Petsmart: are they going overboard?

[ZiggiGirl]

I went to my local Petsmart this evening and was not pleased to see THREE BPs in one very small inclosure... Is this normal? I'm not a pro with snakes at all, let alone with BPs in general. I'm really new to this stuff but isn't that a little over board?? The tank looked to be about a 5-10 gallon terrarium...

Do Petsmart employees have guidelines they are required to follow such as only ___ amount of ____ aged snakes in one inclosure of a certain size? I honestly feel bad for these snakes


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[frostysBP]

Typical petsmart

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[BCS]

To be very honest with you this is fine. It is only temporary to begin with as we all assume they will be bought and rehomed. These are babies and will be fine living together until they fine the right home. They look healthy and the cage seems clean, I doubt they are in any danger.

[Eric Alan]

It's the retail industry standard. It's not their intention for them to be housed in there for any length of time. Retail display enclosures are not reflective of proper husbandry or meant to serve as examples of such.

[dormouse]

I looked in at the normal BP at the Petsmart by my house, thought "Oh look, he's hanging outside his hide while shedding. Hope it goes alright.", and I don't know what possessed me to, but I looked inside the hide. Another normal bp was curled up inside the hide.

I felt so bad that the shedding BP couldn't have some privacy.

[D3lacr0ix]

I got my BP from Petsmart. More like RESCUED him. They had 3 in a super small enclosure... No humidity or temp control. Water bowl was bone dry. They said he had just shed and you could tell it was a baaaad shed. The store associate wouldn't even pick him up even though he showed no hostility so I picked him up myself and put him in the carry-home box. As soon as I put him in his new enclosure when we got home, he streeeeetched out for over an hour before going into his hide. He is literally 200% longer than the tiny cage they had him in. AND HE HAD BEEN THERE SINCE MARCH--- I got him in August!

[bcr229]

I got my BP from Petsmart. More like RESCUED him.

Unfortunately if you paid for him they just took the profit to purchase another one to put in his place.

The only way to get pet stores to improve their husbandry is to not purchase animals from them until they do.

[Gio]

Keep in mind that Petsmart, and Petco often employ younger folks, many of whom are complete animal lovers that may or may not know the proper care of certain reptiles but certainly do care about the animals.

You often see a person here on this board that is genuinely meaning to do well by their new pet, but has not received all of the proper information. Once they get "straightened out" well meaning keepers quickly adopt the new care procedures and improve the welfare of their animals.

The same holds true for the big pet stores a lot of the time. You'll see kids come in to get a job, not always kids, but people who love dogs and cats that quickly find out they are now caring for snakes, fish, rabbits and have no idea how to do it.

It's not so much that the employees don't care, but the fact that the training, that mostly part time employees get from the upper management isn't that good.

Let's face it, dedicated reptile keepers are very picky about care, and even pet stores specializing in reptiles often wouldn't meet our standards.

Those snakes look healthy, and even though the practice of more than one animal in a cage is frowned upon, as Eric stated, it is very temporary and typical retail practice.

[PitOnTheProwl]

Love these posts..........................
Remember two things:
#1 Retail
#2 Overhead $$$

[Darkbird]

Yep, that better than I have seen in a lot of stores. Pet stores are what they are, and probably served as a gateway to get many of us started. The only time I have seen where overcrowding was truly an issue was one instance where a store had small boas and bps in the same 20 long, and so many that they would have covered the entire floor of the tank if they hadn't been mostly piled in one corner. I knew the owner, so I said something to her. Found out that they had a shipment come in late and it didn't get unpacked until the end of the day, and a new guy just dumped them all in there. I ended up giving her a hand getting them all sorted out.