I have had great success shipping birds out of the Cincinnati airport Air Mail Facility (AMF.) I think it\'s best to try to ship out of an airport, that way the birds are put on a plane soonest.
I live about an hour south of the airport, and usually ship on Mondays, Tuesdays, or Wednesdays. That way if the birds should take two days to get to their destinations they won\'t be traveling on a weekend (although all have gone one day so far.)
So the Friday before I call the post office (AMF) and make sure that the destination to which I want to ship is ok (sometimes certain zip codes are restricted, but I\'ve never had one in the past two years.)
I use the Petports too (here\'s the link:
http://www.fortune3.com/Shop@petports/ ) and like them a lot. I buy them by the case, cheaper that way. The night before I ship I put the bird(s) I\'m shipping in a cage in the garage (so I don\'t have to catch it in the early ayem in my clean clothes), assemble the box, put shavings in the bottom, and attach a large label to the front with the recipient\'s address and phone number.
The next morning I cut an apple in half, pop it into the box, pop the bird(s) in, seal them up, and off we go. I try to arrive at the airport by about 8:30 or so, in time to make the morning flights. I sent two boxes of Dutch Bantams out just this morning in fact, with bantams I find I can get a trio of started birds in the standard sized box, and two boxes can be taped together to ship as one unit.
Ron can attest that they make the trip fine, (I\'ve sent him two shipments of birds in the last year.)
I think that as long as you call ahead and ship out of an airport, you should be fine.