Idiots at Petco

[blodisnut]

Normally I like petco.. they always have what I am looking for. We got our ball python, and water dragon there.
So today I was in Lake Zurich, Ill, and I passed a petco, and needing crickets for the dragon, my chameleon, and beardie. As always, I wandered over to the reptile section, and this is what I saw. If anyone has been in a Petco, the reptile section, you have seen the cage setup they have. The long sliders that they use sometimes have dividers to keep up to 4 different species in the same slider...
So as I walk up there is a girl that seemed to be concerned. I saw what she saw, which is a beauitful baby snow corn with his head stuck in a crappy repair job they did to the divider with packing tape. We grabbed the Petco idiot who opened the slider, took the top off, and went to relieve the poor corn. I felt so bad for the poor little guy... He got him free..... then... get this.... he put the freshly freed corn in...ready???????? the milksnake enclosure. Before i could say anything, the milk snapped on the corn like a member of overeaters annonomous at a buffet..
The dork grabbed both snakes and started to get them apart.
He did, eventually, but I am almost certain that he spooked the corn to the point that I would be suprised if he eats again, and also the milk probably will be stressed out since it had a meal snagged out of his mouth.

I am pretty sure that I am one of the few chicagoland folks on this board, but if not, well, beware of these two at this petco. I talked to the manager about this, and he said that he would keep them aside in the back until they eat (if they do) again. I just hope that they actually do this. I dont live near this one, I was just driving by.

I know this affects probably noone in here, but I thought I would tell the story. It was kind of cool to see one snake get another, but why a cool snow? why not a garter, or green snake... Oh well.. :shrugs:

 

[CAV]

At least they didn't throw the Milk a handful of crickets to make up for the lost meal.

 

[MegF.]

Don't put it past them Cav. They've done it!

 

[jzal8]

that stinks

 

[Skye]

at least it wasn't in there with a saucer of milk

 

[leerankin]

:fullauto: :flames: thats really bad,the cornsnake must have been well stressed

 

[JM :o)]

Not just Petco~ We have a local Reptile store here. Not a pet store~ a CB only reptile specialty store~ I don't go in much as they never have anything I need~ they cater to the small reptile enthusiast so it's usually cheaper for me to order whatever I might need on-line.

So~ Recently I gave away a couple of kinked babies to a freind of a friend. Never met this lady~ but my friend assured me that she already owned two cornsnakes that she got from this reptile store and goes in there for advice all the time from the OWNER. (not an employee, the owner) Good deal~ these couple babies needed a home.

Well last week I met the lady I had given the babies too and she told me that one had tried to eat the other~ and then died.

As I spoke with her I discovered that she was/ is keeping all the corn snakes in the same tank. (3 different sizes of snake to boot~ a 6 month old~ a 3 month old and the two neonates I had given her.) She had NO CLUE there was ANY risk of canabilism. That the reptile store told her the ONLY risk in keeping all of her cornsnakes together was that they may not breed when they get older (She was pretty shocked when I suggested breeding too early and egg binding the females as another option)~ I don't recall all the other points I disagreed with her reptile expert on~ but all in all it was a pretty depressing conversation.

I finally just gave her my copy of the Corn Snake manual. Hopefully I'll get it back someday~ but if not then I guess it just cost me $10 to GIVE away those babies.

 

[leerankin]

i just hope the snakes are seperated before further accidents happen :sobstory: :sobstory: :duck:

 

[Acradon]

Petstores are full of these idiots. I could bring up thousands of examples. But there is one petstore here in the town where I live that especially raises my temper. First i hear from a friend that the pet store has hurricane cornsnakes for sale. My friend doesn't know a huge deal about snakes but enough to be able to talk about the topic. So I rush down to the store, not really believing that there actually might be hurricanes there. (You can hardly if at all get them in europe and definetaly not here in the west of Ireland.)
Now what do I see....two nice corns. Striped! well they were nice, but no hurricanes.
I told the man nicely that these were striped ones. Well he nearly ate me alive. And he insisted they were huricanes. These nice snakes were also kept on fine quarz sand. And a pinky was thrown in just lying in the sand. I wonder how the intestine of the snakes look after consuming that. Not even talking about the sand getting under the scales. But Mr. know-it-all has 17 years of experience.....
I rest my case

Acradon

 

[CAV]

Just offering a contrarian opinion here.......

