OK, so here is the deal with "Big Chain" pet stores. I feel I always have to toss up some defense on their part.
Most reptiles that you can get from a big chain pet store are perfectly decent pet quality animals that are healthy.
There I said it.
The majority of those reptiles, ball pythons, veiled chameleons, leopard geckos, beardies, crested geckos, corn snakes are all even captive bred.
Most instances of bad reptile caging advice is caused when the associate learns of the person's budget and tries to get them into the "minimum setup". Not because they don't care about the animal but because its a teenager that is afraid to tell someone no this pet might not be for you. I remember when I worked at a Pet Supplies Plus way back when and that was something I did before I got more confident. And I KNEW it was probably a bad idea. Of course this was back when a lot more animals were wild caught and most animals died anyways.
It has the appearance on this site that all big chain stores have nothing but disease ridden abused animals in them because no one ever posts the perfectly healthy Milk Snake that has taken longer to sell and is thriving, moving about because he smells the tasty baby corn snakes. But you'll see the anole at petsmart with a huge growth on it's head. Do we really think that anole was their long enough to have a growth or do we think it was shipped like that?
A Pet Store only has the animals that are sent to them. Ordered from a list of possible animals on a list. Is this ideal? No.
It looks worse with ball pythons because they are bred in such large numbers to supply the pet trade and are probably the breeders worst animals, sold in bulk without feeding yet etc.
This one probably got bonked somewhere along the line.
These chain stores have really smartened up, sticking to MOSTLY very popular animals that are CB. You don't see random dead/horribly sick animals all the time like you used to.
You will see certain occasions where a big retail store will fit the worst case picture of what we all describe them as. Report these via proper avenues and they will address it. But I've also been to big chain stores where the cages looked better than those at the zoo in terms of cleanliness and healthy animals.
Also you learn very quickly that just because a store is small doesn't mean that it's magically going to be nicer. You can check my review on google on Harbor Pets in Boardman Ohio if you want to see what I mean.
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