Petsmart?

[earthwormjim]

I was recently in a pinch as my rat breeder was out of rats for my BP. Before everyone flips out and tells me I should feed frozen, he won't take frozen. I have tried several times. So, I go to petsmart, pay a ridiculous price after lying to them about what I am doing with the rat, then on my way out they say, "our rats have antibiotics that will kill a snake." I said ok and left. I have not fed the snake, two friends get rats from there all the time and they said they have never heard that and their snakes are fine. Just wondering if anyone knows if there is any truth to it.

[DVirginiana]

I've never heard of that, but I'm not sure I'd risk it... Is it possible to return the rat and look for a small non-chain petstore in your area? They don't usually advertise selling live feeders so you have to either call or go in and ask, but most smaller pet stores typically sell live in my experience.

[Joe balls]

At my local pets mart you have to sign a paper saying you won't treat them inhumanly but they are marked and sold as feeders and they know why you got the rat. they were prob being rude cause the clerk had a rat as a pet or something. My 6 year old daughter wanted to keep a mouse feeder as a pet, so cute with his pink eyes. Then it crapped in her hand and I explained that's just what mice do, so she fed it to her snake! Dosent like mice anymore

[ballpythonluvr]

I agree with DVirginiana. I would not risk feeding that rat to my snake.


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[earthwormjim]

Well, I attempted to feed it to him but he wanted nothing to do with it. It was a bit on the bigger side and he would move away from it. I am going to return it and not buy one from there again.

[Eric Alan]

Their response to you while you were leaving has everything to do with them knowing exactly the purpose of you buying that rat and the person who said that not being mature enough to handle it a different way.

Unless those specific employees are stupid enough to do something crazy on their own, PetSmart itself doesn't have any sort of policy to do anything to their pets that would cause your snake harm by feeding it to them. It's simply against their policy to sell their pet rats as feeders. Always has been...

[MarkL1561]

Hi, I actually work at a Petsmart. If the rat was not sick and needed no treatment you are fine. We do not give our rats snake killing drugs. Also, I'd recommend trying to switch to frozen if possible but I know from experience that for some snakes it's not an option.

[Montypython696]

As an ex-Petcare Manager from Petsmart I can attest to what Mark says.

Unless the animal was sick, it is not going to be given any type of antibiotics, and in many cases small animals that are in the quarantine room are either adopted out, or end up succumbing to their illness and never make it back to the floor for sale to a customer.

And yes, again to what a previous poster mentioned about having to agree to sign a wavier saying you will take care of the animal, and its not going to be fed off. If (at least in my case) I knew the animal was going to be fed, I would not sell it to the customer and would point them in the direction of a local store who sold feeders for $3 as opposed to the $10 Petsmart sells them for.

Petsmart does have their 14 day return policy, so I would take full advantage of that.

Hope this helps.

[Daigga]

Not many people here will give you any kind of hard time for feeding live, it's a pretty common practice. I think the store clerk was being a brat for one, and I have never heard of snake killing antibiotics for rats. Probably wouldn't have risked it, though.

I used to go to petco when I needed live feeders, since that company is much more accepting of the concept of rodents as food and the employees are less judgey at you for it. Also, Petsmart rats are stupid overprice and GIANT, which I think is because they're usually retired breeders.

[earthwormjim]

Well where I live there are no other options except petsmart, and the breeder I normally go through, trust me I have looked. I understand they have their policy but my snake has to eat. If that means I have to fib to get him one, then too bad. I thank all of you for being honest with me, I will not be getting a rat from there, or any other supplies, ever again. It is completely uncalled for for the girl to try and scare a customer like that. It is almost comical, the last hail mary attempt to deter me from feeding a rat to my python.