Horrified!

Smulkin and I paid a visit to one of our local pet stores this past weekend. It's a big chain franchise store, and we purchase a lot of our supplies there (for our numerous pets) because the prices are pretty reasonable. Well, Smulkin has been itching for a new ball python or two, and since we live where we do, it's much more convenient for us to check out the pet shops than try to find a breeder. We bought Suki and Neph at another local pet store (not a franchise store, incidentally), and they're both happy, healthy little herps.

Anyway, we go into the big franchise store, and naturally, Smulkin heads straight to the reptiles. There was a cage with 4 or 5 cute little baby ball pythons. One of the sales associates was there with another customer talking about how "nippy" they were. That sent up a red flag - "Nippy ball pythons"??? So we hang out there a little longer, and the sales associate asks Smulkin, "Would you like to see one?" "Sure," he says. So they start looking around the cage, and the girl says there's a smaller one inside a hollow log in the cage. Smulkin expressed interest, so she picks up the hollow log and starts shaking it as hard as she can to try to get the snake out! I was horrified to say the least! I looked at Smulkin, shook my head, and said "We're not getting anything here."

Before we left, the sales associate asked Smulkin if he wanted one of the ball pythons, and he said "I did until I saw you shaking it out of the log." She said, "Oh, that doesn't hurt them." ?!?!?!?!?!?! The ignorance astounded me. At the very, very least, it would explain the "nippy" nature of the snakes.

Okay, there. I had to vent. Needless to say, Smulkin and I will stick to the non-franchised local pet store where they treat their snakes like cute, fragile little puppies (honestly, the girls who work there kiss the snakes and let them crawl through their hair when they take them out for you to look at).

On a related note, we did contact a breeder. Smulkin is meeting him tomorrow (he's 4 hours away, but Smulkin was driving through the area anyway), so we might have new babies tomorrow :D We're so excited!

That's horrible. Good luck with the breeder. Has anyone seen the BPs at any of the Petco stores? Ugh......depressing

i would've saved the little critters from more madness.

Yea, I bought my baby ball at the local petco, of coarse the snakes are not happy being crammed into a small tank and kept there all together. When the lady pulled him out to let me see she wasn't to ruff or anything, and the snakes were rather calm, so i held the little guy for a few moments and he sniffed the air with his tounge to check me out and started moving around some. I knew i had to have him, he was in the tank with one other snake at the time (2 weeks ago) and my friend said a few days earlier there were 3 in there. Anyway he is very happy and just starting to want to shed, his eyes are a blue color and his skin is very dull, I went in petco today to pick up a tank humidifier and they still have the ball that was there when i got mine :( poor guy if i had a place to put him i would have bought him (or her)... sorry for the long post

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Originally Posted by Wizill

i would've saved the little critters from more madness.

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I'm sure Smulkin would've taken every last one of them if we could have.

I got my bp at Petco. He was the only guy in the tank and seemed very healthy and happy but he had not been there very long.
I go in there about once a week and I was in on Sat to buy some mice popsciles for Ozzy :lol: and the same poor bp's that have been there for a month was still there in a small tank with no hides just a water dish and a lone plant. The one guy was shedding last time I was there and Sat he still had head and neck shed on him and eye caps, poor guy!
So the young guy came over to get me my mice and started to give me crap cuz I feed f/t to my bp says his only eats live and that is the best and only way to go and I said til one bites your bp good or gives it mites.
So then I told him the bp in the tank needed some help getting the old shed and eye caps off and suddenly it wasn't his dept anymore.
So I told the older guy who is always taking care of them to take the bp in the back and let him run his head thru a wet paper towel to help get his eye caps off and he just takes him in the back and dips his head in water and throws him back in there. I am gonna stop in tomorrow to check on him.
I guess I was lucky because Ozzy is pretty healthy so far

Snyder was my birthday present and she came from Petco -- not the one where I buy my mice but another location -- and I guess I should be glad I'm the one who got her so that I could get her rehydrated, eating, and free of mites. She was in poor condition when she came to me, for those who missed the whole saga, and the vet gave her just better than even odds of survival. Sadly, Petco takes better care of their bp's (even with strip thermometers and no hygrometers) than a little local shop that used to be good. I told the folks on here a month or so ago about how they had several little bp's in together in an aquarium with a mesh top, water dish, no hides, no thermometer or hygrometer, and some sort of lizard in a little critter keeper in the middle of the tank, and an employee told me it was pointless to try to feed bp's frozen/thawed. Grrr.

well marla, keep in mind if you work in a pet shop, odds are you are used to live feedings. a frozen rat to most pet shops is as foriegn as a honda.

Fine, Will, but I think it has a lot more to do with this particular shop's breeding rodents and not freezing them. ;) The guy was a weasely a** and I won't be supporting that store. On the other hand, I'd love to spend some money at the little store 20 or 30 miles from here run by the only guy in the state licensed to have certain hots and breeding water monitors. He's only in his 20's but he has a great little shop with cobras, rattlers, gators, monitors, geckos, beardies, and lots more.




edited for content.

oooo get a cobra and keep it right by your front door! a cheaper, yet more effective doorman ;).

