Being that I work in the Pet Care department at a Petsmart, I thought I'd post a little about how we care for our beardies in the store I work in =)
Being a Corporation, Petsmart has "rules" that we must at least somewhat follow in the care of all our animals. Most of them are just for cleanliness and appearance purposes. There are picture sheets on where decorations should go in tanks, etc., and a schedule for what cleanings get done on what day. Our store tends to bend a few of these rules for the betterment of our animals, and to just help cut down on waste. (For example, we don't often feed as much petblock to our small animals as corporate would have it, since not many of them ever actually eat it and it just gets wasted.)
The temperature and humidity in the reptile enclosure that most or all Petsmart's should have are both difficult to control for each individual animals housed. The idea though is that none of these enclosure are permanent, and we stress VERY CLEARLY to customers that. No pet store cage should ever be used as an model toward a permanent housing in one's home when they take a pet home, regardless of the animal's species. We feed our young beardies (and they ARE young. They just come in from our source that way, unfortunately....) a mix of crickets of proper size and salads at our store. They're temps are kind of in the "middle" of hot and cold, since they cannot really move around their enclosure in order to regulate themselves. And also a lot of the times you'll notice that the higher up tanks in the reptile fixture are warmer just because heat rises =/
The fact that they come in small is really unfortunate, I think.... But at the same time I am glad they don't come in much larger, because then I don't know where we could even put them! It's kind of a win-some-lose-some situation...
And the biggest part of carrying any of these animals is education on the customer's part. We spend 2-3 hours with some customers because they want to know how to properly keep their pet for it's entire life, and I *love* people like that. Then there's customers that come in saying "I just want a pet for my child," essentially to shut said child up. To these people we either make sure they walk out with all the necessary equipment to keep their pet, or deny them from buying any animal from the store. People like that do not need to make animals miserable just so they don't have to listen to their child whine. =( It's a fine line to walk between judging whether someone will really take care of a pet we sell them or not...
Anyway, just thought I'd share with you guys some of my store's dealings in beardies ^_^ I have a decent part-time job at Petsmart, and I'm very lucky to work in one of the best Pet Care departments in the country! If you guys have any specific questions on the care we give any of our animals in my store (I can't speak for other stores XD) let me know
