Talked to Petco today...

[sekaiNdobes]

It makes me so sad to go to Petsmart, and see the BPs. Sadly I think Sekai came from Petsmart (he's a "rescue", so I can't be entirely sure... but all of his old terrarium accessories were from Petsmart, so I'm assuming his previous owner went in and bought everything in one day).

Anyway, I digress... they have 3-4 BPs per cage, one little half-log hide... poor things must be so stressed out, with kids and dogs poking the glass, nowhere to hide, nowhere to get away... makes me want to just buy them all. But, I know they'd just get more in.

[Argentra]

In a heartbeat. Especially Petsmart... I should know, since my computer skills are pretty good, my *^(&# of a manager always had me enter in the claims forms. The setup at my old store is very similar for the two juvi BPs they have in there: one half log facing front, a small water dish and a thin fake plant on damp compacted carefresh. The corn and kings at least have aspen and can burrow to get away...

[soy.lor.n]

print off a bunch of the PetCo care sheets, but not before changing a few key things (like suggesting 2 hides) and more importantly, including a thing at the bottom saying "for more information visit ball-pythons.net"
then swap them out at the store

[soy.lor.n]

I buy some things at Petco/PetsMart and when we went in the other day we checked out the balls (like we usually do). They had 3 or so babies in one cage, but there was a few handfuls of spagnum moss in there (damp) to keep humidity up. That is a first, never seen that before.....

They have a whole bunch of balls at the store here, and they do have 2 hides (though only one stick on thermometer), but they're both giant so that they can all fit in it at once...it looks like they're starting to get big too. They dropped the price down to $29 (from 79) so I think they're having a hard time selling them...

[littleindiangirl]

My petsmart has bp's. As far as I can tell, they have 1 snake per cage. They use the small half logs and lean it against the back wall so the bp's can hide away from peering customers. The cage is up high too (I have to get on tippy toes and I still cant see all the way back)

So far they've done that style with all of their snakes and it's working out well.

[JayBP]

My local Petco is a little different I guess. The store is clean, the employees seem very knowledgeable, and the cages for the Ball Pythons were clean. Even though they had about 4 or 5 in the same cage, they had a large water dish with water, on aspen, a large half log hide, and fake plants.

[Argentra]

Good to hear. Glad that some stores out there are trying to improve things.

With the corn and king snakes they sell at my old store, they have one to a cage (the tiny ones on the top in the 'reptile habitat' display thing), on aspen with the half log at the back. But with the BPs they just did everything wrong. I tried a few times to let them know subtly, but it did no good of course.

[Ivyna J Spyder]

I make a habit of subtly, or not so subtly 'butting in' when people are looking into buying pets from these places. The ones I know about anyway.

Some couple was looking into buying a bearded dragon and I could see right away they weren't getting all the stuff they needed... So I casually start chatting, all 'Oh yeah those are great, I've had one for three years' and making a big point of all the expensive lighting they needed and such. Being totally honest about it really, but they'd been given the totally wrong impression of how much care they needed, and in the end decided to put off on buying one til they were more ready. (And of course I told them it was better to get one from a good breeder and gave them links to some good sites)

And really, a lot of these kids working at these stores will be glad that someone else takes over since they don't give a crap. Others however who take their jobs more seriously will be very offended, so be careful what you say. (I was that sort when I worked at a pet store- I DID do my research so I'd get pissed when someone tried to correct me!)

Changing corporate policy is next to impossible, so the best thing you can do is try to educate a few people at a time when you stop in.

[Argentra]

Amen to that!

I still 'butt in' at my old store when I'm in for supplies (discounts talk). The girls that work there now are really grateful for the assistance, and usually so are the buyers.

You do what you can, when you can.

[edie]

I get all my cat food from petsmart and I have to cross the reptile section everytime I go in, last them they had 3 BPs all piled up on top of one another in a small cage, I just try not to look because I know I can't do anything except tell people I know or meet to do on-line reasearch before buying any sort of exotic pet.

Once I was in line buying cat food and an employee was buying a really tiny BP, a 50gal screen top, heat lamp, water dish, and the largest sized log hide they carried. I tried to tell her some things that would maybe help but all it accomplished was her trading out the big log for the smaller one and she seemed really annoyed with me. Its just a shame though, one of my friends from middle school got a BP from petsmart when we were freshmen - I didn't know anything about snakes then but looking back on it I understand why it died after she had it for a week. One of my friends little brothers keeps his the same way (and got his BP from petsmart) but they have a lot of money so that means they know more than me and they won't listen to anything I say.