In my experience, petco and petsmart love to have any animals that prefer to be housed in groups sitting alone in a solitary cage and any animals that prefer to be sitting alone in a solitary cage housed socially
right??? my petsmart keeps conures separate and they’re always calling to each other (i don’t know much about bird behavior but i’m pretty sure conures are social) yet they cohab pretty much all of their herps
@@robin-oi3stthey are very social. I think theyre concerned about the risk of them fighting and hurting eachother (which is possible and honestly likely if they are not gradually introduced) more so than the small animals for example because of how expensive they are.
@@deadmeatjbyep, i have. i got a sucker fish (i dont remember the actual name) from walmart once, very unhealthy. i was a lot younger though, so i didnt realize i was supporting these corporations and these horrid enclosures.
i worked there and we had one literally bite another mouse’s penis off. it was awful and it died because they have no protocol for helping mice as they’re only “feeders” when they shouldn’t even be fed to snakes…. it was the worst most stressful job i’ve had. i saw so many animals die.
Fun Fact! Places where you can buy animals such as Petco don't require their workers to know anything about the animals they sell, so take everything they say with a grain of salt. This very same reason is definitely why some of these animals weren't kept in optimal conditions.
This is why you shouldnt impulse buy pets. Most people go to a pet store and go "hey! -insert very specific question-" and then get incredibly mad when the employee doesnt know or answers with something they read out of those shıtty pamphlets and the animal dies a few weeks later. Like dude, just do a few weels of research before buying.
Also i dont blame the employees for not knowing or keeping the animals in poor conditions. They are just people who were "trained" and trying to make a living. Who we really need to be pissed at is the disgusting corporate machine that sees pets as collectable items and not living beings
I find they’re especially bad about fish, particularly bettas and goldfish. It’s very sad to see employees telling customers to create inhumane living conditions for their pets because the employees don’t know any better and the store doesn’t care
@@Cope.Seethe.funny enough people get mad at me and my coworker for knowing what we are talking about. Because we tell them no to animals that they aren’t gonna properly take care of or wouldn’t be the best fit for them. We both own multiple reptiles and people still think their minimal care is better
@@gamesgames3318 okay hear me out.. who gives a fuck? Taking wild animals and holding them in cages for your amusement is fucked up and abuse no matter how good the cage can be. Pet stores are temporary homes for animals so that other people can buy them and give them proper homes. If you think pet stores are bad you really should see the breeding farms that we get all our beloved animals at. The only way to properly cate for an animal is too not. Humans intervening with wild life has never been a good thing. If you want a pet at some point down the line animal abuse is ganna happen. Between puppy mills other people stores no matter what you can think of they arent being taken care of how they should. Because you cannot recreate nature. You can try but there will always be 4 walls surrounding that animal. Pet stores are honestly the best kept the majority of animals will ever be. Cause half the people who buy the animals have no fucking idea what day of the week it is let alone how to properly cate for them.
Former animal rescue vollunteer. My Rescue once took in 16 cockatiels that were siezed from a PetCo because of neglect. Never worked with such savage birds in my whole life, and I grew up around some crazy roosters! One of my friends just had one of her snakes eat the other snake. They had cohabitated for just over 2 yrs. She was super surprised because "the snakes are always together at the store though!"
Yess. This is something people don't understand about solitary reptiles. Cohabitating snakes is dangerous. The snakes tolerate each other... until they don't
It’s really annoying when people don’t do their own research though. You’d think they’d have heard at least once in their life “don’t go off petsmart/ petco rules and do your own research”, but they either somehow never got that advice before, or completely ignore it because it’s more expensive to listen to it. petsmart and petco can keep doing what they do because people impulse buy and don’t *really* care about the best possible living situation for their pets so long as they get what they want
I always feel that way about hamsters. 🐹 not a super expert or anything, but I’ve owned enough hamsters to know the dos and donts. Biggest thing that gets me is the size of cages and wheels they sell.
