Got a job at Petsmart. Really worried about one of their BP's

[snake lab]

Its not hard to figure out what is wrong with this situation. Its simple. You have a pet store that doesnt pay crap and doesnt train employees right, and hires either fresh out of school kids or people that need a job so bad they are willing to work for peanuts. Now there is a small percentage of people that work there just because they love the animals so much. Congrats to them but the problem is you have people working there that do not know anything about reptiles nor do they care about them. Therefore the animals suffer. And every manager only cares about one thing, the bottom dollar. This is why pet stores are no place for reptiles. Unless its is a specialty store geared directlly at reptiles and they have the knowledge needed to care for them

[Annarose15]

Now that I have hatchlings of my own, I suddenly realize that most of the teensy tiny ball pythons I've seen for sale at Petco/Petsmart ARE hatchlings. I bet some of them die never having eaten.

And most of that is Petco/Petsmart's fault... but I wonder if the breeder could give these little guys a slightly better chance by getting them properly started?

The "breeder" is typically a BP farm in Africa. The hatchlings are mass imports straight out of the egg, which have never eaten before they get to the store.

[snake lab]

Most pet stores dont care about quality and they buy imports cause they pay like 10 bucks a piece and sell them for up to 90 bucks.

[Raptor]

-face palm-

I'd like to point out that not all pet stores are crap. There's a local chain of pet stores where I am that take excellent care of their animals. Said store also gets their reptiles from a local breeder.

[AK907]

-face palm-

I'd like to point out that not all pet stores are crap. There's a local chain of pet stores where I am that take excellent care of their animals. Said store also gets their reptiles from a local breeder.

I don't think anyone said ALL pet stores were bad, but the majority of them are, especially big name stores like PetSmart/PetCo which place profits above everything else.

[Riv]

The "breeder" is typically a BP farm in Africa. The hatchlings are mass imports straight out of the egg, which have never eaten before they get to the store.

From what the4y told me, the company they get their ball pythons from "supposedly" feeds them 3 times live before threyre shipped off. But the employees I was speaking to seemed to doubt this. It just makes me wonder how many snakes have died because of this in the last three years that they havent seen a single one eat.

I got my little girl Pakul from the very same story only 9 months ago. She's had horrible eating problems and to this day is still almost 300G underwieght and would barely eat for me the first seven months I had her. Shes finally getting better, but she was probably a close call as well and I just didnt know it. The little fuzzy she had after the fourth month very well may have been her first meal.

[RetiredJedi]

I don't think anyone said ALL pet stores were bad, but the majority of them are, especially big name stores like PetSmart/PetCo which place profits above everything else.

Well, profit is what makes the business stay in business but I agree with your point. These stores have GOT to be told the proper care for these animals. I think a lot of these stores would see an even bigger profit margin if they had some sort of "expert" on site or at least listen to the advise of the experts. Then we wouldn't have customers come on here (just like I did 7 months ago) saying they were told to care for their BP in a manner that is completely wrong. As a matter of fact, if my local PetSmart told me the right way to do stuff with our first BP, I would most definately be a repeat customer and even refer more people to them. Instead what I do whenever I go there and get dog food is check out the people that are checking out the BPs and strick up a conversation about the proper way to care for them. I can't tell you how many folks I have refered to this site before they decide to buy. So they end up loosing business because the customer isn't being told the correct information.

So for any business profit is what pays the bills and keeps them in business but it's the way they go about getting those profits that becomes the problem.

[Raptor]

I don't think anyone said ALL pet stores were bad, but the majority of them are, especially big name stores like PetSmart/PetCo which place profits above everything else.

I'm seeing people say that "reptiles don't belong in pet stores" . That says enough to me. Additionally, big name stores aren't the only ones that are can be bad. Small mom & pop stores can do the same.

And surprisingly, the local petsmarts in my area take decent care of their reptiles. It really boils down to how the individual stores are ran.

[RetiredJedi]

Speaking of all of this, how can I get some BP.Net brochures to hand out whenever I get a chance to talk to someone.

[cmack91]

I will give the PetSmart I worked at and our local PetCo. They have an "adoption center" where they donate space to cats taken in by the SPCA. I respect that. But that puppy mill crap, no thanks!

i didnt know the cats were from the SPCA, and now that i do, im fine with it, i was just trying to think of things they most likely breed in the basement in a shoebox