Where do Petco stores get their reptiles?

[josh@outbackreps]

I could be "out of the know," but I'm not convinced that the price or supply of albino ball pythons will be at the levels appropriate for mass retail in 1-2 years...to sell at petco/petsmart, we're talking hundreds to many thousands of individual animals....if anyone else has anything concrete to share contrary to that, be all means go ahead...

I called one supplier to get some albino balls from him and he said his price had gone up, as he was down to 80 albino's. He produced around 400-600 albino balls last year. There are a few other big breeders in Florida sitting on 100 female albino's right now for Petco production. Its easier for them to sell a 100 lot of albino's all at once and get 1 check, and make 1 shipment and be done instead of selling 1 at a time to the public. Its also more cost effective to sell in large lots than to piece meal them out.

The good thing about it is it will bring a LOT more people into the hobby, and strengthen it even more.

[ru55ell14]

I hope they do start selling albinos for outrageous prices. Maybe it will cause people to do some research in an effort to find a cheaper alternative. Then more people would discover breeders, a good thing for the reptile industry.

[littleindiangirl]

Hey, I fell into this BP.net site because of Petco. My girl friend and I would go to Petco and look at the rat snakes and BP's and corns. I fell in love with BP's because of petco and have to give them credit for spurring me to buy a BP.

I did not buy the BP from them on a whim, I did the research and bought from a local breeder at a show. But still, they were the straw that broke this camels back

[spix14]

That's interesting. I know PetSmart is already selling pastel ball pythons. Only a matter of time before pieds start being sold at the large chains...

PetSmart sells pastels? That's strange, the one where I live doesn't sell snakes of any kind. They told me it was against company policy.

[Jay_Bunny]

I think its a store to store basis. I know that the Petsmart up the street from me doesn't carry snakes because the previous manager was terrified of them and would not allow the store to sell them. Now that they have a new manager, this one is allowing the store to sell snakes and they should be getting corn snakes in very soon. So who knows what other Petsmarts are doing.

I for one don't really like the big chain stores. I used a local petshop for many years before they closed down. That is where I first started getting into reptiles.

[Timbuktu]

I don't really care for big pet store's but everyone make them out to be so horrible but its the customers that bear the responsibility to know what they are doing.

the head of any huge business cant possibly be at every single location and know how it is being run.

anyone can go to any petco or petsmart and get a bad animal or a good animal most stores have both some have none, but it is up to the consumer to be able to pick. the person who can't tell a healthy animal from a sick one shouldn't have an animal in the first place no matter where they buy it. grocery stores carry fresh produce and not every head of lettuce is 100% fresh or perfect some are bad some are bad but we don't bash every grocery store and go directly to the farmer. As far as prices go they are not that expensive I haven been able to find too many balls cheaper than petco with shipping included.

these store's are not great no doubt they have their problems but they are also a main source of gaining new people into our and other hobbies. the more people who own and love animals of all kinds make it that much harder for the people who want to see our animals made illegal to succeed. Imagine if there were no petco's or petsmart's how many of us here would probably never have gotten into snakes? I know I wouldn't be here and I am sure a lot of others wouldn't either so they do serve a great purpose and I would be sad if they went away because so would our hobby.

[icygirl]

I don't really care for big pet store's but everyone make them out to be so horrible but its the customers that bear the responsibility to know what they are doing.

the head of any huge business cant possibly be at every single location and know how it is being run.

anyone can go to any petco or petsmart and get a bad animal or a good animal most stores have both some have none, but it is up to the consumer to be able to pick. the person who can't tell a healthy animal from a sick one shouldn't have an animal in the first place no matter where they buy it. grocery stores carry fresh produce and not every head of lettuce is 100% fresh or perfect some are bad some are bad but we don't bash every grocery store and go directly to the farmer. As far as prices go they are not that expensive I haven been able to find too many balls cheaper than petco with shipping included.

these store's are not great no doubt they have their problems but they are also a main source of gaining new people into our and other hobbies. the more people who own and love animals of all kinds make it that much harder for the people who want to see our animals made illegal to succeed. Imagine if there were no petco's or petsmart's how many of us here would probably never have gotten into snakes? I know I wouldn't be here and I am sure a lot of others wouldn't either so they do serve a great purpose and I would be sad if they went away because so would our hobby.

I think you make some very good points there.