i dont own rodents but i do a ton of research on them (rat dreams… one day) and OH MY GOD do the rat sections at my local petco make me furious. the little tank thing they keep them in is absolutely tiny and (im not sure of exact size) likely not even big enough for mice. they keep two male rats in there with nothing but a wheel too small for them to run on, a single, slightly transparent hide, a food bowl and a water bottle. i want to sweep them up and sprint home with the poor rats but at the same time i dont because they likely wouldnt make good pets (sorry little ratties)
Used to work for petco. My general manager had recommended to a customer to get calcium sand for their reptile because "they could eat it" if they needed calcium. I corrected him on it and he said that he's always been told they can do that. 💀 tbh if you love animals, don't shop there or work there. You will wear yourself out if you care too much.
I know a guy who works at a Petco, simply so he can do his best to get the reptiles and birds out. He was a full time Vet Tech, for an exotics vet, but now hes a manager at a Petco in Mass. His petco is the only one i have been in where the animals are kept in reasonably proper tanks.
I shop there because it’s the only place near me that I can get supplies for my pets, and my petsmart honestly isn’t that bad when it comes to animal care
@@sir_freezy4933 yeah, petsmarts are better but both still have unfortunate conditions for animals like fish, birds, and mice. But Petsmart at least tries, and a lot of them have vet clinics built-into the stores, as well as pet adoptions once/month, meaning that volunteers from the shelters are at the stores as well as vet techs and animal lovers hanging around all the time- so the workers have to stay on their game unlike Petco. Also... Petsmart leans toward adoption, except with small animals and reptiles. Larger birds and larger mammals, they're adoption friendly and aren't selling or promoting breeding practices, whereas Petco is SELLING kittens, puppies, bunnies, parrots, large exotic reptiles, etc. Petco does not care, and I've seen some very sick sad looking puppies and cats stuck in Petco's cages- heartbreaking 💔 Petco is kind of like the walmart of pet stores, and Petsmart is like the Target. Petsmart at least has a heart and code of ethics.
@@bodyofhope Oh gosh... What you said reminded me of years ago, the local non-profit private shelter would bring adoptable puppies and kittens to the state fair in September, and set them up in the big red barn, along with baby farm animals, like ducklings and chicks, lambs and kids, etc. All in their each enclosure. But as we were going through, there was a dead kitten! We found an attendant and very discreetly informed her. I hoped it wasn't panluke.
As a Petco employee, I can clear some of these up. Those of us(me) who work in-store have no choice but to do this. We cohabitate our ball pythons, overstock leopard geckos, crested geckos, bearded dragons and more because we have to. Corporate is to blame for this. Why? They continuously send animals to stores, even when there's not enough space. Automatic animal stock orders are filled, sent, shipped, and delivered to stores weekly or every two weeks. We really try our best(especially me, as I'm an avid, extremely dedicated exotic hobbyist) to take the best care possible with what animals we have. It's a business, and we're not expecting to house animals for a terribly long time, which is why we often cohabitate and keep animals in less than adequate space. We employees DO NOT design the habitats, that's corporate. We employees DO NOT set up the habitats with the decor they have because we have a choice, corporate makes us do that. We have policies to adhere to, or else we lose our jobs. I've been in the hobby for 12 years, and take it extremely seriously, it is my passion. However, I do enjoy my job as well. I am an aquatic and reptile specialist at my local store, it's what I've always done. I do not like how corporate sets up these things, and I know you don't either. Just don't blame inadequacies of animal care on us. We literally have no choice but to follow the policies of businessmen who don't know a crested gecko from a leopard gecko. As a final note, I have a rather large collection of exotic plants, reptiles, amphibians, inverts, and many more of my own... Absolutely none of it resembles what you see at my job. I'll be damned if I treat my own pets the way Petco wants us to treat inventory animals in-store.
Corporate does not send you animals... Your store manager orders them from Holmes Farm the biggest pet distributor for petco and petsupplies. There is no Automatic order for live inventory. Go talk to your store manager and tell them to do better... Corporate does not control the animals in inventory your store does...
