Reptile & Amphibian Forums

So i take my bp to the vet yesterday to get him checked out, he was havin bubbles around the mouth and such. The vet also told me that he has low muscle tone, is gassy, and very underweight for his size. They did a fecal smear and found that he has no parasites, but lots of bacteria. He's also got lots of mucus around the inside of his mouth, which may be preventing him from flicking out his tongue. They gave him some Ceftazidime for the bacteria, some oral worming, just in case there were some parasites in there, and told me to call the pet store i bought him from to let them know. So the pet store is called, and they tell me that the batch that my bp was in was taken back by the breeder! So the pet store knowling sold me a sick bp to make money? The warranty agreement i signed with the pet store said that i was getting a "healthy and free of illness" animal. Could having him in my house caused his sickness or was he sick when i bought him? The pet store offered us to trade in our snake for a yearling bp, this is right after we just spent $95 at the vet. My girlfriend wants to keep him, but i don't want a snake that is going to die, i want a healthy one. siiigh. Sorry if this sounds like rambling, i am just upset that i think the pet store knowingly sold me a sick snake. Thanks for listening, any ideas would be great.

Brian

Get your money back. They breached a contract, so the remedy is up to you. You can try to get them to cover the vet bill, as well, but good luck there. Small claims court would likely make them cover that cost as well, so if it's worth the trouble of filing to you...

Why would you EVER want to get another animal from that store? Don't take the trade, unless you are craving punishment.

I wouldn't want another animal from there, EVER! However, Monty gobbled up one of their frozen mouse...

The freezing process will kill bacteria, so I wouldn't worry at all about that.

They fed the other bp babies live mice... I switched to F/T THANK GOD

Don't count on it. Some simply go dormant during the freeze process and are more than happy to awake when thawed. There was a great discussion about this on the Chondroweb a few years back. Maybe you can look through the archives.
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Jay A. Martin

Ahhh...one less positive reason to use f/t.

that stinks I M sorry that that happened.I would give it back and I( would find a good breeder 2 buy from next.

I'm an assistant manager at a small, independently-owned pet store, and we have had several instances where breeders have knowingly sold us less-than-quality animals. Sometimes the signs are obvious (we had a batch of ball pythons come in at one point with ticks all over them... you can bet we stopped ordering from them!) but there have been times that the problem didn't show up until the animal had been sold. I'd say that there's a fairly good chance that your pet store had no idea there was anything wrong with the snakes, and that they didn't contact the breeder until the remaining snakes started exhibiting the same symptoms yours did. Unfortunately, there are quite a few pet store employees who know surprisingly little about the animals they sell... once, after we'd hired a new employee, I came into work to find feeder crickets in the redtail boa's cage. (Sigh... )

However, if you were given a health warranty with your snake, and you were sold an unhealthy snake, the pet store is definitely obliged to refund your money. But I would have to say that, speaking from personal experience, I would say that the chances that your pet store ignorantly sold you a sick snake are higher than the chances that they knowingly did. Ignorance is never an excuse, but as long as your pet store holds up their end of the warranty and rectifies the problem, I would not hold them entirely responsible. And perhaps they will learn a lesson from this... they need to have their animals vet-checked before offering any sort of "health guarantee."

At any rate, I wish the best for you and your BP.

Well, for now he is still alive, but it's hard to tell if he's getting better cause he just lays around lol. Tomorrow i am taking him to the vet for some more antibiodics. When we called the pet store the first time to let them know that the python was getting mucus bubbles they didn't sound too surprised and just told me to turn up the heat in the cage and wait a week to see what happens. Oh well, you learn from your mistakes...

Hopefully this lil guy makes it...

Brian