My Personal PETCO Rant

[EmilyRussom]

I've read about some nice employees here. I'm glad your experience was better than mine.

Hubby floats around to different Valvoline's (3 in town) - whichever one needs him. So he was on the other side of town today. Went to pick him up and there's a PETCO there - never been to one of those. I wasn't going to any other pet store due to the wrecks broadcast on the radio (no one can drive when it rains - I do not understand this.)

Went for wax worms first. Went through four containers, over 70% black and dead. Asked for someone to help us get crickets. We waited five minutes, then we just figured we'd get them ourselves. Open up the bin, and there in with the live crickets is an ENTIRE DUSTPAN of dead ones. Which the live ones are eating.

And the worst? 8 baby beardies all on top of each other on sand. It was heart breaking. We just left (after swearing like sailors). We thought about telling the employees that was horrible for the dragons - but didn't think it'd do a bit of good. Tiki is over a year old, and it won't hurt her one bit to not have a cricket dinner. She had some for breakfast - and tonight her salad will simply be massive . I just hope she doesn't hate us or think we forgot, LoL....

Ok, /rant off!

 

[Claudiusx]

Don't worry im sure Tiki won't hate you. All prime examples of why I don't go into chain petstores. Things are cheaper online anyways.

-Brandon

 

[Jpiroden]

Ok! I've learned my lesson!! I bought a repti-sun at petco(way over priced) that night all I'm reading on here is how awful chain stores are, I didn't think mine was that bad. I went back to buy supers, I got home opened it up and nearly all of them dead..... The next day I check this web site beardeddragon.co find the exact same repti-sun for like $10 less, today I went to petco again and saw a VERY sick and small beardie that shouldn't be up for sale for now on I adopt and buy online....

 

[EmilyRussom]

I buy waxworms at Pet's Mart - they're quite good. Just don't wait until you get home to open the worms up I will check EVERY SINGLE CONTAINER before I pick one out. No one cares if you open them at the store.

I wish I could buy crickets online. I couldn't keep 1000 crickets at the house. It would just be... bad. I don't mind going three to four times a week for the Tikster. Pet Supermarket has wonderful crickets (just no waxworms).

 

[mamatoulouse]

The other day I was in petco looking for worms all of the calci worms were dried out and dead when I asked an employee about it she told me that they had been dead for a week or 2

 

[Sierra1167]

I get waxies and supers from Petsmart. It's a good idea to ask when they get deliveries...they usually have set days of the week. Also I always check the bottom of the container because they write the date they came in on the bottom. And ALWAYS look inside before you buy. =)

 

[mamatoulouse]

for some reason the wax worms at petco look really plump compared to the ones at petsmart...
but honestly the customer service at petco really stinks i have had employees just turn and walk away as i was speaking to them and others that act like i am messing up their day when i need help... rude!! the only reason i go is cause the have small supers and calci worms other than that they have nothing to offer.

 

[SamusTheDragon]

for some reason the wax worms at petco look really plump compared to the ones at petsmart...
but honestly the customer service at petco really stinks i have had employees just turn and walk away as i was speaking to them and others that act like i am messing up their day when i need help... rude!! the only reason i go is cause the have small supers and calci worms other than that they have nothing to offer.

Yes, the small supers are the reason I go to Petco, I've seen them online but shippings just a lot =/

 

[MrWhite]

I had to get crix from Petco the other night, I ask for 50 and they all looked fine. I told the clerk that I have 1000 on order and he said it's the way to go and that they don't have very good luck keeping crix alive. I found out why...they don't feed them I took the 50 crix and put them into my bin and put in some cricket chow and carrots and they couldn't eat fast enough...the few that temporarily escaped from Argos' attention went straight for his salad bowl and started eating.

I swear, I'm going to open up a REAL pet store that actually cares.

 

[Jpiroden]

I had to get crix from Petco the other night, I ask for 50 and they all looked fine. I told the clerk that I have 1000 on order and he said it's the way to go and that they don't have very good luck keeping crix alive. I found out why...they don't feed them I took the 50 crix and put them into my bin and put in some cricket chow and carrots and they couldn't eat fast enough...the few that temporarily escaped from Argos' attention went straight for his salad bowl and started eating.

I swear, I'm going to open up a REAL pet store that actually cares.

I think we all do, but opening pet stores is expensive. I want to one day, but until then i think I'm gonna stick with beardeddragon.co where they don't sell stuff that says it great but actually hurts our beardies *cough*calci-sand*cough*mealworms*cough*

 

[EmilyRussom]

THEY DON'T FEED THE CRICKETS?

/baffled

Wow. That's insane. Pet Supermarket (closet to my house) always has these massive bowls of Flueker's cricket food, along with veggies in there for them. I like them for crickets - wish they sold waxworms.

 

[Claudiusx]

It costs them extra money. And they are all about saving and making money. Thats why they also house 12 bearides in one tank.

-Brandon

 

[CiaraAlexisOnFire]

I HATE petco!
I went in there recently and looked at the beardies.
There were about 6 or 7 of them, and they weren't babies. They had sand substrate, and all the beardies were covered in water and sand ALL over their bodies. I even saw one eat crickets on the sand and it ate the sand too. There was no UVB bulb, and no basking bulb either.
I felt so bad, they all wanted out

 

[Alez]

I've had a lot of problems with Petco too. They had about seven baby bearded dragons, all in a fifteen gallon tank and all on sand. There were 15 leopard geckos, over half of them had lost their tails due to so much stress. And the Chinese water dragon was so tiny...dark green with no other colours, and no spines coming in at all. I complained to them several times and got emails saying they would pass on my concerns to upper management and have them call me. Big surprise, they didn't.
I don't know if Petco and Petsmart are run by the same people, but I've had much better experiences with Petsmart, their water dragons are a decent size before they're sold, the beardies are on repticarpet, and they only keep about five leopard geckos at most.
Anyway, that's my two-cents.