@@ShiftedGames yeah, that's a bit of a typo. Corporate fills automatic orders and their contracted distributors send them to us, but it is indeed an automatic order, though. We'll get random, unexpected shipments almost weekly from different vendors under different titles. Holmes Farm does not ship to our district. Maybe other stores and state locations are different, but that is how our store runs, unfortunately.
I always get so mad when I see the mistreatment but I have to remind myself that the employees are just doing what they're told. management and the CEOs don't make a point to educate themselves and the employees so how would they know to do any better unless they are hobbyists like you. Thank you for at least doing your part to take care of the ones you can, it makes a difference
This is one of the best looking petcos I have seen in my life. My usually petco stinks and the bird cages have 2 sticks max and one toy. The reptile cages are HALF the size and the betas have brown water. it’s overall really sad :/
@@blakemoreskye222 yeah, since Petco/PetSmart are franchises, the quality of animals depends a lot on the manager. Many of them do not care/have the right knowledge, but occasionally you will find a good store with great care
My local PetCo had a full grown tegu in a 4ft long enclosure, his tail literally smacked one end of the enclosure as his nose touched the other. It was horrible to see…
Friendly reminder please don't take this out on the employees 🖤 I know, no one in the video did, this isn't an accusation. I just know how people can be. I worked at PetSmart 15yrs ago, had a lady throw her bagged fish at me because I told her I wasn't comfortable selling her any more as these put her at max capacity. I've seen the "I know more than you" meme. Plus I've seen so many people online bragging about how they tore into an employee for the way the animals are kept. - standards are set by corporate, employees have no say. - they're (generally) minimum wage retail workers who just needed a job. Often times they're highschool or college kids. - if they cages are dirty or the animals are neglected, bring it up to a manager district manager.... it's most likely because the employees are rushed. They have a checklist to do at open and close, but some managers rush them too much and they don't have time to do everything properly. Complaining to the floor employees won't change anything, and likely they already feel bad about not being able to do things right as most people who work there are animal lovers. Going to the managers is risky, because it's likely they will just yell at the employees and expect them to do it fast *and* properly rather than allowing for more time. Going to district manager *might* trigger them to do a (possibly spontaneous) check in on the store to ensure they're following guidelines set by corporate (which yeah they're far from perfect BUT don't allow enclosures to become dirty or the animals to go hungry) - if you want to complain about the general standard of care, like housing or diet, please contact corporate! again, employees can't do anything about that. Corporate probably won't care, people have been complaining for ages. You can *try* talking to the store or pet care manager. If you're lucky they will car enough to make minor changes, though this is breaking corporate guidelines so not many are willing.
This, my friend worked at petco and only stayed to prevent the animal mistreatment. Only left when she started getting sexually harassed and her mental health was affected by the animal mistreatment by management. It’s important for employees to speak up on the mistreatment as you guys have a front row seat. I don’t blame you, as you are probably not qualified to work there, they just hire cheap labor from teens and others who like animals. Hopefully know something but I’ve heard it’s not a requirement.
I actually talked to someone at a local petco about the improper lighting and setup for the veiled chameleon on display. However, I understand that there is only so much you can do when working for a large corporation with its own specific policies and standards. However, I returned a couple weeks later and was glad to see the veiled getting a t5 ho 10.0 instead of a single incandescent and red bulb (if I remember correctly but either way the gal had no source of UVB) but it’s nice to know that some employees truly care and want to help these animals. This is coming from someone who purchased a young (~1 yr old) chameleon that had started at a petco and had recently ended up at a private reptile shop. She was with me for 5 years before she passed due to a ruptured egg but, in the beginning, she almost didn’t make it through her first clutch of eggs. Due to overfeeding and improper supplements and/or lighting, she ended up with MBD and 75 eggs for her first clutch which is insane.
My local pet smart only has the small cubby cages, and they keep getting in juvenile veiled chameleons, and they keep 1 at a time at least in a 12" x 12" with only a tiny screen about 4"x4" on the top, and the staff has asked me why they stick to the screen. The things are desperate for a breeze, and when they sell the damage has probably been done already by the store. And they keep doing it over and over, like that cube is a Chameleon specific enclosure. It really upsets me, I want to grab them all!
tbh if i were you i would make buddies with a manger at petco and give them your rescue info because people surrender guinea pigs all the time but petco doesn’t always have space for them in the back and if they don’t have space then they can tell people to go to you instead
The number of bearded dragons that would get sick and die due to cohabitation when I worked at PetSmart was tragic. The larger ones would sit on top of the smaller ones and hog food. We tried our best in the PC department to take care of them, like keep small ones separated from large ones if we had any other tanks open, but there was only so much we could do.
I've been working at a petco for almost 4 years now and I'm a manager, and now that I see the behind the scenes stuff, the limits to animals per enclosure definitely is not something I like to follow and we fight with our district leader about stuff like that all the time but a big problem for petco stores is a bad staff who don't know about the care of animals or don't care to learn about it themselves, I like to think that my store has a good staff and we try our hardest to keep our animals in tip top shape given the conditions we have to abide by according to corporate rules, and we have also refused animal sales on multiple occasions because the customers have straight up refused to give the animals what they need. I'm a reptile and fish keeper myself and seeing customers come in and expect to leave with an animal after just learning about them that day is just not adequate for me or the animal itself
I'm happy you're doing the right thing, even if it's not the easiest path And I'm sure those animals are very grateful for your actions too I hope you can keep going and be te change that stores like this need :3
The problem we have is that our GM is a pushover and doesn’t confront the CAL on repeated bad care issues. CAL ‘special orders’ tegu and $1100 ball pythons just to see them, not based on customer orders. We’ve had this tegu in a small cage for months now. Coconut husk, which stabbed his chin and kept getting in the wound which eventually became missing flesh. Spotted the GM about to leave raw meat in the cage overnight from the MORNING feed. CAL carrying around a flighted conure on her shirt all day, letting it fly around the store as it pleases despite the massive risk of it FLYING OUT of the store, being attacked by an animal or scaring guests. Let’s not even mention the fact the same CAL wears the tegu like a hat without supporting it, letting it teeter while walking around. Carry bird and feed snakes at same time? Carry 5 baby beardies on your shirt at the same time? Overstock aquariums but also overfeed and leave food in the sumps so they overflow? Can’t complain enough about these issues and yet GM does nothing. CAL handles infected beardies with coccidia and without washing hands handles the rest of the dragons. I spotted yellow fungus disease and they do nothing and three more catch it and die. I’m just the person at the register, not in charge of these animals, the most I can do is inform and and educate and it PISSES ME OFF when I hear “oh well (CAL’s name) said I could do this” on completely wrong info. No punishments. No care. Sick to death of excuses from people working at my store.
After hearing and reading some comments. I have to live by the best one. They only have 3 leos cohabbing 2 were female. I ended up getting a giant Leo from there. So far he's been doing good. I do want one of the females there.
I work at a PetShmo and I hate that shit, they do it to save money and have more animals less space. They have a limit to how many can be housed in a certain space. But for me it still isn’t enough
I worked at Petco as a Reptile Specialist for several years they fired me when I insisted it takes more than two hours to take care of the 50 animals under my care. That's the reasons every hour the p.a. speaker says, "here at Petco the animals come first" that was our cue to check for dead animals. Couldn't let people see the aftermath of the terrible housing arrangements
I pray that you all randomly find the petco that has some actual passionate reptile keepers. I worked at one that had a few. And none of the animals were ever cohabitated
The Sammamish petco in Washington state used to be stacked with extremely knowledge people but now everyone either got fired for refusing to shove vital care down peoples throats or left
Those chameleons weren't supposed to be cohabbed either. Part of the reason is because of what we saw in the video. They compete for food, and they can injure their tongues going for the same prey. Chameleons need their tongues to eat on their own. A minor injury to the tongue can result in needing to assist/force feed them for the rest of their lives. Those were also two sub-adult/adult males. Best part of it all, pet stores that carry chameleons don't have the supplies needed to keep chameleons alive.
