Breeding Activity in one of our stores!

[LLLReptile]

I understand. I don't agree with that practice, but I understand the space limitations in your retail store.

Fair enough!

This was also an unusual circumstance, and lasted for less than a week (which I had attempted to note in the original post) - they were split up among the other retail stores so that the one location would not need to house them all together.

-Jen

[JaGv]

Not from me. I've said what I wanted to say, and didn't turn on the flames.

i wasnt being towards you or someone especifically sorry for the misunderstanding. but stuff like that alot of people have their own feelings about it you know

[Slim]

but stuff like that alot of people have their own feelings about it you know

I understand completely, and people are going to voice their opinions. I just wanted to make clear that I've said my piece and wasn't going on a bashing spree.

[C&H Exotic Morphs]

The simple answer is yes; not the morphs, those are housed individually, but we get lots of people that bring in babies they've raised up and can no longer keep. In that case, the store does not have individual rack tubs for each individual snake that people bring in, so yes, they do get mixed.

-Jen

Completely understand the space issue with having a retail store.
And I'm definitely not trying to start anything.
But, with people bringing in and dropping off random animals what do you guys do for QT with the limited space?
Again just curious and not trying to start a war.

[LLLReptile]

Completely understand the space issue with having a retail store.
And I'm definitely not trying to start anything.
But, with people bringing in and dropping off random animals what do you guys do for QT with the limited space?
Again just curious and not trying to start a war.

We actually check them over very thoroughly for outward signs of problems. We inspect them for mites, respiratory issues, check with the owner about feeding schedules etc. Animals that we do end up taking are often someone's pet, in excellent physical condition, with good weight, generally good health... There is no reason in a retail setting to separate an animal that is so clearly in good health. If there is ever any doubt whatsoever as to the animal's health or condition, they are simply not accepted.

Again, to reiterate - the morphs are kept individually, and this was a rare occurance. Normals come in all the time - weekly, sometimes daily as in this situation, and for healthy, single-snake-home type pets, as these so often are, there is no reason to keep them separate.

Thanks for the concern guys, but believe me, as a store manager myself, there are some seriously strict standards in place for what I/we will accept and place out on the floor for sale. We don't have space for "maybe", it's either perfect, or we don't take it. There's no other way to describe it - if I or another manager has a doubt, even just a little bit, about the health of the animal, it is not accepted. Each store has a manager that has been with LLL for years, and we take our store's animal stock personally - for all of us, it's not just the company's reputation on the line if we mess up, it's our own. Our customers rely on us for this stuff, to have animals available that are of a quality we'd buy ourselves. My customers at my store know my name, my animals, what I breed, what I do, half of them are people I'd consider my friends! - with this in mind (and every store is like this), I consider each animal I buy against whether or not this is something I could, in good conscience, buy for myself or let my customers buy. If I have a single doubt, I do not take it.

And that, my fellow forum viewers, is why we occasionally mix adult normal ball pythons.

I hope everyone has had a great Easter today!

-Jen

[WingedWolfPsion]

Animals in a pet store may be exposed to all sorts of things, anyhow. It's up to the buyer to quarantine the new animal. A retail store is rather obviously not going to be able to quarantine.

Proper quarantine for a ball python would be an entire year. Some folks will say 3 months, but the truth is that 3 months is not long enough, and some extremely serious viral diseases can incubate for up to 10 months. So, 3 months is a token quarantine period. How many folks here asking about a retail store's quarantine actually quarantine their new animals for a full year?

No matter where an animal comes from, you should quarantine it, so does it really matter whether a retail store housed some adult snakes together for a short time? It's true, if they had something, they might have passed it to each other, but the odds of you picking up one that contracted something from another aren't any different from the odds of your happening to pick up the originator of the problem, even if it had been kept separate.

Unless you're claiming it's logical to expect a retailer to quarantine snakes for a year before selling them?