What some people do for a few bucks...

I have called the humane society. I have not been able to find a reptile society in my area, or even a herp society.

Yeah, looks better than our corner store too. Our Petco had 4 bps in the same small enclosure, all with shed problems and lights on them all the time and only one hide that they all kept trying to get into... which was still an improvement on the ball pythons at the corner store here. That one had a larger cage and 2 bps instead of 4, but they were in much worse shape. Not to mention no hides and a bone dry waterbowl full of poop. They looked like they weren't much longer for this world, poor things. Ugh. I saw the skinniest blue tongued skink I've ever seen in my life in there too... And the mammals & fish aren't a whole lot better off. But Phoenix is kind of crap in animal abuse enforcement. :upset:

The lady said most of their reptiles were "rescues" too. Animals people just dropped off with them for one reason or another, but they don't accept Burmese anymore because nobody buys them and they just grow and grow. Lucky Burmese, huh? I believe they were charging around $150 for the sick young bps.

More and more I'm thinking the whole petstore industry needs to be completely revamped. They should be supply and information centers, who can get you in touch with breeders/rescue shelters instead of selling animals themselves. Much as I love browsing and getting to see all the cute critters... I think it would be better for the animals and make for more educated owners.

Sorry did someone say Petco? Don't get me wrong it's one of the nicest large chain pet stores but they had all their Bp's in the same enclosure. OOhh it was about 5.

what i love about the pet store near me... (and i used to work there) is they set up the viv exactly how the critter will need it. that way, when a customer comes in they say... see all of this equiment, this is what you need for your snake/dragons/gecko/firebelly toad etc. this is the minimum... you cannot get less than this for them to thrive!

right beside the reptile stock is all the stock to buy (lamps etc) so people can look, right then and there and see what they need for set up. although they DO promote using tanks for viv's (as they don't sell rubbermaids) that's the only misinformation that i am aware of that they give. the two 'reptile guys' both have a nice sized stock at home... and most of the 'addicts' come to this store to buy their feed and often supply the store as well! (as they breed)

they won't buy critters from just anyone though... it has to be someone they've gotten to know, trust and they go to their house and check out their set up as well.

i don't know why pet stores don't all do it this way... that way, they get the complete sale! cause when i worked there last year... we sold a lot of critters and sent each one home with a complete set up... and in turn, the boss gave us our paycheques LOL

a win win situation if you ask me. ;)

The pet store I go to at least keeps everything seperate in an appropriately sized tank. But sometimes they get sloppy with their shedding snakes. I know the owners and they give me good discounts, so I just tell them their BP has some shed left and they take care of it.

But the pet store I got Hades from was the biggest scumbag craphole I've ever seen. There are always 5+ BPs in one small 10 gallon. They kept an albino burm in a 20 gallon. It's horrible. I don't even want to think about it. Lucky they are far away from here.

As for the Petco around me, they are pretty good with their reptiles. They have nice enclosures for them, but I did see one BP with a bad shed and once again told someone about it. Not sure if they did anything, but it was worth a shot.

Wow, those guys look smushed in those tiny enclousures.

However the animals themselves dont look all that bad.

The pet shop we have is a total disgrace, its just horrible the way some of the animals look.

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Originally Posted by wolfy-hound

Call the local animal welfare league or humane society, get the local reptile club to help maybe. Try to help.

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the herp store i'm referring to IS the local herp club. they run it, host it, etc. :hmm: i reported another store that used to be here that was WAY worse than this one but it didn't do any good. they finally went out of business after several years, only because of money issues and not because of anything the humane society did. the humane society knew they were horrid and guessed who i was reporting before i even told them. i don't know what the laws here are, but evidentally they aren't good enough that they could do anything.

Sometimes it seems as if the humane society is only ever really concerned with creatures with fur. Scales, and they just look the other way...:worry: