"reptile" shops

[Pleaides]

they infuriate me!
sorry not exactly a discussion but more like a rant!

well now my boyfriend and i travel about our county to visit different reptile shops. every single one have no idea how to house or look after these little guys! its soo sad.

now im going to name and shame these shops because im fed up having to complain, lets start with the shop i bought my Mischief at, named Cold Blooded, at the time i didnt know much but what i know now i wouldnt have ever bought a dragon from there, however im lucky my Mischiefs all good, although i wasnt feeding him enough when he was 4 months old bacuse of their so called good advice.

theres a shop in Crews Hill, named Crews Hill Reptiles, then theres Animal World in Grays, Happy Pets in Thornwood, epping.
now every shop house way too many different sized dragons together, all display black beards, stress marks, all have bones jutting out on the base of their tails and spines, all on sand or wood chips, a few bits of lettuce thrown in there, feaces everywhere, numerous dragons with digits and tails missing! outraged!!! and the heat and lighting...well, the few that do have UVs look old and rustic, hanging off the roof of their horrid temporary homes, seriously these UVs were like practically touching the beardies heads, bulbs that were not even on or didnt work, they looked a state, a few crickets just running about..........i could actually have a heart attack or failing that knocking all these peoples heads together! its disgusting, the worst 2 shops are Jungle Phase and Jollys reptiles(which jollys have recently shut down their reptile part and no longer sell reptiles, which does not surprise me.

went in jollys once and theres a beautiful cornsnake laying eggs...how lovely ay...... NO nest box, NO vermiculite, other corns in there!!!! i said to the bloke, wtf! he was like "well she is laying eggs so of course shes not exactly ok" ahhhhhhhh. i complained and should think soo many other people did, this is probably why they are no longer there!

another bad one is Jungle Phase (cannot remember what town) have only been their once and once is enough, there was a particular beardie with numerous others beardies with everything wrong that i explained above, only this beardie had serious mouth rot and was gasping! i ran to the bloke and said that i thought one of their dragons needed immediate vet care and he just shrugged and said oh hes been like that for a while, hes ok though! SERIOUSLY, what is wrong with people, even an amateur to lizards would have thought something seriously wrong!
oh my......its truly heartbreaking, wanted to rescue them all, but no money, no space and no time is not on my side!
words cannot describe my anger of these shops' owners arrogance to the well being and safety of these animals!

well thank you to anyone who reads my essey of ranting. *sigh*

on the slight upnote, cold blooded used to be very good but have been unindated with reptiles as owners no longer want them, esp. cornsnakes as people breed them so often. millenium reptiles in bishops stortford have some problems with hygiene in certain cages, oh bad customer service as well but their animals look otherwise good and scales and fangs in leighton-on-sea house their reptiles quite well id say, and on paper towels! shocking, never seen a shop house beardies on paper towels before, lol.

 

[MarianaL87]

I understand your frustrations...I see much of that aswell. There isnt anyone i can complain to and i dont have the resources to take in all 1000's of beardies i see living miserable existances. Ive got mine and hes all i can afford.

 

[Freeie]

We had so much bad advise from them!

1. feed him mealworms.... um yeah learned about impaction for that advice!
2. got a basking light instead of a ubv light... gah no uvb for about a week intill i came here and learned about it and read the box...
3. got a coil bulb and not one that dosnt harm the beardies .....
4. told me that a 55 gal fish tank will work for the beardies.... um sure if your a dwarf beardie!
5. Oh sure sand is wonderful for them easy to clean up the poo.... thanks to here we use heavy duty paper towls, gonna use tile in his new viv comming soon

Ive learned check here for wonderful advice!

 

[Pleaides]

freeie - who gave you bad advice

omg if only i could take in all these beadies...if only ay.

 

[Freeie]

2 diffrent pet stores in our area did , my daughters bf kind of sprung the beardie on us so first thing they did and I did was ask what he needed. I dont think alot of people who work in those places know alot about the pets they sale.

 

[kmc5]

I was just at a pet store in Ann Arbor Michigan thats called University Aquarium. They had two hatchlings for sale. About 4 inches long. They were on sand, dry water bowl, no thermometers, dirty sand and lots of crickets lounging around. One beardie had crickets on its back, Im sure nibbling away.

The next tank over had newts. One was dead, half in the water. It was rotting and clouded up the water. The only water source available! Another tank had an armadillo lizzard and again over filled with crickets. You could see the crickets bitting the lizzard. The tanks were all dirty and smelled.

We happen to be in town and I need more uvb lights. I asked if they had Repti-Sun 01.0 and she said no but she has something much better. She showed me Repti-glo and said that this has a higher quality and last for a full year. Sigh

There is another pet store in Jackson that kills me. Pet Station. They have six beardies in a small 20 gal tank. She said they got the beardies last June and these are what is left of the shipment. SHIPMENT!! Is that what they are calling live animals? The beardies are piled on each other. Dial thermometer that is covered in poo, household light bulb, dirty reptile carpet. One of the males was covered with poo from the other beardies. She said she had Double Yellows and Green something. They all looked like sandfires to me. She wanted $120-160 each. This was back in December when I needed crickets and the pet store I like was across town and I didnt have time.

I popped back in last week just to see if they were still there. Yup all six, all dirty, some with poo on them.

You can complain. You can go to the Humane Society or animal control. But what will they do? Not much really. The only thing that we all can do is not to patrionize the stores.

 

[Ethelia]

I understand the pain it causes.
There is a horrific store in my city where there are multiple dragons are in 10 gallon vivs, on calci-sand, and with bulbs only an inch off the ground so they are covered in half healed burns.
Everytime i go in I end up sobbing all the way home.
Im currently working with the RSPCA to get the dragons rescued.

It goes beyond words some times at the ignorance and neglect out there.

 

[Pleaides]

tell me about it, well there has been the reptile shop in jollys and another reptile place in enfield that has closed down due to the authorities going in there and going mad about the state of it all, all because myself and im sure loads and loads of other reptile lovers complained, so things can be done sometimes.
im going to look into about the other place at crews hill because there is one beardie in his water bowl, dark, ultra skinny, stress marks, llifeless, couldnt see him breathing, trying gently tapping the glass cos the bowl he was laying in is right up against it and his eyes were open but no movement whatsoever, he didnt follow my fingers didnt aknowledge me tapping the glass, i was too terrified to ask if he was still allive i ran for the door!

 

[zebraflavencs]

On a happier note, there are responsible ps out there. I use one of the two in my area called Rare Earth. It's got it's own web site too. The young couple that run it are aware and as fully educated as many experienced reptile owners are. They house their babies only 2 at a time, and separate as soon as possible (I donated 3 tanks to help them with that. All their bds have UVB and heat (flood lamps) fresh salads, and feed in separate containers. The wife half does all the daily salad makings, while the hubby tends to the enclosures. I am always happy to go into there, to see what things should be. They also only order enough (both from private breeders as well as from Sun Pet in Atl. Ga.) to keep 2 max per tank, no more ! I just wanted to rave a bit to balance the rant. It is sad to see ignorance in the form of retailers, but when a buck is to be made, most won't think of anything else.
I hope this lightens hearts.
Janie.

 

[Pleaides]

wow zebraflavencs, Rare Earth? well its certainly that, rare, your so lucky you actually have a place like that near you because even the somewhat good stores i listed are no where near that standard at all. i am ever so glad that not all are the same, think id even swim across the pond to visit this place!!! LOL

 

[fresnowitte]

I dont think alot of people who work in those places know alot about the pets they sale.

Even when they do know about the critters they sale you have to remember they are not in it because of them being their pets they are in it for the money only. Everything they have learned and know goes right out the window when $$$$$$$ is involved. They care more about that dollar than the critter.

I was one that was taken by them too with all of their bad an incorrect advise. I have a closet full of brand new examples of several items you should not buy.

 

[zebraflavencs]

Pliades, let me know when you are coming so I can free up a couch and a beardie tank stand (wink). Yes it is heartening to see this. The other ps in town has young people working there, yes they see some things, but the owner refuses to put out $$ that he doesn't have to. His big thing is salt water. Even then, I have found some unsavory practices in the past. I don't patronize his place, I do Rare Earth. I have told them I would even get a small colony of turks/dubias/lobs for them to use as a base instead of having to order crix all the time. Once I explained the benefits, the husband leaned forward and said, "no smell ? We'll take them !" LOL . I think they are the best ! That is why I donated the 3 tanks to them. They thought they were for consignment, I said, no these are for your personal use to house whatever ! I think I got a halo point for that (wink).
Janie.

 

[VEGASLIZARD]

I took my kids to two exotic pet stores over the weekend because my oldest is begging for a snake. Both places were not caring for their Beardies properly. There were several babies in one tank and I could see that one was missing a rear foot. Meanwhile the kid running the store is trying to tell me that I should not listen to people on a website about proper lighting etc. when the only beardies that seem to have a uv in their store were the adults. They did keep the tanks clean, but that was the only positive thing I could say about the place. The other store had adult beardies in what looked like a 10gal aquarium. Much too small to have any kind of heat gradient and they looked so miserable they could barely move. They also had an adult iguana with a horrible mouth sore with a sign that said "needs work" WTF, We were so disgusted I will never go back. We got Scorch from Petland and several weeks later there were people outside protesting that they buy their dogs from puppy mills. They are now going out of business. The girl who took care of the reptiles there was a herp owner at least. She said no sand and no coil bulbs but neglected to mention anything about calcium and recommended alfalfa pellets as a substrate. Fortunately I had already spent several hours online doing homework... I feel so sorry for all the poor beardies out there that go home with owners that think the petstores know what is good or read books with bad info and don't know forums like this exist to help them. I have met a couple clueless beardie owners @ the petstore while buying crix. I tell them about this website. I wish every beardie owner knew about it.

 

[RanchosReptiles]

i've got 2 stores out in my area that actually know mostly what they are talkin about... there's whities which from time to time has a few too many baby beardies in a tank, but that's their only fault. and the other reptiles are cared for pretty dang well too! then there's reptile room. the owner won't even carry products that he in his 10+ years of being there, and god knows how long of caring for reptiles, feels are bad for your reptiles. i question a few of the housing he has, but when people bring in reptiles all day and leave em their you have to cope as best as you can until you can get em to a better home. honestly no pet store can be perfect, but these 2 are by leaps and bounds the best i've ever been in for reptiles. but we also have the polar opposite of those =( we have a couple petsmarts and a petco that are TERRIBLE!!! wrong substrates, over crowding, the works =( they do usually have decent lighting though so i suppose thats somethin, but when i see 20+ baby leopard geckos running around on sand with only 1 tiny hide and a fake palm tree, i want to murder people... they usually don't carry bearded dragons too often (thank god!) and havn't seen any in a while so i can't really relate to that as i never paid much attention to bearded dragons till recently but i'm sure it's no better sadly