My first visit to Petco

[Eversolulu]

So I've read so much about how terrible the conditions are at Petco especially for ball pythons, and I've decided to go see for myself. Things are worse than what people even described. They have 4 snakes all about the same size living in a small tank. They have those dial thermometers and hydrometers both displaying temps and humidity way below what it's supposed to be. The humidity was 15%, although they are not the most accurate thing, they are also somewhat in the right ball park. That's outrageous. All four of them were EXTREMELY skinny, way underfed for how long they are. 3 of them are peeling and seems to be in shed but they can't do it at all, they look super dehydrated, their skins were very wrinkly and it's so sad. Two of them looked dead. Not moving, not breathing, they look emaciated and starving and so dehydrated it's so sad. I don't ever want to go there EVER again.

[AkHerps]

Yeppp, we had awesome mom and pop pet stores here, great people, great animals, great supplies...now all we have is Petco, because they put everything else out of bussiness. I hate it. Put in a complaint to management, that's all you can do to try and help out. Our have been getting better with the living conditions, still not that great, the animals all still look pretty sick, but someone must have said something, because the baby Beardies are finally off sand, so are the baby Leopard geckos. They even gave them a humid hide, and I see fresh fruit in the beardie and iguana tanks.

[CamStatic]

If this was a store in Norway, that would have been reported as horrible animal abuse.

How does it work in the States? Do they take care of it if you report it, or is it ignored?

[PixieMaple]

This stuff makes me so mad. AS IF snakes aren't the easiest animals to take care of... especially when you have the means, aka a big store, money, supplies, food. There is no excuse.
GRRR
Take pictures and report their sorry butts for animal cruelty

[Eversolulu]

I definitely will take pics and report them, not sure to who? But I will at least talk to the manager, it's outrageous. I'm not sure what is supposed to be done in the US, is there some kind of real authority I could report to? Because seeing those poor snakes made me tear up it was so heartbreaking...

[stratus_020202]

I called animal control on ours and she gave me a different number to someone else. I can't remember who. But, the next time I went into petco they had a new rack system for their reptiles. Temps and humidity looked good. It seems to have done good on my end. For now.

[Eversolulu]

I called animal control on ours and she gave me a different number to someone else. I can't remember who. But, the next time I went into petco they had a new rack system for their reptiles. Temps and humidity looked good. It seems to have done good on my end. For now.

Good for you!! I'm returning tomorrow even maybe tonight, it's just not right...

[tsdsbd]

go you im glad people are doing something about there inexperience. petco employees are not animal enthursiasts, or not herpetoculturists anyways, they know jack crap about reptiles in general. hopefully this all resolves

[Eversolulu]

I just called our city's animal control and asked whether or not there's something I can do other than just talking to the managers, because I feel like they really need to be punished for something like that. But they said there's nothing, so I guess I'll just have to talk to the managers? I live in Denver, does anyone know of any place I can report it to other than Petco itself??

[AkHerps]

CamStatic, there's not much we can do here in the states, other than report it to animal control or the managers of Petco. But usually they don't do anything.