Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I know neither pet stores can take care of their pets, but which do you think is the better quality store with supplies? What about purchasing pets? PetCo or PetSmart?

Depends on the supplies you want. I shop at Petsmart for cat/dog food but Petco has more reptile supplies. I bought my first corn snake at Petco (Petsmart don't have snakes) and she seemed in good health. That was a year ago and she is doing great.
Petsmart is cheaper price wise on cat/dog food but I go to Petco for snake food. I feed F/T. Petco also has more reptiles for sale, at least the one I go to.

I worked at a petco for 3 years. The conditions were pretty crappy at first, but truth be told, the reptile care depends strongly on how much the animal people care for them and how hard they work. In my deffence, i did all i could and more for my reptile section, and i was fairly proud of it. It really depends on the staff and how much they are willing to fight for superior animal care. If your particular petco seems full of idiots and morons, dont shop there.
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"i wasn't born with enough middle fingers"

1.0 ball python- Azazel
1.0 columbian boa- Brooklyn
1.0 JCP-Milton
1.0 red blood python-Hiss
1.0 peach phase thayeri-Sancho
0.1 creamsicle corn- Pandora
1.1 hognose- Pricilla and Odd
0.1 russian tortoise- Manja
0.1.1 leos- Boji and Kodama
0.1 beardie- Indie
1.0 BTS- Griffon
0.1 Iggy- Sunny
0.1 pacific parrolet- Mishka
1.1 cats- Cairo and Oberon
1.4 ratties Rizzo, Bree, Blitzkreig, Raisin, and the Runt (R.I.P. Willard. )

Depends. The petsmart around me is great for cat/dog supplies as well as 'some' reptile supplies such as heat bulbs.They also have a better stock of fish supplies. The petco has a little more to pick from when it comes reptiles but they are EXPENSIVE. They had a normal ball python and were trying to cheat people by selling him for 69 dollars. I said to the manager..Is that the right price for this snake? He said yes,that is the normal rate for a ball python. I told him I can get captive bred ball pythons for as low as 20 dollars and he called me a liar! This guy was so ignorant I went and got this local pet store flyer and took it back to the manager the following week and showed him. He said 'they can't be as healthy as our snakes or they wouldn't be as cheap'. I told him,I know the guy who runs this pet store and his snakes look better then yours AND he has a feeding/sheding chart for each snake.I don't goto petco for anything anymore cause they don't know anything about any animal they sell.

Inside one of the garter snake tanks was another smaller tank. I thought the snake might have been gravid and has babies but to my shock they had two house gecko's being tormented my the garters that were trying to get inside! I bought both of them just because I figured these little dudes wouldn't stand a chance with the stress or happen to have one of the snakes pop the lid off the little plastic tank they were in.

I don't shop at petco anymore and only goto petsmart for dog food/cat food. I hit my local smaller pet stores for all my feeders including crickets,mice,waxworms or meal worms. I also buy my snakes from a local pet store. The guy who runs the reptile section of the store has been breeding exotic reptiles for 25 years and deals with a lot of king snakes/milk snakes/pythons and various corn/rat snakes.He also has captive bred dart frogs,bearded dragons and collar lizards. He had a morph reticulated python that was priced at 5,000 dollars and someone actually bought the thing! The guy knows what he is doing,shows the customers his breeder racks,his current stock and what he is expecting.I think he ships a lot of stuff to other pet stores looking for reptiles.

Sullman;

Actually, 69 bucks seems pretty normal to me for a retail ball python. A retailer who is selling a true captive bred ball python for twenty dollars isn't making anything at all on it. The breeder must have sold it for ten dollars. If you bred your own ball pythons, would you want to let them go for that cheap? And of course the retailer must feed the snake weekly until it is sold, house it, keep it warm, and so on. So in the end, the retailer selling the ball python for twenty dollars probably loses money on it. So I wouldn't get all wound up over the incident. I'm not supporting chain stores (frankly, I hate them), but the manager of the store you went to had a point. And many people will gladly pay 69 bucks for a CB ball. I personally have sold baby ball pythons for 99 and STILL do. I really don't think your Petco is hurting.

Joe
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2.2 Solomen Island ground boas
0.1 Solomen Island tree boa
1.0 green tree python
1.0 jungle carpet python
1.0 coastal carpet python
1.0 Boa constrictor imperator
0.1 Borneo short-tailed (blood) python
1.0 CB sunbeam snake

I know they aren't hurting at all but they are the most expensive pet store around here and everyone in the store knows nothing about reptiles or fish. The guy that was selling the CB ball pythons for 20 dollars breeds them himself and had about 50 of them. He had a 'weekend' sale selling them for 20 dollars to sell some quickly I guess.Last time I was in there he only had about 7-8 left so I guess he sold most of them.He only sells the CB baby ball's once a year and if he has about 40 pythons at 20-40 dollars a piece he makes a nice little chunk of change for a small pet store.He normally sells CB baby balls for 40 dollars.He also breeds his own feeder mice also so it doesn't cost him much to feed the snakes when he has racks filled with all size rodents.

The ball pythons are the cheapest snake he sells and since he breeds them in large numbers selling them locally for 20 dollars the guy makes money.I bought my 50/50 banded cali king snake from him for 70 dollars but the king has near perfect bands so I thought that was a good deal.
I was just suprised the manager from petco was getting cocky with a customer.I wasn't being nasty to the guy I just said you know there are places selling these things for a lot cheaper and he took offense.They are really over priced. They had 29 gallon 'critter cages' for reptiles that were priced as 99.99! I went to another pet shop that just opened up about a month ago to see what they had and they had the same exact thing for 40 dollars so I bought one for my King Snake. I think this place is a small chain ... pet supplies & something...I forget the name but they have a lot of nice stuff with reasonable prices.

The reason why chain pet stores like Petsmart and Petco sell snakes such as ball pythons between $60-100 is because their reptiles are treated by vets, checked thoroughly for any illness, and are guaranteed for up to 30 days after purchase. All the reptiles that are sold by Petco and Petsmart are captive breed and not acquired in the wild. As im sure you all now, reptiles that are caught in the wild are almost always afflicted with either mites or sickness. There is high over head for chain reptile retailers to sell exotic animals.

I personally purchased my ball python at a Petco. I purchased him for $30. It was a baby python. The store was selling the last lot of ball python's they had, and thats why I got him so cheap. I have had my ball python for a year and has never had any illness related problems.

Both Petco and PetSmart in my area are very clean and impress me far more than the small family owned mom-n-pop type stores. They all have expensive prices to me. I buy my feeders and snakes from the reptile shows. I buy supplies online.
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Check Out My Albums

1.0 Ball Python "Aragorn"
1.0 Kenyan Sand Boa "Gimli"
1.0 Saharan Sand Boa "Frodo"
0.1 Rough-Scale Sand Boa "Arwen"
0.1 California Kingsnake "Gentoo"
1.0 Mexican Black Kingsnake "Indigo"
1.0 Snow Corn snake

0.1 Australian Cattle Dog/Pointer
"Kira"

The petco ware i live will hire anyone they made were always dirty as well.My friends sister used to work there but she knew it she tried to make it cleaner but they fired her with some excuse or somthing.But i would never ever purchise frome petco.
Zach G

http://www.arbreptiles.com/extremists2.shtml
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