Ch^4
12-11-10, 08:31 PM
I ran out of F/T for my BP and forgot to order more, so I had to make a trip to Petco.
As always, I like to look at what they have when I make my infrequent trip to the chain pet store. I was utterly appalled by what I saw...
They had 5 baby BPs housed in a very small viv (no surprise). They only had one hide that was so small that it could fit one baby BP (again, no surprise). However, 2 or 3 of the snakes were stuck in old skin (i.e., it appeared that the skin had been there for days, if not weeks, due to poor husbandry). Additionally, 2 of the snakes were horribly underfed and looked like the proverbial bag-o-bones. It was despicable and so I decided to take a couple of pictures.
In the process of taking pictures, an employee came up to me and (kindly) scolded me, asking me not to use my flash. Here's the kicker: He had the audacity to tell me that BOAS are sensitive to flash photography because of---senseless rambling...For one, the label was right there and he still didn't have a clue what type of snakes they were.
I mentioned that the snakes looked unhealthy, sickly and skinny, and he just said that they weren't having luck the last few times trying to feed (understandable with young BPs). I was assuming they weren't eating due to the stress of 5 snakes together, with only one hide.
I also brought up the fact that humidity was way too low for snakes who are having problematic sheds (their hygrometer read 30%--it was a crappy analog hygrometer, but nonetheless, way too dry for a BP). He said they tried putting moss in there; I glanced over, no moss in sight.
Poor snakes. They are going to sell unhealthy snakes to some little kid who doesn't know any better. I don't understand how they can call themselves a pet shop, if their employees don't even know how to properly care for the animals they sell. I don't know if there is anyway to rectify this problem, but I wish I could inform a higher up, or threaten to report them to some agency (I don't think the BBB would work in this situation).
The pictures don't really show the severity of the problems because they were taken on my phone and I'm not a great photographer.
As always, I like to look at what they have when I make my infrequent trip to the chain pet store. I was utterly appalled by what I saw...
They had 5 baby BPs housed in a very small viv (no surprise). They only had one hide that was so small that it could fit one baby BP (again, no surprise). However, 2 or 3 of the snakes were stuck in old skin (i.e., it appeared that the skin had been there for days, if not weeks, due to poor husbandry). Additionally, 2 of the snakes were horribly underfed and looked like the proverbial bag-o-bones. It was despicable and so I decided to take a couple of pictures.
In the process of taking pictures, an employee came up to me and (kindly) scolded me, asking me not to use my flash. Here's the kicker: He had the audacity to tell me that BOAS are sensitive to flash photography because of---senseless rambling...For one, the label was right there and he still didn't have a clue what type of snakes they were.
I mentioned that the snakes looked unhealthy, sickly and skinny, and he just said that they weren't having luck the last few times trying to feed (understandable with young BPs). I was assuming they weren't eating due to the stress of 5 snakes together, with only one hide.
I also brought up the fact that humidity was way too low for snakes who are having problematic sheds (their hygrometer read 30%--it was a crappy analog hygrometer, but nonetheless, way too dry for a BP). He said they tried putting moss in there; I glanced over, no moss in sight.
Poor snakes. They are going to sell unhealthy snakes to some little kid who doesn't know any better. I don't understand how they can call themselves a pet shop, if their employees don't even know how to properly care for the animals they sell. I don't know if there is anyway to rectify this problem, but I wish I could inform a higher up, or threaten to report them to some agency (I don't think the BBB would work in this situation).
The pictures don't really show the severity of the problems because they were taken on my phone and I'm not a great photographer.