I agree with some points by jz365 but I disagree on other points. For example, the connections and bias aspects I agree with. The rest I disagree. Instead of shipping the animals, you would have some near the particular lab. With the technology of this day and age, you don’t have to fly out there or hear it from the PI, all you have to do is have conference video calls with all members to have weekly updates. If you want to see the lab itself, just do a virtual walk-through (video call). One addition I’ll make is that the connections can be assumed to be a friendship, and if something sours and your contract is not ironclad, you may have issues with finishing the experiment properly or just having a well run experiment done. Another issue may be university ethics issues, which will be brought up and may stop the entire collaboration. Assuming you’re not in another university, there may be industry/academia related issues as well.