You should have checked out the beardies, they’re ALWAYS way too humid which is especially bad for babies-which is what they have!! The pore dragons are nearly sweating.
I bought a saggy aquarium plant from petco. i also bought some moss that ended up being dead, and I bought a container of earthworms that, upon opening, were all dead and covered in alien like mold 😅
Funniest thing, when I went to go get my pet rats from Petco (female) they apparently only have female rats, but literally I was looking at the rats in one straight up gave birth in front of me. They had to figure out which one of the rats were male lmao
My *favorite* is how they house their chinchillas. No dust baths, paper bedding that blocks their digestive system and kills them, plastic huts that do the same, too small a space, wrong temperture (which gives them SEZIURES) and the wheels are ridiculously small and damage their already floating ribcage. ALSO Chinchillas are typically not pets for children, and they're advertised like they are! Pisses me off to no end
I hated working at petco. We had a certain type of lizard at one point and one guy came up to me and said that they didnt look right (i dont know much about reptiles i was more familiar with the rodents) so I went to our CAL at the time (the guy that creates the enclosures and takes care of the animals) and he just brushed it off. Then one day another employee that i worked with showed me how an app that shows how to set up each enclosure for each animal and we find out that the lizard that he put in a desert habitat was supposed to be in a “jungle” habitat. Not to mention the harassment from all management from my assistant manager to the district manager.
hi i work at petsmart 90% of the time we dont and cant control what animals the vendors send us. if they send us 4 snakes and we only have one free enclosure, thats just how it has to be. people who know about the animals they work with are the saddest to work under these conditions. i am sad.
Worked both places (as a dog bather), and I always asked. It's the higher ups that mandate this stuff and if it's not what they think is right, you get fired. It's insame
Getting around the highly inappropriate enclosure and cohabitation (which I will mention is a major flaw at such big box pet stores), the animals seem (at least) mildly healthy. I’ve found a very emaciated ball python (on the brink of starvation) at my local store, and cohabitation with various animals (which should not be kept together). As a side note, when did Petco start selling plants?
great question, and I'm not sure. It almost feels like they're trying to keep up with the improvements in the hobby but leaving some standards in the dust
@@CaylorsReptilesAquatics Regardless, cohabitation is still a bad idea for the majority of species they sell. It’s extremely stressful for them, and there’s a high risk of any of the individuals being cohabitated to get injuries or even pass away.
You want to know what's bad.... I worked a pet store one time. The owner was definitely only there for the money and nothing else. Would sell feeder mice and he had so many mice in one rank that they would start eating each other and I had to be the one to clean it up so customers wouldnt see it... Thank god the store is now closed.
As a fish keeper my best advice to the people that want to buy a pet, DO NOT BUY THEM FROM BIG LEAGUE FRANCHISES!! They do not take care of their animals at all, and you'll end up with a pet that has so many diseases or is on their last legs.
My local "pet shop" is like that too, so horrible giving out the worst information, and they can't even count crickets and oh, they won't sell us live mice because they know we have snakes. We ask for like 10 dozen crickets and get maybe 2 dozen.
