Pet Store Pythons - need to vent

I bought 2 of my leos from petco and petsmart, the oldest and the youngest, and one is a morph that would go for 75 or more from a breeder, she was 20. The petsmart she was in took very good care of the reptiles, thet had 1+ hide in each cage( the leos had 3) and the vegitarians always had salads in their cages, same with the petco. The lady at the petco actually owened her own reptiles and let me hold all of the snakes they had. Anyway, the geckos from the stores are doing just as well as the one from the breeder. Not saying all pet stores are good, don't get me started on petland.

There are goods and bads about everything. There are good and bad Petcos/Petsmarts. There are good and bad breeders/mom & pop stores.

Personally, I have had more bad experiences with breeders than chain stores so far.

My first BP came from a breeder and that breeder is great! Very knowledgeable, kind, and told me to contact him about any questions or concerns that came up. The snake he bred was gorgeous and my best eater.
My second BP came from a different breeder and while the snake was in quarantine, I noticed mites. I contacted the breeder and he outright denied it. The mites certainly didn't come from my snake as this new snake was completely separated. Plus my other snake was PAM treated upon arrival. I tried to keep in contact, but the breeder eventually just ignored me. The breeder of my first snake helped me though this problem. Also, this snake is a choosy eater. Sometimes he eats. Sometimes he doesn't.
My third and fourth BPs are from a petstore. Both are fine and eat well.
My last BP I got from a reputable breeder. She refuses to eat even in the perfect conditions. I've had to assist feed her a number of times. Not my idea of picture perfect snake from a breeder.

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I've seen a local mom and pop store that had a petco like set up, but with a hide.
They have good looking balls. But they also have bad looking balls.
Seems like the one's who thrive are the 'dominant' ones in the tank... The bad looking balls are just stretched out in the open looking uncomfortably skinny.

I've also seen petco/petsmart balls looking great.

And I agree with everything Jessica L has said in this thread.

Please don't generalize about chain stores.
There are always going to be good and bad ones. The same goes for breeders and local stores.
My area has multiple petco/petsmarts. 7/10 are rather decent and take care of their animals. The animals may not be in the ideal conditions we have for our snakes, but it's not bad. 3 out of those 10 store should just close down. I've seen mice eating dead tank mates, balding birds w/ horrible feathers, and emaciated snakes w/ bad shed.

Like many others have said, I believe its down to management and employees. Some people care, others don't. A store w/ good caring employees will have healthy animals.

This can be applied to EVERYTHING....

Well the petsmart I go to isn't bad. It's really about who is taking care of them. I actually knew the guy who worked there and he was actually a small scale breeder. So with his experience the animals were all cared for properly, but then he left and it all went to hell. It's like I said the workers are responsible and if they are experienced they can do it.


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I am here: http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=33.223572,-96.899927

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Originally Posted by deathfromabove

My first bp came from petco it was 2 summers ago. I didn't know anything about snakes, all I knew was that i wanted one. They had them half off at the time it was 40 bucks for a bp, I basically jumped on it. I had him for about a month and literally nothing went right, he never ate, well he ate one time the second week I had him and he re-gurged it 2 hours later, he never ate again, and he died 3 weeks later. My temps were correct i made sure of that. There was no reason for him to die.

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.......but you admitted here that the temps WERE an issue in the beginning:

http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showt...69#post1457069

.....and here:

http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showt...13#post1451413

....and here:

http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showt...79#post1457279

Now I'll be the first one to admit that I don't have any idea whether Petco sold you a sick snake or not.

But if I take you at your word, temps were an issue....and if temps were an issue, there were plenty of reasons for him to die and none of them had anything to do with Petco.

I really didn't want to get involved with this thread either, but I just wanted to point out that everyone who supports the few "good" chain pet stores, you're supporting all the really crappy ones too, since they are corporate the money all goes to the same place for the most part :rolleyes: Correct me if I'm wrong, I'm no business major.

Depends on the store..One of my favorite ones is local only and all the stores are good.

Technically you are supporting the corporation, BUT the sales numbers are counted for each store. So when corporate looks at the numbers, they can see "This store is doing lousy, replace some management, check for complaints, find out why.." and when they see good numbers(high sales, low mortality in live animals) they can support the store with promotions and find out what is working well there, and not working at the lousy stores.

So even if it's a corporate store, there's a lot of individuality to each store and even down to each section. The corporate folks can see "Birds have made a ton of sales" and "Reptiles has lost half it's inventory" and look into that, look into praises and complaints.