Ooooh! I got edited! That's a first for me. ;) I don't think the guy is going to sell me a cobra -- much less a spitting cobra -- without my showing him a license first but it's still a very cool little shop.

lol, dont worry. i'm a mod and i've been edited, deleted, everything that can happen to one of your threads.

I figure someone will object a little louder than that if I get really offensive or start to smell bad. ;)

I didn't do it!

Yeah, even I, the owner, has had to delete my own posts!

Keep this in mind-if you buy from a subpar petstore, you are only giving them more reasons to bring in new herps to torture. If nobody buys the animals, then they won't get anymore of them. I know its sad and I wish I could save all the neglected animals in the world, but its just not a reality. Most petstores only do what is profitable. Thats why they buy imported Ball Pythons and sell them for outrageous prices and crap like that. The key to fighting ignorance is education. You as the customer have purchase power. Use that to your benefit (and the animal's).

Heh. I knew I was running a risk saying a** in my post (self-edited this time ;)), but that is the best word for him. Ask my kids, they'll tell you. :D

I wound up hooking up with an excellent OH breeder on my way to see Opeth and picked up a lovely pair for $85.

http://ball-pythons.net/index.php?na...&p=11842#11842

Pictures when they've settled in!

SMYNX

i have a feeling i belive i went to the same store! we where horrified as the way some of the local pet shops in our area keep snakes,,

one had a beutiful albinop bermese pythone,,, soon as i reach my hand in wham smacks right at me and the store clerk says nahh you gotta get in there and just grab him..reaches and wham tries to smack at him..he grabs it curls up and and tries to bit agian and ends up wrapping its mouth around it self...

put him back i dont care to see him anymore...why its a snake what do you want a dog..

said no i understand all snakes can bit if provoked...not just buy sticking hand in.. what are you feeding it well mouse liev? yeah how just drop it in...

seen this with alot of pet stores around the pittsburgh area..so that why we gout our lil bp from steel city exotics at the herb show yesterday...

.....this thread is almost 3 years old ;)

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Originally Posted by daniel1983

.....this thread is almost 3 years old ;)

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I'll track Smynx down, goose her and alert her to the reply ;)

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Originally Posted by daniel1983

.....this thread is almost 3 years old ;)

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I didn't realize it until I read that post. The conditions at PETCO are the same here in Yonkers, NY.

I'm going to look at Smulkin's Gallery to see if he posted pictures of those BPs he got in OH.

you said they have reasonable prices on some stuff... Were they reasonably priced on ball pythons... I feel bad those those lil' guys. Getting shaken out of a half log. You guys should have shook the hell out of the sales associate and asked her if she liked it or if it hurt her? haha!

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Originally Posted by synister370

SMYNX

i have a feeling i belive i went to the same store! we where horrified as the way some of the local pet shops in our area keep snakes,,

one had a beutiful albinop bermese pythone,,, soon as i reach my hand in wham smacks right at me and the store clerk says nahh you gotta get in there and just grab him..reaches and wham tries to smack at him..he grabs it curls up and and tries to bit agian and ends up wrapping its mouth around it self...

put him back i dont care to see him anymore...why its a snake what do you want a dog..

said no i understand all snakes can bit if provoked...not just buy sticking hand in.. what are you feeding it well mouse liev? yeah how just drop it in...

seen this with alot of pet stores around the pittsburgh area..so that why we gout our lil bp from steel city exotics at the herb show yesterday...

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Hey Pittsburgh area Opeth/Reptile fan! Isn't Opeth fantastic live?

Have you ever been to the Pittsburgh Reptile Show? Is it any good? I'm hoping to get a Ball Python and maybe a few cresteds there this month on the 17th.

yea its shocks me to see how rought people can be towards the snakes. i was at a swap meet, and someone wanted to see a ball python, the old lady stuck her hand in and started tossing ball pythons right and left, i'm suprised she didn't get bit, and she was roughly burushing some off to the side etc...

lol silly me, this thread is old... :)

thats horrible! Knowing me and my want to help animals i would have purchased them all just to save them. I feel so bad for the little guys. Unfortunatley, you can't help everybody in the world :(

My local pet shop wont let you handle or buy snakes on tues.That is there Feeding day and they dont want the snakes to gt stressed out. I think its great , but other people come in there and flip on the reptile people for not letting them handle/buy one. Funny cause they dont understand

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Originally Posted by 6StringSamurai

Hey Pittsburgh area Opeth/Reptile fan! Isn't Opeth fantastic live?

Have you ever been to the Pittsburgh Reptile Show? Is it any good? I'm hoping to get a Ball Python and maybe a few cresteds there this month on the 17th.

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yeah its pretty good,

some we noticed tat just wanted to sell you what evere they got others reall cared to help you out

check out paul at steel city exocits he has some awsome ball's and boa;s