Morphs at a Pet Store (Petsmart)

[Rob]

I saw a horrible looking pastel at a pet store once, going for I think 200ish. Stuck shed All over and pretty brown as a hatchling.

[nimblykimbly]

Petsmart advertises Morphs on there website... things like pieds, pastels, and cinnys

LOL, they are called 'Fancy Ball Pythons'... Well, I think they're all fancy! $249 for a young Pastel?? Crazy.

[sorraia]

Has anyone ever come across a morph at a large chain pet store like Petco or Petsmart? If so, how often does something like that happen? I know that'd be like hitting the jackpot since they don't sell morphs and probably wouldn't change their $35 to $50 price range for just one snake.

I've seen spiders and pastels at Petsmart and Petco. Don't remember the price off hand, but they charge at least $75 or $80 for their normals. I want to say the spiders and pastels were over $150 (and TINY, never seen a ball python so small!) but I could be wrong. That may have been their sale price.

[Lupe]

I have seen spiders and some low quality pastels being sold as "fancy" ball pythons. But not much else.

And I just want to add that not all PetCo/Petsmarts are made equal, but I think a lot of users on here would be a lot happier if all of them had employees like at the store where I work. We may not be able to sell snakes where I work because of the city laws, but there are a LOT of people I have helped educate in the last 6 months since I've been there to better keep there snakes (and many other reptiles) happy.

[satomi325]

I've seen pastels and spiders going for $150 at Petco. Normals are typically $65-75, but go on sale for $35.

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[TheSnakeGuy]

At my PetSmart we only carry Normal ball pythons. I've yet to see a "fancy" come in but we do get amelanistic/hypomelanistic and normal corn snakes. All of PetSmart's reptiles come from Reptile Industries, the largest distributor of reptiles in the country.

[Meltdown Morphs]

I have a somewhat local petstore that has couple of ball python morphs, a pinstripe and a pastel in the same cage unfortunately and they weren't hatchlings.
They had the pin going for $499 and the pastel for $199, and I'm not sure if they knew the sexes of either one but they looked like they were locked, I spent a good 10 minutes trying to get a closer look before I tried to tell one of the employees that the snakes look like they were breeding.
Neither looked like they were appropriate weight to be attempting breeding, not underfed or skinny or anything, just you wouldn't think to breed them at the size they were .
The response I got was "I dunno they may be" and shrug off before he went back to some other business.
Now this pet store seemed to be rated one of the better ones out of the scarce selection of pet stores we have around usually they are much better housing their reptiles but that was just one time they really dropped the ball.
I've been back in there since then and the two were still in the same cage so I've decided to email them asking them about it since the main guy who deals with the snakes is never there .

[SnowShredder]

I've never seen a morph at a chain like petsmart or petco. Though I did see some normal blood pythons at petco a few months ago. They were selling them for $300 which is $100 more than I bought my albino blood (sold him) a few years back. Our petco also keeps normal columbian boas all year round. In my area there are 2 close pet stores that are locally owned that keeps morphs, but over priced and low quality

[treeboa]

The Petco by me is pretty good about caring for their reptiles. They get in low end morphs pretty frequently, but as Luke said they are always over market value. Another local chain by me has one of the best looking male pastels I've ever seen for $89. Their animals are well taken care of and healthy. This chain has two other stores in the area and they are HORRIBLE! Dirty cages, half dead animals. I guess it all depends on the manager of these stores. If they don't know what they are doing and/or don't care the animals suffer.

[I-KandyReptiles]

At the pet stores I've seen a few lower end morphs. They had a male albino ball python once and they wanted over $1000 for a hatchling.

We do have a specialty reptile store that carries morphs but they're husbandry was just as bad. I bought a female bee at 1200g for $700 and when I got her they told me to feed her one adult mouse every two weeks. She is the pickiest eater and I have her on a 5 day schedule due to the fact she usually won't eat more than one mouse per sitting.