• Hello!

    Either you have not registered on this site yet, or you are registered but have not logged in. In either case, you will not be able to use the full functionality of this site until you have registered, and then logged in after your registration has been approved.

    Registration is FREE, so please register so you can participate instead of remaining a lurker....

    Please be certain that the location field is correctly filled out when you register. All registrations that appear to be bogus will be rejected. Which means that if your location field does NOT match the actual location of your registration IP address, then your registration will be rejected.

    Sorry about the strictness of this requirement, but it is necessary to block spammers and scammers at the door as much as possible.

Pet shop experience

Brionuhh

Quick Learner
I went to a local pet shop, which I didn't even know had any snakes to begin with. There were plenty of beardies, chinese water dragon, collared lizard with a kinked tail, two almost adult balls, a baby ball, sand boa, two western ribbons, an iguana, and a turtle.

The beardies were in great shape, minus one. I later found out he caught his jaw on something in the enclosure and broke it. But he's pretty good besides that. The biggest issue was for all the poor snakes. THEY WERE ON PINE BEDDING. Even the sand boa... The iguana was in a tank that is just barely long enough to fit in. Worst of all, the balls and the sand boa had stuck shed. The sand boa must of had two or three sheds worth on his head and spots throughout the body.

My friend and I were very concerned for the sand boa, so we went and approached the owner of the shop. Needless to say, she had no idea what to do. So for the next couple of hours, my friend soaked the sand boa and finally got all the remaining shed off. During that time, we let to owner know all the things she was doing wrong. Luckily, she was willing to learn and accepted what we had to say. She changed out all the bedding for the snakes to aspen litter, thankfully. Well all but the sand boa, of course. As soon as we fixed him(assuming) up and let him back in his tank, he seemed so happy to burrow around in the sand.

That was our good deed of the day.



Also, I was offered the two Western Ribbon Snakes to take home. Apparently she is afraid of them because of how darty they are. I want to take them, but don't really have any experience. If anyone has information on them, please let me know! I told her I may stop back in a few weeks to check up of them all. And maybe then I would take the ribbons.
 
Well done - nice to know that folks out there are willing to learn when given proper instruction. Don't know about ribbon snakes, though...
 
Great job! You helping her will now continue to be passed on through her to other customers. It sounds like you did a good job of making her aware of how important it is to properly care for her pets.
 
No doubt a good deed. I'm glad the owner listened ^^. Sadly I don't know anything about ribbon snakes.
 
I think ribbons are similar in care to garters. They're pretty flighty (actually the first snake I ever caught was a ribbon!) though, like green snakes. They eat fish and frogs, which is certainly more difficult than mice. Wild-caught ribbons will most likely be more of a display snake, not a handle-able snake like a corn. I'd get more info on the snakes themselves before deciding, but personally I'd take them. This is a cool article: http://www.gartersnake.info/articles/2004/questions-about-ribbon-snakes-in-captivity.php.
 
All a ribbon snake is is a slender garter with a long tail. There care is exactly the same as for a garter. You can co hab them in an apropriate sized viv and feed them chunks of fish fillet and chunks of nightcrawler and worms. You have to be careful with pre-packaged fish fillet as some of it contains a sodium compound that can dehydrate a snake and kill it because a snake's liver can't pass and excrete salt like a human's.
 
Back
Top