 4 day to Seattle. I ordered 52lbs of product so it should still be frozen upon arrival.

Monkeymom- I haven't been here in a couple weeks so just saw your post. Did your shipment arrive frozen? I bet it did.The first time I ordered from HT I used 2 day air and it wasn't as frozen as my last 2 orders by 4 day ground. It is about time for me to order again. We have had a couple of days in the 80's lately and I really should do a big order because Tracy won't do ground shipping if your temps are to high,

I live in AZ and ordered a small batch from HT (only the min in mostly 1lbs chubs to see what my cats would like) I paid for 2 day shipping and extra ice packs and some of mine was not frozen. I stuck a thermometer in them to make sure they were still at a cold enough temp to re-freeze and they were. But I wouldn't suggest that anyone who orders in small amounts do anything less than 2 day shipping and buy the extra packs! 

missmimz said:

 
I live in AZ and ordered a small batch from HT (only the min in mostly 1lbs chubs to see what my cats would like) I paid for 2 day shipping and extra ice packs and some of mine was not frozen. I stuck a thermometer in them to make sure they were still at a cold enough temp to re-freeze and they were. But I wouldn't suggest that anyone who orders in small amounts do anything less than 2 day shipping and buy the extra packs! 

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Good to know. I am considering HT in the future. Need to get comfortable with supplementing, first, and need to buy another freezer. I was hoping to do a small batch for the same reason, but now that the weather seems to have turned permanently warm for the year, maybe I need to put this off until next winter when it might dip below 70 degrees.