I remember about 8 years ago I went into Petco and saw a tank filled with atleast 15 bearded dragons literally piled up on eachother without proper heat or lighting, and there was a thin, malnourished one at the very bottom of the pile. At the time, I already had two Bearded dragons and couldn’t afford a third, but I wasn’t gonna let this guy possibly die. I asked the worker for that one specifically, and started drilling the guy with questions regarding why they aren’t getting the right care at all, and he said it’s because the tanks have to be “exactly what corporate wants, and wishes he can change their setup.” I bought him a 20 gallon tank, correct heat bulb, and uvb fixture, and took him home. When I put him in the tank, he literally couldn’t walk in a straight line and couldn’t keep himself upright, continuously flipping on his back. Thankfully after 3 days of force feeding him crickets and receiving proper care, he made a full 100% recovery-although he absolutely despised me by biting and hissing at me(I guess as a thank you for bringing him back to life🤣🤣). He is now over at a family friends as his forever home, getting spoiled, although I’m not sure if his temper ever changed. I don’t blame the guy for having a temper though after everything he’s been through. For this reason, I will never buy a pet from petco, and avoid this company at all costs. Please, don’t support this company. They’re sick.
Yeah they’re the worst, I’m a rat fanatic and I always tell anyone interested in rats never to go to a pet shop, but especially petco. Some locations have literally thrown animals into the trash if they got sick.
I used to work for petco and it sucked. The people I worked with genuinely cared(not saying that’s true everywhere but at my store it was) but we weren’t given the proper equipment or resources to care for the animals we cared for. And whenever we would make a change to try and benefit them corporate would get us in trouble☠️
Yeah, let's bankrupt our company so that a few people who complained get their way. These companies are only in the business of making money and its not going to change. I must add that I believe these stores should not be in the business of keeping and selling animals but the truth of the matter is that money drives everything and this stiff will continue so long as they can make millions off ignorance.
Dang, that's bad. We have a petsmart in our area and I think only a few geckos are ever cohabbed but other than that all the reptiles are happily solitary. I always cringe at the look of the betas though. They can't be put together because of their aggression but their little plastic containers seem so inhumane 😢
I would never buy anything at Petco. We have an excellent local establishment here in my city that sources its animals from reputable breeders and hire knowledgeable staff and pay them an excellent wage.
You would think that in this day and age that a big chain pet store would actually do research as to how to care for these animals correctly and not cohabiting, absolutely shocking.
“I love birds, I love how quiet they are”. Got screamed at through my staff meeting yesterday because one of their two food bowls had no seeds in it. So tranquil.
One time my friend saw a dead conure in the cage and told an employee and they laughed and said “Aw dude you’re a real one!” and gave her a high five. Don’t buy from these places.
@@feuerlingthe good thing is that the budgies look healthy and it looks like they are happy with the amount of enrichment. For a chain pet store it isn't the worst
As much as I hate how cramped it is, the enclosures are temporary and I've noticed some workers there work really hard trying to make sure that when they do adopt out an animal, it's going into a proper setup
Sadly that's not the case everywhere..I've heard so many stories of people buying an animal from places like in the video and the employees told them to grab the worst possible stuff (tiny cages, low quality bedding, ect ect). And even if it's "temporary" it's not healthy for these animals and causes them to die or fight eachother to the death! That's not ok. These animals aren't there just for a day..sometimes it takes them days to get sold off, or weeks! If they can't properly house animals they shouldn't have them at all, let alone the fact they don't know proper care or housing sizes (for tanks and cages) or whether an animal should be with another. Many employees don't know much about the animals and just suggest what the company tells them to, the rare gems are the animal owners who work at them and give proper knowledge and refuse to sell to bad owners.
That’s not a good reason tho, even if it is temp ( which is an if as it can take time to get adopted) it’s still abuse. Like look at the poor betas that are kept in CUPS at pet stores. There needs to be change, no animal should spend more than a few days in improper environments.
Sounds like the petco near you is run by people who know nothing about what they are doing. The petcos by me have good base level employees that actually care
It's all petcos. Only difference is if there's any employees who actually know about animals! Employees aren't required to know anything about the animals..Employees who know better may be able to whine enough to change how stuff is run slightly but there'll still be abuse to some extent and animals coming in from mills
“I love birds so much, I love how quiet they are” aha dude I wouldn’t describe parrots as “quiet” 😭 they seem quiet but then they throw a fit or do their flock call and suddenly you loose your hearing, imagine a screech the sound level of a gunshot or higher, now imagine that constantly throughout your day
I complained to petco corporate on Twitter of all things about how my local one was treating the birds. The next time I went the birds were unable to see each other (which was stressing them out beforehand) and their cages were spotless (completely filthy before). There was also a cockatiel plucking itself and now that one is completely separated from the other birds in the back with its own big cage. Guess corporate actually cares, it’s the locals running the places that suck
I think it’s that you called them out in a public space like Twitter. Tons of people can see it and get angry so the company tries to quell it by making it better. If you did it in an email or to a manager or something you probably would have been brushed off.
