Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I'm looking for a male to go with my other three females, someone told me you could get leos at petco, can you?

Yes almost every pet store I have been in carries leos. I would advise not buying from those stores though

why not? do you have any bad experiences with them?

I haven't but many have...

1. They often house all leos of all ages on sand, even hatchlings, bad move... People get them home and they are impacted.

2. They get them from wholesale breeders who don't care about health, just sales.

3. They often feed them inadequet non-live diets.

4. The leos are often severely infested with parasites.

Instead of those kinda places, try finding a small, privately owned pet store, too. I'm very new to all of this myself, but when we went looking for a Leo we tried many chains and places that advertised "Miles of Reptiles". On a whim, we stopped by a small little pet store. They breed leo's themselves and know other people that do, too. Didn't see more than 2 to a cage, etc. Great place, you never know till ya look!

J

i would not get a leo from petco unless they just got them in from 1-2 days. the breeders take really good care of them, but petco does not. here's the story...

for xmas my mom got me a leo from petco. petco had it for a while, and for the week that i had it, it had i got really sick. then i went to petco to talk to them about it, and i saw about a dozen baby 2 month old leos that they had gotten in that very day. they looked absoultly perfect. i decided to exchange my sick leo for oe of those because they said they where going to get it care right away.

Now, i still have that secont leo today, and it is perfect and i had no problems. she has gotten a lot bigger and has gotten ALOT of color. when i go to petco to get crix, i see the same batch that i got my second one from, and they are still really dark, and have not grown, and tails are really skinny.

So what im sayin, is that i reccomend getting it right when petco gets it in, or simply get it off the internet.

i hope this helps

Its pretty disgusting. I go to petsmart, and i see baby leos.. normals, for 60 bucks, and they are without a headpad...or source, their cage is dirty, they are housed with other non leos, allthe lizards are of different sizes, they either have crickets running all over them, or none at all, and everytime i go, i see atleast one dead leo smack in hte middle, thin as a pencil, literally, or baby leos would be stuck in the sliding door track, dead and smashed. Its a really horrible sight to see. I was wondering if I could do anything about it... like ASPCA... animal cops or whatever, butI don't know. Next time i go to petsmart, and see bad living arrangements, I'm going to atleast talk to the manager. It tears me up inside to see this. And people buy them, and put them in small small small kritter keepers, and no one tells them otherwise. It is just atrocious. I would never buy a leo, or supplies, from a branch store like petsmart. Everything is overprices, and dirty, or in bad healt. I don't mean to cause controversy, but I call it as I see it.

You are right on the dot.

Most of the time SPCA doesn't deal with reptiles unfortunately because the officers don't like them and/or doesn't see them as deserving of being saved... Sad, huh? I have watched a good deal of animal cops shows, and I can't recall a single incident of them going to a pet shop or dealing with anything except the occasional snake.

They only deal with cute animals that can be adopted fairly easily.

The SPCA will rescue reptiles...Or you could at least call them and ask for a number of someone else to call. You could also look up the state DNR online...that sounds like an incredibly terrible pet store...It amazes me what some places can get away with!
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Christina

1.3.1 leos
-0.1 tangerine het rainwater albino w/jungle background (Blinkers)

-0.2 jungles (Vahz & Skissor)

-0.0.1 albino (supposed Tremper)(Spitfire)

-1.0 tangerine rainwater albino (Bronx)

1.0 Australian Shepherd/Cattle dog cross (Foster)

wow, that really is sad. and i thought petco really had it bad. you should really do that animal cop thing. i see that show on animal planet.

