Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I had an interview with my local Petsmart store today, they said they wanted someone with pet experience because one of their biggest complaints was "Nobody know anything about what they sell" I have and have had a lot of animals..birds,snakes,rodents,fish,dogs,cats..
you name it. To make a long story short, they were going to hire me until I mentioned that I raised mice. They are afraid I will try to sell people my feeder mice instead of their 4.99 pet mice, which she said that they will not sell as feeders.Who would be crazy enough to pay 4.99 for a mouse for their snake anyway?!? The really stupid part is that she says to me that they are going to be getting in corn snakes, so I said "Are you going to sell food for these snakes you will be selling?" She says, "Oh yes, they eat crickets" I wanted to scream! I told her she was fooling herself and the customers if she thought corn snakes could survive on crickets, and she said "they have been raised specially to eat crickets" What is going to happen to these poor snakes that they sell? I don't even want to think about it. Thanks for letting me vent.

Petsmart and other major chains just need to change their employees.
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0.0 (beginner)

As long as they refuse to hire people who own and breed animals that they sell,they are going to continue to have employees that little or no knowledge of the animals that they are selling. I think they are being a little unfair to the crickets I mean... they are living creatures too, right? Maybe I should start a protest against them selling those poor crickets for food.

haha, selling mammals for food is a lot better
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0.0.1 pacific gopher snake ; Mich
0.0.1 amel corn snake ; Andy
0.0.1 motley corn snake ; Shmee

I have seen pics(Marcel's),and little neonates will eat crickets.As for long term feeding,if they dont die by 3 months old,i dont know.It's the upper management like usual making the stupid calls.The store managers are just your basic moron's that do what there told.My Petstupid is the same way.I like walking in and asking for 30 fancy mice and i have yet made it to checkout before someone tells me they cant sell that many at a time and there store condemns people that use feeder mice and rats.I have made an argument on there feeder goldfish and crickets and mealworms etc.The locally owned petstore i work for a couple days a month sells rodents,all sizes,pinkies to jumbos live and frozen does a killing on them.We even give a few freebies to regular customers everytime they come in.We even beat petco's prices by 30% and take there business.We have loyal happy customers that you can count on comming in and spending a fortune here.While i do feel sorry for there corns,i could care less about the idiots at petstupid...Paul..ps im sure this post will get removed in short order by the mods..

People wonder why I'm usually in a bad mood. It's because stupid people like that can actually survive and reproduce to make more idiots that can plague the people with common sense for all the years to come. I think we should set out posion for them like people do for other pests. That's just my opinion though.

I totally agree about the ding dongs working at PetSmart/PetCo. I am lucky enough to have two reptile stores less then 2 blocks apart and 2 blocks away from PetSmart to get my feeders at. While I'm still allowed in PetSmart (for the moment) I've pissed many an employee off by telling them how to take care of their animals. I've seen Green tree frogs in the same 10 gallon cage with White's tree frogs (can anyone say LUNCH?). I've got on their butts for putting lettuce in with anoles for food and water bowls which they'll never drink out of(I asked the employee if they looked like turtles). I've had the employees tell a mom and kids that anoles were GREAT beginner lizards loved to be held and could live 4-6 anoles (multiple males and females) in a ten gallon cage (I set mom and kiddies straight and they wanted nothing to do with anoles after my advice about their care and requirements). I've dragged over employees and insisted that they correct the conditions of the animals cages like giving them water and food and the fact that, Leopard Geckos DON"T live in a tropical climate and anoles in desert sand. It's probably a damn good thing I havn't seen them ever sell snakes their. I can just see the poor corns and other species dying on crickets (and probably lettuce too with their ignorance)....

I'm SOOOOOO glad I have a good reptile shop near me and a lady that works there that's absolutely great, keeps her animals in spotless conditions, always fed always ready to answer my questions and let me inspect every animal even if I don't buy them. Even though she sells very few reptiles compared to most other shops, she spends enough time with the animals and taking care of them that she puts almost every other reptile shop to shame, even her feeders are spoiled and well fed. Sure she cost more then most shops, but I consider it money well paid.

Thanks for letting me rant too on this, Pet stores are a sore spot with me anymore. I'm too much of an animal lover.
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Chantel a.k.a. sillygirl
"I came, I saw, I adopted"

2.4.0 green anoles
2.2.0 green tree frogs
0.0.3 D. tinctorius (Cobalt froglets)
0.0.1 Anerythristic 'B' (Charcoal)corn snake
2.4 Domestic house cats
1.0 Rottweiler
1.0 Husband (who loves all my critters too)
AND I play foster care for 3 homeless kittens & their mom for a few weeks for the shelter.
(and not even going to count what I raise as food for all these guys)

I had never been in a petsmart before, and I made the mistake of asking if they sold white mice. Man o' man. The kid looked at me like I had just humped his mother and said in a really snotty voice "We don't sell or condone FEEDER mice here" and turned his nose up at me. I wanted to punch him.
So I wandered around a little more and made sure I announced that Petsmart sucks ass so everyone could hear it and walked out.
The petco in my town is actually, surprisingly not that bad. the girls who work there know their stuff and like to help me out.

And i've bred fancy mice to feed. i used to keep the cool ones as breeders and feed the ugly ones to the snakes. i know, it's evil, but my snakes have to eat too.

there's another pet store in a town close to mine...owned by some moe, who i can't stand. i bought a snake from him just to rescue it. it was a 2 foot corn. it was in a large tank, which i have to say wasn't bad, but it had above ground heat, no hide box and a dinky little water bowl.
I felt so bad for it. now it eats like a machine.

anywho,
Petsmart sucks, and if i ever open my snake store, shop there. you won't regret it

There is a chain in Canada called Super Pet. They are exactly like PetsMart, except they carry reptiles and know how to care for them. My local store actually has a reptile supervisor. They also sell feeder mice frozen in all sizes. Great store, lots of supplies and know-how.

So true superpet is a good place.
Demon

I recall reading somewhere that corn snake hatchlings will eat invertibrates but move to mice, lizards and other small animals as they get older. Crickets certainly wouldn't be a healthy meal all the time.

I suspect that petsmart manager probably personally had a thing against feeding mice to snakes. I keep pet mice, breeder mice and corn snakes and have no problem 'stealing' my breeder mice babies to feed my snake (after humanely killing them). I think I would be more upset if I learned they were selling kittens to be used as python food....as kittens are not a natural food source for snakes...most eat rodents, birds, other reptiles, fish and other mammals. House cat kittens don't tend to be running around wild. Pythons may take a Leopard kitten if the opportunity presented itself but deffinitely not a stable diet.

I have to ask. What city is this Petsmart in?
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Chantel a.k.a. sillygirl
"I came, I saw, I adopted"

2.4.0 green anoles
2.2.0 green tree frogs
0.0.3 D. tinctorius (Cobalt froglets)
0.0.1 Anerythristic 'B' (Charcoal)corn snake
2.4 Domestic house cats
1.0 Rottweiler
1.0 Husband (who loves all my critters too)
AND I play foster care for 3 homeless kittens & their mom for a few weeks for the shelter.
(and not even going to count what I raise as food for all these guys)

It's in Evansville,In.
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1.2 Ball Pythons
1.0 Brooksi
0.1 Goini
0.1 Goini x Brooksi
1.1 Blairs Grey Banded
1.1 California Kings
1.0 Normal Corn
1.0 Pastel Motley Corn
0.1 Okeetee Corn
0.1 Emory Rat x Corn