Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Is everyone in this forum totally against Petco? I don't see why everyone hates it so much. I don't know about everywhere else but in my area Petco takes excellent care of their geckos. All of the geckos have nice fat tails and the babies are in completely different tanks then the adults. Also none of the geckos are ever visibly unhealthy when I go in there. They even sometime have females laying eggs in their humid hides. I have bought 3 healthy geckos there in the past two years that are still healthy to this day. Maybe I just got lucky to find a good Petco I dunno. By the way I've looked at all of the pics of the leos in the forum and they are awesome. I haven't figured out how to post pics yet.

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1.2.0 leopard geckos
0.1.0 red eared slider
0.0.1 alligator snapping turtle
0.2.0 african dwarf frogs
1.0.0 guinea pig
0.1.0 cat
0.1.0 black lab
and lots of fish

n/p
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Holy Molly Great Gobs Of Geckos
-Aaron-
1.2 rainwater albinos
0.2 hypo tang
1.4 hi yellow
1.3 tremper albinos
0.1 blizzard
0.1 leusistic
1.1 Patternless het albino rainwater
0.2 Tremper Reverse Stripe Tangerine Albino

Just a question? Why mess with the rest when you can have the best. -Great Gobs Of Geckos-
E-mail me at GreatGobsOfGeckos@yahoo.com

When I got freddy The petco on my side (west) of town had very small babie leos but on the other side of town, (east)(newer petco too) they were alot healthier, all bigger and all had fat tails and hid under the water dish and I picked the most healthy looking one I could find so I got freddie from there and have had NO problems with him since maybe he is lucky I guess all petcos are different.

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thanks for you're help

np
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thanks for you're help

In my area, there are three Petcos and two Petsmarts. Out of those, only one of the Petcos impressed me. They kept the leopard geckos on some kind of bark substrate, but they were all provided with homemade humid hides. The babies were kept separately in an enclosure that was noticeably more humid, and they were inquisitive enough to come out and look at me.

The substrate wasn't the best choice, and neither was the substrate in the humid hides which was the petstore brand terrarium moss. But obviously somebody working there was doing the best that they could. They were making the most out of what resources were available at the petstore, and they had healthy leos to show for it.

A couple of months later, I went back there, and the scene had completely changed. The substrate had been switched to sand, there were no humid hides, poop was piled in the corner, crickets were running rampant, and the babies didn't look so great. So I'm guessing whoever it was that was taking care of the leos no longer worked there, so the store was back to following the normal Petco protocol--display what's going to sell the most products.

So now all of the Petcos and Petsmarts around here are bad. Petsmart pisses me off the most since they're so pretentious about the way they run things. I saw an emaciated baby with sand in its eyes, standing in the water bowl. I was infuriated. I even thought about telling the fake Santa that was taking pictures with the puppies just a few feet away from the reptile display.
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chickabowwow

3.2.3 leopard geckos (Rosie, Locke, Lisa, Caesar, Tommy)

The quality depends on two things-

1. The supplier. The individual stores have no power to change their suppliers. Petco has many across the country, though. The quality of the supplier in my opinion has the most influence on the quality of the animals. Most suck. This is where the animals get crypto and coccidia in the first place.

2. The employees and managers. Sometimes they don't even have time to screw the animals up, but lots of times they do.

The only thing you can do it shop at good petstores and not bad ones, and educate people. Pet stores are where most people get into herps in the first place, and I certainly don't want to see legal restrictions placed on them because of these corporation's irresponsibility. Wish I could just magically make them shape up. Keep in mind that many small time petstores are as bad or worse than these big chains. Blah.
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Peter: It's OK, I'll handle it. I read a book about something like this.
Brian: Are you sure it was a book? Are you sure it wasn't NOTHING?

Petco varies a lot, even within the same building. Sometimes the reptiles look healthy, someitmes they don't. I own a healthy 5 year old leo, and I love him even though he's missing all of his toes and he kept trying to bite me when he was young.

Is when you go into petco or petsmart and some of their animals are taken great care of "Since they sell more of them" like snakes that they have at a Petco near me with big huge cages for one or two. But yet the lizards not just leos are pilled up in a little cave. It so sad. I was mastaken and had bout 3 from a pet store. 2 from petco and 1 from petsmart. Petsmart one died of Coccida and so did one from Petco. The other one from Petco. I have had some problems with. He is real real small for his age. He is about a year old now and is about 8 inches long and weighs 36 grams. He's been to the vet before and over and over again. I have other leos and I get him checked every once and a while to make sure everything is ok. But my vet said that his bloodlines are probably so inbreed thats why he is so small and scranny. I believe that the only thing good about petco is their supplies.

ALicia
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3.6 Leos
Winky, Lenny, & Weemann
Sunshine, Serenity, Daisy, Starburts, Skittle, & Banana