Not petco, but st petsmart their ball pythons enclosure was at 50% humidity with one small plants and a hide. They also keep green and brown anoles together, despite brown anoles being known to eat them? The rest of their animal setups suck too, I frequently see tiny wire wheels in rodent enclosures, which caused spinal issues and their feet and be caught and severly injured 🤦♀️
@@caoka4581 I think it just depends on the management. I've been to a petco that had an awesome reptile setup, all of them were well cared for, and there was good info on the animals. But their rodent section still sucked lol.
Interesting that it depends on the place. The petsmarts near me suck and always have dead fish and sickly looking exotic animals and my petcos actually have decent care, even handling reptiles and other animals in slower store times to get them used to people
@@blakemoreskye222 it's because PetSmart and Petco are franchises. The quality is based on how much the manager cares. Some managers really care and focus on hiring good employees, other managers only care about dogs/cats I only have PetSmarts in my area. Most of them are average, but one is really good (ask for tank before selling animals, fairly good care etc.) and one is really bad (beardie in a 10 gallon, dead and sick fish etc.)
Ik the rest of the video is sad but the “I love how quiet they are” line for the birds took me out!! As a parrot lover myself I to love the quite ness the bring to my house lmao!!!!😂😂😂
I got my leopard gecko from someone who got him from a pet store where he was cohabitated and he has multiple bite scars and a lost toe from other geckos. He is still very skittish with me even after months of living with me. If he sees his own reflection in his enclosure wall he will try to attack it or run to hide. I love my gecko more than anything and I can’t believe that someone would do this to these poor animals
My parents bought me my second lizard. They got it at Petco. Normally I would never buy from Petco but my parents wanted to surprise me and honestly I’m glad that I got my second lizard from Petco because the lady that was handling him kept trying to pin him into the container and put the lid on first time she got him out he had no issues with being picked up because of her pinning him in the cup. He hates people he doesn’t like it when I go near the cage he doesn’t like it when I put my hand in to remove his food and water dish or refill them and the last time I went to Petco was couple months after my first lizard died. Both of my lizards are crested geckos I wanted to get a chameleon, the chameleons were all cohabited, and they looked fine until we looked at the ground. One of them was sitting there dying, and none of the employees had checked until we went over and told someone. Went back I’d say about couple months later they don’t sell chameleons anymore. needless to say, I will never buy any animals from Petco ever again.
"Fancy bear hamsters" are Syrian hamsters. Both species are easy to care for, but Syrians especially need to be alone, and both must have tons of space (that is very secure because they love love love to escape..). Also, they tolerate being held, but they don't really like it 9 times out of 10. I still recommend them, though, as long as you don't expect a cuddle buddy. Just wish they lived longer than 2-3 years. 🥲
My first ball Python I got from Petco 8 years ago (had no idea what to look for, was 17 and wanted a snake so I went and got one). Looking back, it was actually kind of messed up. They had 8 ball pythons in small tank. I now go to a mom and pop pet store, and I am so grateful to see owners who actually take care of the animals they sell.
I remember seeing some ball pythons with mites. I went to find someone and there was already an employee with a tank that had some mite treatment in it, he said he's the only one who actually takes care of the reptiles and that he's been fighting a mite infestation for months and that was the last tank he needed to clean. He said his shift manager gets mad at him for taking care of the animals and actually caring about them because it means he's not available to help customers. I hope he was able to open his reptile shop he wanted to open.
