I hate my local pet store

rattekonigin · 10-15-02, 03:00 PM

I go in there today to get fuzzy rats, and they only have 4, so I say okay I'll take the 4 and give me some adult mice as well...(the rats are for my boa, the mice for my rat snakes) I get them home and go to separate the rats from the mice and the rats are TOTALLY freezer burnt, but not visibly...they're, like, freeze dried rat fuzzy mummies! I could tell the second I touched them that they were all dried out inside, when I squeezed them they crunched, that just ain't right...and I also noticed that some of the mice I bought had gross crusty ears, which can probably be attributed to ear mites...blech! Not to mention that the last mouse of the lot that I bought the last time I went in there had a tumour thingy on it, so I threw it out rather than feed it to my snake...So that is the LAST time I buy feeder rodents from that place!
I just had to vent.

shimbathesnake · 10-15-02, 03:04 PM

Sound dreadful, Can you bye in bulk? i stopped dealing with petshops years ago, got myself a small second hand freezer and filled it up, I even keep rodents for friends and family in there now :-)

Clem

lance · 10-16-02, 03:36 PM

wow that suxs
sorry to hear that better luck next time

rattekonigin · 10-16-02, 08:08 PM

I got them to take the rats back for store credit...so at least I didn't get totally ripped off, but now I have to go and buy more stuff there to get my credit...*grumble*

Syst3m · 10-18-02, 05:24 PM

I'm just breeding my own now. I've gotten fed up with the quality of rats and mice at my local pet shops. Mice4you is another option, I know their quality is super!

Kyle Barker · 10-18-02, 11:38 PM

I hear you pet stores SUCK!!! i get mine from Ian at mouseman.ca . His rodents are really nice and i have never had a problem. Glad to hear you wont shop there anymore, we need more people hating pet stores

kyle

nighter628 · 10-19-02, 12:47 AM

Was this a big chain pet store? or just a small private owned shop?

rattekonigin · 10-19-02, 12:16 PM

It's a chain store, but not a big chain...as far as I know they only have, like, 5 stores only in montreal...they aren't really bad, the animals are all in okay conditions (Although they had a leopard gecko that didn't look "right" to me, but I don't have experience with them so I can't say for sure), though some of the enclosures seem a bit small...it's just that their frozen feeders are crap, I think those rat fuzzies must've been in the freezer for a LONG time...I imagine they don't sell the rats very often...

Lisa · 10-23-02, 12:01 AM

We get our mice from mice4you, and when we need them in an emergancy "the pet shop" in stouffville. mice4you is way cheaper then what the pet store in stouffville gets them for wholesale.

Richard Welter · 10-23-02, 12:44 AM

I think the best thing you can do is buy a large group of mice and breed them your self. That way you control the quality as well as the quantity. It even helps if you sell mice and rats to friends, because the money you get from them you use to buy more rodent supplies and you never have to sink another penny into it. Thanks Richard Welter

Syst3m · 10-23-02, 08:56 PM

Dear lord richard? How do all of those pinkies manage to get a place at the milk bar?

Richard Welter · 10-24-02, 03:12 PM

When I started breeding rodents for food, I used to seen people use 1.6 or 2.8. I though hey why not go with 2.20. All my breeding mice are groups of 2.20. I work with a colony of 50.600 to feed my growing collection. The key I think to breeding rodents for food is to buy in bulk (Food, water bottles, shavings, veggies) Also when you go and get mice make sure you get a very clean strain of them. Thanks Richard Welter