We have an exotic pet store here that for the most part is one of the best I've ever visited. Every employee has years of husbandry experience and is fairly knowledgeable about most of the more commonly kept reptiles.

Unfortunately, they all have different expertise with different species and sometime give advice that is technically correct for one but not another. I often think that many employees of the pet trade genuinely care about the animals, but because the variety and availability of animals kept in captivity has increased so dramatically in recent years, it is had to keep up with the husbandry specifics. Heck, just look at this forum; there are 50 responses for any given husbandry question. Some are technically correct, some aren't, and some are based on purely personal experience. Yet in most cases the animals are still alive and thriving. And we're just focusing on a single species!

 

[Krenna]

Well atleast you were there to help out that cornsnake..

 

[sXe_corn_sXe]

one time i went to a petsmart to see if they had any healthy leopard geckos and yes i new that they were a pretty bad place to go, but the other pet store was close on a WEDNESDAY! and i had to go back home the next day (5 hour drive) so i decided to get the leo at that petsmart cuz they really looked pretty healthy and they had a year old leo that looked healthy too that had been there since it was a baby... so i bought the leo and on the way home i saw another petsmart, so i stopped just to look around. They had the worst car of reptiles i have ever seen. they had these little wooden box's with glass on one side with the repiles in the. the leos tails in there looked like shrivled up carrotts! and the cage had spider webs in it!!! i was soo mad, i tried to find the manajor, but i couldnt even find people that worked there!

so not all of them are bad, but there are some way horrible ones too.

and sorry for not talking about corns, but it was about petsmart, so... :grin01:

 

[Azruial]

Wow, I was picking up pinkies for my snake last week at PetCo, and I saw a snake slithering across the floor. I pointed it out to the woman behind the counter, and she said, "Yeah, they get out sometimes" and that was IT. Nothing else, she just sat there and rang up the next person. If she didn't want to deal with it, she could at least have called a fellow employee. I felt like asking if I could keep it if I caught it. :rofl:

 

[blodisnut]

and then there was more....
So I was looking online, and I found a anti petco website run by the nuts at PETA. I think that 70% of what they do is good, its the 30% that drives me nuts.. Anyway, they have a site that tells of all the BS at petco stores. I wish I could make everyone care for critters the right way, but that is impossible.

 

[mbrown]

omg ! my snake is from petco..yea i know...i don't wanna hear it!!! LOL but hes eating good, is healthy and is very tame...but who knows what life he had in there, i wished i could have bought all of them.lol

 

[pcar]

Don't worry about that mbrown...2 of my snakes are from PetCo. The Snow (3 1/2 years old, bought at about 5 months), and the Anery A (about a year old). And both of them are doing fine. I got the Snow as my first snake, and the Anery I bought just recently.

 

[Azruial]

it makes sense that a snake from PetCO would be tame because they live in such a busy place. If you are one of those anti-stress freaks then this is a bad thing but it probably would make the snake more tame.

 

[Yartac]

PETA also nags about pinkies being frozen alive and mice being killed by a swift tug on the tail.. I'm sure you know the method...

Thing is, a mouse lover will hate a snake lover, but you can't turn them all into vegetarians! Heck, then the plant lovers will get mad

Either way, most petstores stink, I don't have experience with snakes much, but I know we have had quite a few problems with petstores and hermit crabs (dont mind me, I'm a hermie lover and I wont shutup about them until I got a snake to talk about ) but also cats and puppies... Heck, ever watched the fish section in most stores? They're basically in over their heads... Not every "expert" knows all species! I prefer specialty stores myself, atleast they know what the heck they are doing.

 

[Flygning]

Thing is, a mouse lover will hate a snake lover, but you can't turn them all into vegetarians! Heck, then the plant lovers will get mad

"I'm not a vegetarian because I love animals, I'm a vegetarian because I hate plants!"

 

[Azruial]

"I'm not a vegetarian because I love animals, I'm a vegetarian because I hate plants!"

Lol, I think that drizzt_19's signature was:
"Vegetarian: (N) Native American word for "bad hunter""