I think it would probably be better to get one they had for a long time...assuming they knew how to take care of...the breeders they usually get them from take adequate care of the babies...but not great care....and very often they're very inbred. The problem with getting a leo that the petstore just got a day or 2 ago is that if there was any disease present in the enclosure (that they probably didn't sterilize after whatever was in there before), the new animals might not present any signs of disease to you for over 2 months...After that long a petstore won't do anything about it. Also, if they've had the leos for a while you can see how they take care of them and if they show any signs of disease. Now there are a Decent Petcos and PetSmarts...but most are just not good. I got Spitfire from a PetSmart...they'd only had her a day, but all of their other animals looked healthy, and they had an older leo who was healthy that they'd had since he was a baby. I wouldn't have gotten her (she was kept on sand...was skinny...and had A LOT of shed stuck on her), except that they'd only had her on it for a day, the retained shed was probably due to stress, and the fact that all the other animals they had appeared healthy. Luckily she's still healthy...but she's still got another month and a half or so of quarantine...hopefully what I've seen of her so far is a sign of what's to come! Anyway...you'd definitely best off getting a leo from a breeder. There are a lot online, and most of them are really good...I'd reccommend www.crestedgecko.com...Garrick is a great guy to deal with and his leos are fantastic (I got Bronx from him)!...just make sure he types in the right address...lol
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Christina

1.3.1 leos
-0.1 tangerine het rainwater albino w/jungle background (Blinkers)

-0.2 jungles (Vahz & Skissor)

-0.0.1 albino (supposed Tremper)(Spitfire)

-1.0 tangerine rainwater albino (Bronx)

1.0 Australian Shepherd/Cattle dog cross (Foster)

As far as petstore leos being inbred, I read this at Ron Tremper's site:

"Line breeding or breeding siblings together is not detrimental. My colony of non-albinos has been inbred and line bred for 25 generations with no ill effects."

So inbreeding isn't as horrible for most lizards as it is for mammals. I know Tremper's albino line seemed to have started or at least push forward with inbreeding with no side effects so that isn't a problem with petstore leos. And I agree with others that there are good stores and bad stores. At the same time, some small "mom and pop" pet stores can be as bad or worse than the larger ones. There is a horrible one here in Columbus, and even after all the trying to close it it's still alive. It's a horrible sight in there, I went and couldn't believe what I saw It's so gross. But I can say where I work we are so careful about all of our reptiles. No sand for any, because well they don't need it and we never have adults we sell them so quick! We sell more leos than any store in columbus (that's pretty easy seeins as I've sold 3 in one day before, because they are great new starter pets or just all around GREAT pets) But if you want some great leos come visit me in my store in Columbus, OH! I don't know where we get them from, I just know it's a breeder in Dayton. But we've never had a return, and the only problem we've ever had is a woman whose leo ate 2 dozen crickets every week and she liked giving her sales person a hard time! lol If you're getting a leo from a petstore, just use common sense. If the person helping you knows nothing about them, see if anyone working there does. If no one does, then go to another store. Eventually you can find someone like me or some of my other co-workers who know a lot, and know how to care for them. Good luck in your search!
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-Kristen

0.5 Leopard Gecko (Buttercup, Beaker, Beauty, Blaze, and Bubbles)
1.1 Fat Tail Gecko (Bell and her new boyfriend Bowser!)
0.1 Deformed Leopard Gecko (Gimpy)

Proud owner and operator of a Powerbook G4! Why use windows, when I can use Panther? It even sounds better.

Inbreeding is a problem with any species of animal...linebreeding isn't so bad because you can occasionally outross with a less related animal. Inbreeding brings out detrimental recessive defects that are usually very rare due to genetic diversity. It doesn't matter what the species is, be it reptile or mammal...inbreeding brings out problems. Some petstores get their leos from breeders who started with one pair or group of leos that they've continuously bred for dozens of generations withough a single outcrossing...these animals end up less hardy and smaller, and I'm sure there are other problems, I just don't know what they are.
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Christina

1.3.1 leos
-0.1 tangerine het rainwater albino w/jungle background (Blinkers)

-0.2 jungles (Vahz & Skissor)

-0.0.1 albino (supposed Tremper)(Spitfire)

-1.0 tangerine rainwater albino (Bronx)

1.0 Australian Shepherd/Cattle dog cross (Foster)