# Feeders > Breeding Mice >  Nothing like a verbal assault from Petsmart....

## SNIKTTIME

Needed some bedding for my mice so I went to Petsmart.  While I was there I decided to add 2 female mice to my order to replace 2 of my older ones at home. Big mistake, I had to go through 3 employees, one of them was a manager to make the purchase. All 3 grilled me on how "I hope you aren't feeding these to a snake". Makes no sense to me how they can say it is company policy to not use small animals from their stores for feeders when they sell snakes, and sponsor reptile forums. For the heck of it I asked how they feed their snakes and they all said frozen mice. I asked how do you get them and with an attitude was told they come that way. Then I asked if they were born frozen and they got pissed. 

I just think that the biggest problem I saw was that they can charge $6.99 for a mouse, and tell me that it must be used as a pet. Even the register girl wanted to know what I was going to name them... 

For the record all of my breeders are kept in lab containers with food,water,treats a hide and a wheel which is better than most of their stores keep them.

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## Bellabob

I would have been pissed. Not everyone has a love for rats. Why would they, they're the ones that caused bubonic plauge and black death that wiped out half the european population.

I feed my BP live, the rest frozen. But I feel zero sadness while feeding it to her.

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## LOSTCOAST_BALLZ

hahaha, I have gone through the same thing. I honestly think its just to gvie them a reason to charge 7 dollars for a mouse that u could find for 1.99 as a feeder. "they come that way" lmao smh

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## mainbutter

> I would have been pissed. Not everyone has a love for rats. Why would they, they're the ones that caused bubonic plauge and black death that wiped out half the european population.
> 
> I feed my BP live, the rest frozen. But I feel zero sadness while feeding it to her.


Fleas carry the plague, not rodents.  Rodents, humans, and other mammals all can carry fleas.

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Drakko (03-14-2011),_shelliebear_ (11-04-2010)

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## bsash

Sorry to hear about your experience, your reply to the worker "Are they born frozen?" gave me a good laugh for the day. That is supposed to be all Petsmart policies though, they don't sell any of them as feeder rodents knowingly. Actually, if you can believe it, my local Petsmart has a policy where if you buy mice or rats three weeks in a row, they will ban you from buying them.

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## RichsBallPythons

thats why you ask who their supplier is and buy direct from the source and pay $.50 each

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## cinderbird

> Fleas carry the plague, not rodents.  Rodents, humans, and other mammals all can carry fleas.





> I would have been pissed. Not everyone has a love for rats. Why would they, they're the ones that caused bubonic plauge and black death that wiped out half the european population.
> 
> I feed my BP live, the rest frozen. But I feel zero sadness while feeding it to her.


The black rat was the rat that was the plague carrier, the brown rat (the rat we have as pets and feeders) out competed the black rat.

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## SNIKTTIME

> thats why you ask who their supplier is and buy direct from the source and pay $.50 each


LOL that would be ideal, but when I only need a couple to freshen my groups up I don't mind paying extra. Just a funny experience. There is a store maybe 20 miles away that sells mice as feeders, and that Petsmart knew about it and spoke of them like it was a slaughterhouse  :Very Happy:   I am all for animal rights, but they sell feeder fish and feeder insects with no hard feelings. I just don't like when people pick and choose to pay attention to something. 

And rats and ground squirrels still carry oriental rat fleas which carry plague mostly in California, glad there aren't too many out here. 

Glad to see I am not going crazy, thanks guys and gals  :Wink:

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## JLC

> Fleas carry the plague, not rodents.  Rodents, humans, and other mammals all can carry fleas.


No fleas on THIS human!!  :Taz: 

 :Razz:

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_Christine_ (11-02-2010)

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## wolfy-hound

Any store has the right to sell or not sell feeders.

That said, the store employees talking about the feeders coming frozen so it's not the same as selling animals for food is a bit ridiculous.  I love your response.

I personally buy elsewhere, since I wouldn't want someone telling I can't sell rutabegas, because they don't believe in selling rutabegas.  So who am I to insist that they sell live feeder rodents? They DO offer frozen feeders(at least the stores around here do), so it's not as if they don't offer any food for the reptiles that require rodent prey.

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## SNIKTTIME

> That's what I'm saying. YOU did that for your store. Not upper management. They were very lucky to hire someone like you, who is dedicated to the animals and wants to give them the best home possible. If they would give me a job, I'd do the same thing. The problem is they don't look at my application and say "hey this girl has a lot of experience with reptiles, we should hire her because it would benefit our animals." They look at and say "oh she doesn't have enough work experience to be beneficial to our store." Do you see were the problem lies? Sure, YOUR store cares about its animals, but it took you to come in and do that FOR them. Most stores are not so lucky.


x2   combine that with under staffed crews and you get poor customer service and or poor looking stores. Kudos to those of you who take pride in what you do. It seems like a lost art hence the 10%+ unemployment rate.

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## Jay_Bunny

Management isn't educated either. They are there to make sure the store runs smoothly. Trust me, my pet care manager runs himself ragged sometimes because he has SO much to do. The way I see it, yes there are horrible stores out there. But all it takes is the effort of the employees to turn the store around. Look what my store did. Why can't that happen in all of the stores? You just have to let the stores know how you feel. Simply not shopping there is not going to solve the problem. They need to HEAR it from you. Go to management and tell them what you'd like to see in the store. They will listen. Every morning we have a meeting about how people are rating our store in the surveys. If you let management know about your concerns enough, eventually it will make its way higher. 

Get a petition going and submit it to Petsmart. I would LOVE to get a petition going about Petsmarts policy on selling goldfish for bowls. Nothing will change if you are silent. It is a privately owned company yes, but they DO care what you think about their store and how they do business.

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## jasbus

Jay_Bunny, I officially apologize.
You do indeed sound like a knowledgable(sp) and honest guy.  
My open statement on box stores will remain however.  Both of the chains need more people like you working them.
In my experience, both with the chains, and even with my own store, people just don't care.  It's just a job.  Most have the start of loving animals and want to work at a pet store.  It doesn't take long for the slacking to start.  

Anyway, I apologize.

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