Pet Store Breeders

Now I know how we all feel about pet stores, and their reptiles, but if you ever saw a fantastic deal on a decent snake would you just grab it up?

I work at petsmart, and we recieved a pastel instead of normal by mistake. She's is a beauty too, not to mention she's huge for her age. Ive never seen one come in looking so good, and she knocked back 8 fuzzies(40Grams) her first feeding day.

Managers decided it wasnt worth sending her because of the stress alone, much less the fact that we wouldnt have a ball python for another week or two.

They also didnt want to price is as a "Fancy" (Pastel) Ball python because priced at $249.99(As opposed to the normal price of $79.99 for a normal @_@), no one just starting the hobby would drop that kind of money on a snake, and nobody that knows what pastels are worth would pay 250 for it. So now there is this beautiful Pastel with great breeding potential in a cramped little cage at petsmart being sold on sale as a normal for $49.99.

I think im gonna grab her tomorrow after work :D

Have you guys found any awesome breeders in pet stores? gotten great deals on them?

I've seen people drop $250 easily for the perfect pastel female. But those are for the best examples of the morph.

Anyway, are you 100% sure she is female and healthy? Because if it is a female, $50 is a great deal! I would go for it.
However, if it is a male, its not that much of a discount.

I personally haven't seen any good deals in petstores or reptile specialty stores. But I understand that their high prices are to support their business as well.

For 50 bucks, I'd snatch it.

Why are you guys feeding BP's pinkies? BP's should be on at least hoppers from the day they hatch

I got my first BP (a normal) from petsmart, I really like her but when I got her she was very underweight and dehydrated.

I worked in a Petsmart and I can tell you half the time, those ball pythons that come in are so stressed out from being shipped around and put on display, I actually found it hard to get them to even eat fuzzies. We had to special order in some hoppers and the ball pythons took forever to take them. In all honesty, ball pythons usually are not in the store long enough (note I said usually) for the store to feed them the more expensive hopper mouse. Feeding them fuzzies is like putting them on a maintenence feeding schedule until they are sold. Petsmart isn't looking to grow these snakes, but sell them. Feed them enough to keep them healthy and sell them.

Now if you buy a malnourished and dehydrated snake from a Petsmart then the employees were not doing their job. I have ball pythons that hatched out small (and I can tell you half the time, the ball pythons you see in Petsmart came in as really tiny hatchlings, under 60g most of the time. Smallest I saw was 39g!) and even feeding them fuzzies once every 4 days (which is recommended according to Petsmart policy) was making them gain weight. I only recently began feeding those same ball pythons hoppers when they hit 60g.


Now to the OP. If the snake is indeed a female and you consider it a good example of a pastel then I would get her. But don't just get her because "Oh look she's a pastel." You don't want to add crappy genes to your collection just because she was cheap. But if she looks good, go for it.

Honestly, I miss working in a pet store. *sigh*

Well, It was even better than I thought. With my 30% discount I got my pastel girl for a mere 35 Dollars!!!!

To be honest, no im not 100% positive she's female. Im not an expert at popping, but I know how to do it. Ive only ever popped one male, and he was a banded california kingsnake. Im not sure if im doing it wrong or ive had the weird luck to have 8 females in a row XDD. Once I learn to probe ill have a far more accurate read. But im about 80% sure that she is in fact a she.

Beleive it or not, they do let me store use boxes of small and medium mice for the snakes that should be on larger meals. Like someone said earlier, they rarely get that large before theyre sold though. This pastel however is about the same size as my 250 gram normal alleged female. Just a little bit shorter. I measured as best as I could and she appears to be about 1'7" im guessing a little over 250 grams because she is much fattier than my normal who is all muscle.

I actually attempted to feed her medium mice right off the bat, but she seemed intimidated so I decided to try some smaller prey and she went right for it, hense the fuzzies. Im sure she'll graduate soon.

As far as her looks go? I wouldnt say shes the best pastel ive ever seen, but shes pretty enough that I wanted her for her. Breeding plans aside, and she happens to fit the bill for my future plans at an incredibly affordable cost, so yeah I hid her in the back room all day in the feeding enclosure until i got off haha. IM happy with her. Ill try and get some pics up soon. Not sure if I can plug my camera into my laptop or not. I have yet to try.

Forget why it was fed pinks. Why on earth would you feed it 8 of anything? Hatchling balls can go right on rat pinks as hatchlings.

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Originally Posted by snake lab

Forget why it was fed pinks. Why on earth would you feed it 8 of anything? Hatchling balls can go right on rat pinks as hatchlings.

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x2

Congrats on the pick up, need some pics though, I wanna see what your callin a pastel...lol:D

Thats a pretty good deal but i would get her switched to rat fuzzies asap. Feeding 8 of anything is way too much imo. The amount of energy she burned constricting and eating each one probably balanced out with the energy she gained from it lol jk. But in all seriousness i wouldnt reccomend doing that again.
Please post some pics, i cant imagine the pastels coming into petco are that good looking but for $50 its a good deal either way.