Hooray for a terrible petland!

[LP.]

Too the MOD's, move this to a more appropriate section if needed, it's pretty much a rant...


Well I was on my way to my friends mom's work when I decided to go into pet land to see some animals and reptiles... Boy was that a mistake.
All was good, the hamsters, rabbits, birds, etc etc etc were all happy and alive, I got to play with a little chocolate lab, fun times, until we reached the reptile room. As soon as I walk into the reptile room there when ever I go, I always look at the beautiful albino burmese they have. Well today, shes out and wandering like mad, and she struck at the glass when I walked towards her. Next I turn around, to see some kind of water monitor. Last time I was in the reptile room (aproximately 2 weeks ago), I handled her, she was tame, but this time, she kept striking at the glass. Oh, and the wonderful thing about her, shes in an old carpet python cage. You know, normally it wouldn't be that bad, except the carpet python has mites, and I don't think they cleaned/changed anything in the tank... Next after that, I check the boa and baby boa. Boa is fine, he's hiding, baby boa, same thing, I'm happy about that. I noticed a new tank, and when I looked inside of it, it had some kind of salamander that looked half dead, and 2 fairly big frogs (All 3 seemed very dehydrated and uncared for). So I'm thinking from what I've seen so far, "What the ____ is this?" I see some corns, 3 in the same cage, all different sizes. I see the chameleons and crested&leopard gecko's, the seem fine, I'm happy about this, except for another tank that seemed to home to an unfed, dehydrated, and extremely sick baby chameleon, and half of the tail seemed to be missing... The adult ball python, perfect, shes hiding away in her cool side hide, I think that is the only tank that didn't make me want to completely flip out on the staff there.

Oh, and heres the ABSOLUTE WORST THING I think anybody could expect to see in a reptile room/store... A beautiful childrens python, in a tank with 2 things... a terrible looking water dish, and a HUGE hide... I look closely cause I see the python trying to curl up in the water dish and guess what I CLEARLY saw? a huge mite... After I saw this, I didn't say a word to either of my friends and stormed right out of there.

So... I've heard a few people on this site complaining about petland's and petsmart's and a few other pet shops / exotic shops in there neck of the woods, so I want to know, anything that compares or even tops this?

[Elise.m]

I went into Petco a long time ago and think I saw a dead Cornsnake. There were two in one tank, and I swear one was dead, if not both. That's the worst I've seen.

Did you try talking to the employees? Most of the time it's pointless, but you might get someone who is eager to learn about the animals and care for their well being.

[PyroPython]

Ive seen a petco sell a dead rainbow boa saying it was sleeping, petland here illegaly selling caimen in city limits, and the petland here ALWAYS has dead or starved animals. Their uromastyx was housed withba mouse. I suppose they wanted it to eat it?

[steveboos]

Yeah our petland is messed up too. The rodents are all sick with RI and Ringworm and the puppies are all from puppy mills and their like $1000 and up. I will NEVER buy anything from petland ever again, nor will i ever step foot in their store. And to think the girl working there told me to bring my healthy 3 year old ball python in to the store, umm how about no? I don't want mites and IBD to kill my loved snake!

[withonor]

No Petlands here. The Petsmart closest to me is great everytime I go in there. All animals seem to be kept well and in good condition. The Petco only seems to make minor mistakes. Sometimes they'll have two baby ball pythons in the same enclosure.

Now... There is a pet store called The Reptile Room that I've been to twice now, basically to get some feeder mice. The first time I went in there I was looking at all the animals they had. Started off nice with a pair of rhino iguanas, some medium sized monitors and a couple large bearded dragons near the door. They have a friendy dog that comes to greet you. I make my way around and there's a lot of kingsnakes and corn snakes.

I get to the second wall and there's a dead turtle in on cage flipped on its back. Behind me there is a stack of glass tanks that are empty for sale, except in one there is a ball python! There's no substrate, water bowl or hide and there is poop in there so this wasn't some short term temporary thing. The poor thing had what looked like an entire shed cycle stuck on him. I can't believe that a place that deals only with reptiles could have examples like this. After making my way through the place I notice a chameleon tank near the front desk. Half of them looked like they had half a shed cycle on them. I bought a large mouse for $2 this time around.

The second time I went there, earlier today, I needed a small mouse or rat pinky for a tiny male pewter I just got. He's just 60 grams and on the skinny side. Long story short I got a lot of attitude in return for my business. He breeds ball pythons, I couldn't possibly be accurate with anything I said. I think I'll let the $4 I spent there be the last. It sucks that this specialty place is worse than the big box stores here. Oh, and there was a male pied for $2,000 and a female het albino for $375 in a display case built into the front desk.

[WingedWolfPsion]

The Petland here in Omaha was keeping a lined gecko and leopard gecko in a tropical ExoTerra cage.

The local Petco is good, with a knowledgable reptile staff person, and actually let the local herp group set up to sign letters against S-373.

If you find a bad Petco or Petsmart, do not hesitate to report them to corporate office, and remember that although these stores are a chain, they can be as different as night and day between locations.

[rawr_moose]

We have a really bad petco IMO around where I am. They keep many ball pythons in one tiny tank, there is always stuck shed, and 90% of the time they had mites. Oh yeah and the last time I was there two tiny baby bps and in the tank with them there was 3 or 4 large crickets 0.o I got so mad at that and yelled at an employee ^^. Then there was this other time they had about 6 mexican rosy boas ( i dunno much about those) but one looked dead. It was half way on its back and it had a couple scratches and cuts on it. So I told an employee and he took the thing out and was like nope its not dead, and the thing in his hands was barely moving and when it did movie it was very jerky stop and go movements. >< oh yeah and one of my friends bought a bp from there and 5 days later it died. They ended up taking it to the vet to figure out why and it apparently had IBD. I felt really bad, oh and that same petco (this was a longgggg time ago) i bought guinea pigs from there and they all died with in a week because they were all inbred and stuff, god I really hate my petco.

[catawhat75]

I won't step foot into a Petland due to the fact that they get their dogs from puppy mills/Hunte. There is no worse chain pet store than them.