Petco Nightmare (Cohabbing not so great)

:/ Is it really that common for pet stores to do this? I mean, I've seen it, sure, but there also seem to be plenty of BIG stores that don't. Does PetSmart cohab? Always looked like their snakes were separated to me.

Well, there's a number of things you could say in response to this subject:

"You can get it right a 1000 times, but wrong only once"
"Play with fire, you eventually get burned"
"Mess with the bull, you get the horns"

The risk is of cannibalism is small, but we can't measure the stress in a snake. It's a fact that they are naturally territorial. To each their own.

BTW, I've never seen PetSmart co-hab corns, but the store by me has never had more than two or three in stock at a time.

Originally Posted by Nanci

It won't happen to me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! My snakes were raised together and they love each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh! And when I take one away, the other misses him, he is depressed and all he does is HIDE! He must be crying in his little hut



Seriously, thats terrible. And I dont necessarily agree with understanding co-habbing because its a pet store. Ive seen people here with racks that hold oodles and oodles of hatchlings. Really people, plastic containers run 2 bucks here. All it takes is effort and these pet stores giving a flying poo.

If your going to sell monkeys, you have to have enclosure to hold them in. Same with snakes. If you dont have room for 15 hatchlings, dont sell them.

My store has the big vivs, but when they have more then one snake, they put it into a plastic container and then put the container into the viv. So you end up with a viv loaded with containers, but no one can eat eachother. Thats alot better then that

and I just bought my reptile supplies from my nearby petco today...Now I feel like I'm giving them money and telling them.."Hey you guys are doing a great job!"...when their not...this sucks..but I really didn't have much choice..Cyrax needed these supplies asap...::sighs:: Well from now on I'm buying my stuff from reptilesupply.com...much cheaper..and I'm sure the owners of the web site keep their reptiles better then these corp. stores do...

Originally Posted by Jrgh17

It's really great to hear how dedicated you are to your animals. I can clearly see that you would do everything in your power to make sure they live long, full lives.

I was just be sarcastic, you take the worest possible example and put it on here, its petco, how often od they feed them? probably not enough i feed mine plenty so they dont look at each other as food.

and as far as doing everything in my power to see they live long full lives actually i am. i dont see how people can keep them in a plastic bin all that great for the snakes. the snake cant streatch out and does not have that much room to move around in, but i guess thats ok as long as they are not living together a plastic bin is good enough. i guess these people are probably the same ones if they owned dogs that they would keep them outside all the time and say its a dog it doesnt need to live in my house. My dogs are my buddies, the live like me, sit on the sofa and sleep in my bed. i belive the same for my snakes, i give them a good enclosure to live in, plenty big enough to move around, lots of things to crawl and climb on. But since i have two together I'm just harming them.

Personally, I'd rather not see this sink down into another flame war over co-habbing. Bsr8129 clearly has made up his/her mind regarding the issue. If/when something happens, it happens.

Before this turns into a back and forth thing...let's just let it go..some people will always think cohab is okay and some will always think it's wrong..both have valid points but no matter what both will always have their own opinion..so this is a battle that nobody will win...

My local petco cohabs, but at least this one keeps the hatchlings seperated from the adults. My local petsmarts don't even sale snakes, only lizzards and toads.

What is a valid point, my snakes didn't eat each other/become gravid by accident YET? There is no benefit to the snakes by cohabitating- only potential harm.

To someone who supports cohab valid points could be that it saves space, or that then they don't need to buy extra supplies...I'm not even sure what their valid points could be because I myself am not a supporter of it..but..If that is what a person thinks is okay..I'm not gonna try and convince them otherwise because in the end they usually can't be turned to think differently..Me personally..I keep my snakes seperate..but that is just the way I am...