Where do Petco stores get their reptiles?

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If that's the case then I can't say much for his animals.

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If that's the case then he's probably the type that cares more about the dollar than the animal. Think about the amount of care that would have to go in to keeping track of that many animals. Imagine what just the bare minimum must be, then imagine what it would be like trying to keep them all in tip top shape. It's not humanly possible. No one would deal with animals in those quantities unless they're more interested in making a buck than producing quality animals. So in all honesty, I doubt he even cares what you have to say for his animals. Which is a damn shame.

I can't believe they're going to be carrying albinos now. I guess it makes sense that they would want to have something a little more exciting than normals available. I doubt they'll carry anything more exotic than that, though. I worked at Petsmart for 2 years then got the heck outta there, but it was long enough to know how they function.

I wonder what price point they expect to sell the albinos at. I can't see petco or petsmart selling a snake for more than $199.99.......

I know these for sure: Segrest Farms, Sandfire, Calzoo. I'm sure the others that people listed are correct as well.

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Originally Posted by jnjreptiles

In the next year or 2 albino balls will be in Petco, that is already set in stone, upc code and everything already done, now just a little more production #'s.

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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...

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Originally Posted by elevatethis

I wonder what price point they expect to sell the albinos at. I can't see petco or petsmart selling a snake for more than $199.99.......

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Oh I sure as heck can, considering that they sell ALL their reptiles at prices at least double what they are worth. My 'favorites' are a Juvie BlueTongue Skink for $200 and a single Anole for $5 or $6. SIGH. They are ONLY interested in making the buck...

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Originally Posted by Argentra

Oh I sure as heck can, considering that they sell ALL their reptiles at prices at least double what they are worth. My 'favorites' are a Juvie BlueTongue Skink for $200 and a single Anole for $5 or $6. SIGH. They are ONLY interested in making the buck...

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I realize that they overprice the reptiles that they do have, but you've got to consider that generally speaking, people have a certain cap on what they'd spend on a pet regardless of what its actually worth.

While people may spend hundreds if not thousands on a dog, snakes aren't viewed by the type of people the shop at petsmart/petco as the type of animal to spend that kind of money on. I'd guess that 75% or more of the people going in there are spending money on their dogs.

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...

Petco right now has about 900 stores.

They buy from major importers and a few large breeders as has been mentioned but those importers and breeders also fill out their orders with animals from small time breeders.

I can't recall the name of the cricket company that owns the iguana farms in costa rica, but they import thousands of baby iguanas every year. The guy also has a partner who produces thousands of beardies and leopard geckos too. He used to own reptileforums.com, howard something or other.

It would only take about 400-500 albino female balls to produce 1800-2000 babies a year @ 5 babies per female. Very doable for some breeders.

If you can sell 2000 babies at 150.00 each, that's 30,000.00.

I'm sure someone out there is willing to do that.

I think the number of ready breeder females a person would need to be way more than that.

If I'm not mistaken, a lot of breeders out there are lucky if they get 75% of their females to produce every year.

So make it 600 breeder sized homozygous albino females ready to go. I think that the number of 3+ year old albino females even in existence might be only 3-4x that, much less have those kind of numbers present in one person's operation.

I'm not saying that it will never happen, just 1-2 years like JnJ said, I'm skeptical about that...but who knows...maybe someone out there has been buying up females for 10 years and is poised and ready to go as soon as the market is ready for them....

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Originally Posted by wilomn

Petco right now has about 900 stores.


I can't recall the name of the cricket company that owns the iguana farms in costa rica, but they import thousands of baby iguanas every year. The guy also has a partner who produces thousands of beardies and leopard geckos too. He used to own reptileforums.com, howard something or other.

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I believe you are thinking of Flukers Farms.
They have the Iguana farms, and the beardies they sold used to come with a blue or green? dot on the base of the tail, as a way of marking the ones from that particular breeders production. I think he was "farming" them in Florida outside in large pens.

As far as price, they will be high priced on the albino balls, but they look at it as, if someone is going to pay $2k for a bird why not a "pretty" snake?

It's easy for Petco to "overprice" ball pythons. Anyone into herps knows not to go there for them. They would seek out a breeder. People that are not into herps don't know about breeders and/or how to contact them. Petco sells to the average person who, as we all know, generally is very uninformed about reptiles. I would buy a normal from Petco for $75 if I didn't know I could get a much healthier one for way cheaper.