So if you want stores to improve, make your voice heard. And make sure you sound like a reasonable intelligent pet owner, not a psycho insisting that each 'scale-baby' needs a satin lined hide with evian waterfalls. Make sure you call on good stores in addition to bad.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by wolfy-hound

Technically you are supporting the corporation, BUT the sales numbers are counted for each store. So when corporate looks at the numbers, they can see "This store is doing lousy, replace some management, check for complaints, find out why.." and when they see good numbers(high sales, low mortality in live animals) they can support the store with promotions and find out what is working well there, and not working at the lousy stores.

So even if it's a corporate store, there's a lot of individuality to each store and even down to each section. The corporate folks can see "Birds have made a ton of sales" and "Reptiles has lost half it's inventory" and look into that, look into praises and complaints.

So if you want stores to improve, make your voice heard. And make sure you sound like a reasonable intelligent pet owner, not a psycho insisting that each 'scale-baby' needs a satin lined hide with evian waterfalls. Make sure you call on good stores in addition to bad.

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Let's not forget a portion of every purchase at Petco goes to H$U$ to further the legislation to take your reptiles away from you.

Good reason to boycott Petco entirely.

Too bad its the only place I can find frozen mice/rats of assorted sizes.

I can agree that the employees are incredibly uneducated when it comes to reptiles. You really have to go above and beyond, and learn about them yourself because you will never be taught about them. I already knew a lot about reptiles when I started and have spread that knowledge to the other employees. Now I can proudly say that my store now has 3 beautiful and healthy ball pythons all of which are eating, 3 healthy and eating corn snakes, a milk snake with an average appetitie but takes meals almost every week, and an adult kingsnake who has been a regular eater even before I got there. you'll never catch a single one with a bad shed either. Previous to my hiring, they had failed to get a ball python to take a single meal in nearly three years. Since I came on board its been rare that theyve missed a meal. THESE are the things they need to be trained on more than anything. Logistics. Their husbandry is as perfect as we can make it with the level of control that we have, and the best way to get them into a good environment is to sell them to customers that you deem have the appropriate level of knowledge and commitment. If I dont think they will take care of it then I talk them out of the sale. It really isnt hard.

Then again my specific petsmart has a well rounded pet care crew. We have a lizard and frog go to guy, im the snake and fish go to guy, and the manager is knowledgable in all of the small animals, but specializes in rodents.

It took a lot of personal dedication and independant research for us to get the pet care area in good shape, but the hiring managers hired us specifically to do exactly that. their way or skirting around a flawed training system they couldnt change. Not all stores are managed correctly or have employees that care. I find that is truly where it veries. Some petsmarts and Petco's are fantastic. but these days it does feel like youre searching for diamonds in the rough..

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Originally Posted by Riv

I can agree that the employees are incredibly uneducated when it comes to reptiles. You really have to go above and beyond, and learn about them yourself because you will never be taught about them. I already knew a lot about reptiles when I started and have spread that knowledge to the other employees. Now I can proudly say that my store now has 3 beautiful and healthy ball pythons all of which are eating, 3 healthy and eating corn snakes, a milk snake with an average appetitie but takes meals almost every week, and an adult kingsnake who has been a regular eater even before I got there. you'll never catch a single one with a bad shed either. Previous to my hiring, they had failed to get a ball python to take a single meal in nearly three years. Since I came on board its been rare that theyve missed a meal. THESE are the things they need to be trained on more than anything. Logistics. Their husbandry is as perfect as we can make it with the level of control that we have, and the best way to get them into a good environment is to sell them to customers that you deem have the appropriate level of knowledge and commitment. If I dont think they will take care of it then I talk them out of the sale. It really isnt hard.

Then again my specific petsmart has a well rounded pet care crew. We have a lizard and frog go to guy, im the snake and fish go to guy, and the manager is knowledgable in all of the small animals, but specializes in rodents.

It took a lot of personal dedication and independant research for us to get the pet care area in good shape, but the hiring managers hired us specifically to do exactly that. their way or skirting around a flawed training system they couldnt change. Not all stores are managed correctly or have employees that care. I find that is truly where it veries. Some petsmarts and Petco's are fantastic. but these days it does feel like youre searching for diamonds in the rough..

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kudos to you for doing that, glad to see theres at least some pet store employees who know there stuff

We romanticize 'mom and pop' stores all the time and overuse the term 'local' to qualify where we shop (most places we can actually get to in order to shop tend to be local by default).

I have bought CH and likely will again. I have sold normal males to pet stores if I approve of their policies.

Drawing hard and fast lines is always tricky, same as over generalizations regarding motivation etc.

Bruce