Posted by:
trpnbils
at Wed Dec 29 14:52:07 2004 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by trpnbils ]
If you're new to the world of reptiles (or proper animal care) and don't understand why experienced people usually say to avoid pet stores when looking for an animal, read on. For everyone else, I just figured I'd share this.
Over the holidays, my grandparents had mentioned that they were in the local pet store getting fish food and they happened to see a really unique-looking snake while they were there. They couldn't remember what kind, but they described it to me and they said that it was some kind of milk snake. I was driving by there today so I thought I'd stop in and see what it was. The first thing I noticed when I went inside is that the whole building was cloudy from cigarette smoke. This place has a lot of different stuff like dogs, cats, birds, reptiles, etc. All things that probably aren't going to benefit from breathing smoke all day long. Anyway, I went over to where the reptiles were at and I found what I assumed was the snake. It was marked as a Sinaloan but it was hiding under an empty water dish so I had to wait for one of the employees to come over so I could get it out. Aside from it having no water, it ended up being a 20" tricolored Honduran (and for $240! I've never been in the market for a Sinaloan, are they really worth that much of a mark up?)
But anyway, while I was waiting, I started to look around at the other reptiles. Among what I saw was a green iguana with no water and a disgusting cage (I'm not sure how long it hadn't had water, but this was at 3 in the afternoon, so they had plenty of time to fill it). It was laying up near the glass, so I was able to get a good look at it. It was in really sad shape, it was malnourished, and it had mites all over its face. There were probably 15-20 aquariums there with various snakes/lizards in them and they were all dirty. I'm not talking about missing a cleaning day, some of the single snakes had multiple sheds lying around. Some of them had to have been like that for several weeks at least. There was also an aquarium with green tree frogs. Aside from not actually being green tree frogs (I'm not sure what they were exactly, but they were some other kind of tree frog), the aquarium itself had sand substrate, a plugged in heat rock, a water dish big enough for 1 frog (out of the 3 I saw in there). The other 2 frogs were covered in sand, sitting on the bottom near the back. I'm not entirely sure they were even alive.
Eventually, somebody came back and got the milk snake out for me. Snakes are supposed to be odorless. This one's substrate hadn't been cleaned in so long that it actually gave off a completely disgusting smell (no, it didn't musk me, but that was my first thought). It had some kind of infection in one eye, but its vent was clean. I actually had to change my clothes when I got home to get that smell (well, that and the smoke) off of me.
Sooooo, if you've never been sure why people say it, THIS is why pet stores aren't the best place to buy reptiles (or much else from what I saw). My question is, can anything be done about a place like that, or doesn't anyone of authority care enough about stuff like this to make it worthwhile bringing it up?
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 I saw something today that really bothered me... - trpnbils, Wed Dec 29 14:52:07 2004
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