The thing is and most people don’t realize this, those animals won’t be there long. It’s a temporary enclosure. Same with the cohabitation, they get them and quarantine them than move them to the tanks where they stay for as little as a day. People often see pet stores like zoos and that they need adequate space. It’s more like an expo where you have reptiles in containers all over the place. Atleast here they make it look nice and feed them until they leave
I work for a commercial pet store, not as commercial as petco/smart but close. It sucks that corporate dictates how the animal enclosures have to be set up or how long preparation can be done. Don't even have time to drip acclimate the shrimp. At least we don't co habit the snake or lizards, tho we do have 2 crested geckos together. At least we have to clean their tanks and mist them well. But corporate also dictates we have to use bark or green mats for substrate, not allowed to use coconut Husk. And even tho it's stated pythons should be frozen fed the breeders usually never do, so you're almost always getting a live fed python cause they don't get any consequences. Ugh. Our fish tanks have a lot of aquatic plants tho, which is really nice.
crazy whenever I go to every petco that isn't "mine" I visit I'm glad the one by me, the ppl they hired (especially for fish and reptiles) hire people who already have them as a hobby, and would hide or have gotten rid of fish bowls. also relabeled small tanks as "transportation only" or quarantine tanks
you should try reading all the species names and comparing them to what's actually inside. about 10 years ago I was an inexperienced kid getting my first gecko and I thought I bought a crested, about 3 months in I realized he was a leopard
They’re probably doing that because most of those reptiles are abandoned. I had a friend who worked at a pet store and it seemed like every week someone was dropping off MULTIPLE snakes. She ended up taking most of them home with her. It sucks, but I wouldn’t blame the store, they’re probably doin the best they can with what they have.
As a current Petco GSL manager, I would love my job if they allowed us to do things the right way. I tried telling my animal companion leader and GM it would be a good idea to add a stress coat for the bettas since we quite literally do nothing but put them into water and it would help their coat from the abrupt transition. I had worked at Pet Supplies Plus as the Animal Leader b4 that and we added a tiny drop of Prime and Coat to help. The smallest difference helped immensely there but bc standards are so strict at Petco, it’s not allowed😢
Started at one of these places. Intentionally understaffed to save on money with many employees only getting around 15 hours a week. I've already (in a week) had to turn away a few customers who weren't adequately set up to care for the animals they were interested in. GM practically said that we can't handle and acclimitize animals (feed and clean, you're not here to play with them). Aquatics tanks are pretty much established for what are in them with certain animals only allowed to be 1/tank but still poorly stocked for territorial animals (wrasse bullying a tang, which is probably because the wrasse considers the whole tank its territory from likely being solo in the tank at some point). Lonely anemones and anemonefish (clownfish) because of what "goes" in that tank (no bubble tips in stock with one group of clown fish, no cinnamon clownfish in stock with one anemone). Small snails in every freshwater tank with their empty shells all through the substrates. The salt water tanks are broken out with cyanobacteria because the company doesn't want to pay for UV sterilizers. No phosphate testing. I spend more time on the registers than in aquatics (my department)
As a guinea pig owner, I think every exotic animal keeper can agree that petco sucks at providing an adequate environment for the pets they sale, would it be in-store or through the (often) bad informations they give to their clients
I'm very happy that there's no Petco or Pet smart where I live. I just see fish abuse or neglect at my local pet stores though. Bettas are still kept in cups of cold water in any pet store I go to. I've also seen sick fish a couple times there amd some dead fish in there. I mean, fish can die for many reasons, but it should be removed. The worst case I've seen of sick fish was with pearl gouramis all stuck in like a 10 to 20 gallon tank with fin rot. One of those gouramis was laying at the bottom of the tank, unable to swim up.
They rlly put 2 panther chameleons together, I mean, I get them not caring if their crested and leopard geckos or ball pythons kill each other from time to time, but the chameleons are expensive af and fragile af too, you would think they would actually not want them to die fighting each other
