aggressive bp at petco

i just got back from petco about a hour ago to get some snake bedding. while i was there i ofcourse checked out the reptile section. in the reptile section they have about 5-7 bp's in the same cage. the cage is about a 50 gallon. when i was checking out the bp's one of them s'ed up his neck and struck at me. i waited a little more and he did it like 7 more times. i found this odd because all his siblings were just in the hides or curled up in a corner sleeping, it was just this one bp that was aggressive.

why do you think he was aggressive like that? could it be because he was in the same cage as all the other bp's, stressed, or because he was hungry or something? my female has only struck at me when either she was feeding, had just fed, or when i first got her and she was stressed out. my male has never struck at me.

You stayed in a position where you knew it would strike at you 7 times? Did it hurt itself?

no i was looking at the other bp's and animals while it was striking, and i hope it didnt hurt itself. it didnt look like it did

Of course the poor little things are stressed!! First they are housed together, usually with temps being off and no where close to what they should be, and then to top it off usually no hides so customers can SEE them. Some bps just express their stress differently. Of course that bp could just have an attitude on top of all that too.

And let's not forget about humidity, i can virtually guarentee that the humidity is a mess because they never measure that either! Did anyone notice that when you are in pet stores, not only do the animals live in crappy conditions but there is never any devices measuring temps & humidity? One would think that these factors would be enough to evoke some type of response from the cops or something but no, not in good old New York State where all they care about are puppies & kitties!

lol. you know what i actually looked at the temp and humidity in there cages and heres what they read for:
green iguana- temp 80 degrees humidity 30 percent
ball pythons-temp 82 humidity 30 percent

i cant remember what the ones were for the other animals

i feel soo sad about petco on a regular basis. my first rescue which, i just brought home eight days ago is from petco. he was in terrible shape with a broke neck when he was rescued. yesterday i went to petco to get some moss and there was a ball up for adoption. they had put his tank with no heat or good hides on a table next to a rat that was up for adoption!!! both animals were freaking out. the poor rat was running back and forth huffing and puffing. the snake was a mess and actually in shed with out a moist place. ugh!! so guess what i rescued another ball. when we picked him up they told me he may have mites because they are having a problem with mites. imagine bringing that home unbeknownst and infecting all of your herps. so i have two balls now to rehabilitate. they are going to be wonderful to have. i can not take any more, but i know there are hundreds out there. it really pisses me off. a friend just told me about a shop that was selling red sliders that were stuck in a tank with other turtles that had died and were decomposing!!! i am going to check them out and see if our herp society can do outreach with them to raise the condition of living at least. there is got to be something that can be done for these poor creatures.:(

Here's a link to laws regarding pet store standards I found recently. Unfortunately in many states it seems that only dogs and cats are covered by laws and standards of care and all the other poor creatures in the pet store are not.

http://www.api4animals.org/1071.htm

I'm not sure how perfectly up to date this is though.


~~Jo~~

sorry i guys i work at a petco. my petco is a brand new building and i work with responsible and caring workers. what i did notice though is that the enclosures for the reptiles are not suitable for long term keeping, but our petco works hard to keep the humidity and temps correct with all the herps. now, there is another petco in town and i went there to deliver an item. i looked at there enclosures and was very disgusted. poop everywhere, humidity and temp not regulated, very overcrowded, and just plain neglected. my team leader makes sure the enclosures are clean and correct in everyway possible. our temps are 86 degrees and our humidity reads 50 at all times. our enclosures are not suitable for long term care at all. but, from my experience, our animals have a good temporary home before they are sold to owners. in fact, we are always running out of our stock because people come to our petco because the other petco is dirty.

also one other thing, the bp's we get are captive hatched which means the eggs were collected from wild mothers and incubated and hatced. i do not like the way they do this by far and i think that this adds to the aggressiveness that was mentioned. that is why i work hard to keep my herps in good shape. i am not trying to stick up for petco because i disagree with many things, and most of the time, i suggest going with a breeder. but i believe that our store works hard to give the best care possible to keep the animals healthy before they are sold. sorry guys for ranting on about my opinion. just my .02 cents

Kudos to you & your petco bigballin! You are definately the acception rather than the rule!