We've been fortunate with petstores. The only chain store I go to is PJ's Pets. They treat their reptiles well, they're all in well lit tanks with MVBs, lots of food and the poop is picked up right away. Most of the reptiles are on butcher paper, easy to clean and change. They had 2 juvenile beardies together in a 40 gallon and they were in good shape, well fed, looked healthy and had lots to climb and hide in. They were on sand, though not calci-sand, looked like play sand.
My husband, who's retired, went looking to different pet shops to find a 40 gal breeder for Lonzo, our adopted 4 yr old male. While he was there he talked to the manager about some reptiles that he'd seen going in. This is at Big Al's Aquarium in Burbaby, close to Vancouver, in BC Canada. So he ended up talking himself into a job as "reptile maintenance guy" and he works 30 hrs a week, even though he got hired for 10 hours/week. We consider the other two as volunteer work and to save his sanity. We printed off all the different care sheets we found for the different types of reptiles; a lot of geckos and 3 Cuban Knight Anoles. There are 11 beardie babies for sale, 3 of which are at our house having bites treated. When we find a baby that's not thriving, he comes home here to our 30 gallon and gets treated. Fed chicken babyfood between cricket feeding. We make sure they get good calcium and they're under a Power Sun 100W. We had one baby, that we're keeping, we've named her Issy; she started having spasms, her head would jerk left or right when she tried to eat. We had the wrong light, even temporarily it hurt her. We were lucky enough to find a Power Sun and brought that home, she was back to normal in a week. So my husband is using the best husbandry methods for the reptiles he's in charge of. He's been educating the manager and the owner to make sure the UVB is correct and each species gets the light, food and space they need to thrive and sell. Because, no matter what, selling is the prime directive. I'm hoping to make up care sheets for any buyers of the reptiles, just copies of the
care sheet we found on the net. And Roger talks to alot of people as he's working and he explains what each type of reptile needs. So it's nice to know that some pet shops actually take responsibility for their stock and make sure everything gets what it needs to thrive. Hopefully Roger can stay there, he's passionate about his job and he relies on what I find on this site for all the good advice, which he passes along to customers.
I guess I'm fortunate to not have to go to pet shops that may not have the best practices. Hopefully more people like my husband can find work in these shops and educate the future owners as well as the store owners.
Deborah and Roger, Sweetie, 2 1/2; Lonzo 4 1/2; Issy 2 mo and 3 babies from the petshop being treated for bites. '
P.S. My husband finally caught the baby that was biting everyone and he's now in his own cage, so can't hurt any baby beardies anymore. What a relief!