• Hello!

    Either you have not registered on this site yet, or you are registered but have not logged in. In either case, you will not be able to use the full functionality of this site until you have registered, and then logged in after your registration has been approved.

    Registration is FREE, so please register so you can participate instead of remaining a lurker....

    Please be certain that the location field is correctly filled out when you register. All registrations that appear to be bogus will be rejected. Which means that if your location field does NOT match the actual location of your registration IP address, then your registration will be rejected.

    Sorry about the strictness of this requirement, but it is necessary to block spammers and scammers at the door as much as possible.

Petco Nightmare (Cohabbing not so great)

Sanebedlam

New member
Ok so I went to petco for a thermometer the other day for my hatchling rack and peeked into the snake cage as I always do first thing I noticed was a stench and on closer inspection this is what I saw...One snake was half digested and regured back up and another snake obviously had one of its siblings inside it. After bitching out the 'reptile' employee and then the manager I left with these pictures on my cell and the thermometer back on the shelf for all thoose that say "Oh its not that common" or "the risk isn't that great" take a look
 

Attachments

  • noname.jpg
    noname.jpg
    18.6 KB · Views: 337
  • noname_1.jpg
    noname_1.jpg
    18.3 KB · Views: 337
  • noname_2.jpg
    noname_2.jpg
    20 KB · Views: 337
  • noname_3.jpg
    noname_3.jpg
    67.4 KB · Views: 337
That is terrible!!

Same thing here, except it was a Red Tail Boa hatchling in with a yearling/subadult Ball Python. The Royal was atleat 2 feet long, where the Red Tail was only about a foot long.

Very sad. :(
 
That should really be a lesson to them right? Unfortunately, they probably just don't care enough!

I went into a brand new Petland here locally and saw about a dozen corn hatchlings in a 10 gallon enclosure! To top it off, they had thrown a handful of crickets in with them... you know, 'cause crickets are corns favorite food!
 
It won't happen to me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! My snakes were raised together and they love each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:eek:
 
I can't really criticize Petco for cohab... even my local herp shop does it. I'm not saying that it's right, but for a business selling hatchlings, I guess I can understand.

That being said - Petco sucks. As soon as you pointed it out, they should have swung into action. AT THE VERY least, by cleaning up the dead animal. Cannibalism during short-term cohab should really only happen if a) they aren't being fed enough and start looking for other food (i.e. anything moving in the tank); or b) they're being fed together and two snakes grab the same item - which is naughty in this case because that would imply they're feeding on the substrate.

If I were you, I would e-mail your pictures and the story to company headquarters. Petstores in general don't have great standards, but that should NOT be acceptable.
 
It won't happen to me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! My snakes were raised together and they love each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:eek:

:roflmao: :roflmao:

Do they cuddle with eachother Nanci? I bet they miss eachother if one is gone too!
 
I can't really criticize Petco for cohab... even my local herp shop does it. I'm not saying that it's right, but for a business selling hatchlings, I guess I can understand.

That being said - Petco sucks. As soon as you pointed it out, they should have swung into action. AT THE VERY least, by cleaning up the dead animal. Cannibalism during short-term cohab should really only happen if a) they aren't being fed enough and start looking for other food (i.e. anything moving in the tank); or b) they're being fed together and two snakes grab the same item - which is naughty in this case because that would imply they're feeding on the substrate.

If I were you, I would e-mail your pictures and the story to company headquarters. Petstores in general don't have great standards, but that should NOT be acceptable.


I second that.
 
WOW that makes me wonder.......................oh wait i dont care and ill keep co habing mine.

It's really great to hear how dedicated you are to your animals. I can clearly see that you would do everything in your power to make sure they live long, full lives. :bang:
 
You should- you don't want them to get lonely. It's ok, really- it won't happen to your snakes.

ostrich-headinsand.jpg
 
:/ Is it really that common for pet stores to do this? I mean, I've seen it, sure, but there also seem to be plenty of BIG stores that don't. Does PetSmart cohab? Always looked like their snakes were separated to me.
 
Well, there's a number of things you could say in response to this subject:

"You can get it right a 1000 times, but wrong only once":eek1:
"Play with fire, you eventually get burned":eek1:
"Mess with the bull, you get the horns":eek1:

The risk is of cannibalism is small, but we can't measure the stress in a snake. It's a fact that they are naturally territorial. To each their own.

BTW, I've never seen PetSmart co-hab corns, but the store by me has never had more than two or three in stock at a time.
 
It won't happen to me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! My snakes were raised together and they love each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:eek:



Oh! And when I take one away, the other misses him, he is depressed and all he does is HIDE! He must be crying in his little hut :laugh01:



Seriously, thats terrible. And I dont necessarily agree with understanding co-habbing because its a pet store. Ive seen people here with racks that hold oodles and oodles of hatchlings. Really people, plastic containers run 2 bucks here. All it takes is effort and these pet stores giving a flying poo.

If your going to sell monkeys, you have to have enclosure to hold them in. Same with snakes. If you dont have room for 15 hatchlings, dont sell them.

My store has the big vivs, but when they have more then one snake, they put it into a plastic container and then put the container into the viv. So you end up with a viv loaded with containers, but no one can eat eachother. Thats alot better then that :eek:
 
and I just bought my reptile supplies from my nearby petco today...Now I feel like I'm giving them money and telling them.."Hey you guys are doing a great job!"...when their not...this sucks..but I really didn't have much choice..Cyrax needed these supplies asap...::sighs:: Well from now on I'm buying my stuff from reptilesupply.com...much cheaper..and I'm sure the owners of the web site keep their reptiles better then these corp. stores do...:angry01:
 
It's really great to hear how dedicated you are to your animals. I can clearly see that you would do everything in your power to make sure they live long, full lives. :bang:

I was just be sarcastic, you take the worest possible example and put it on here, its petco, how often od they feed them? probably not enough i feed mine plenty so they dont look at each other as food.

and as far as doing everything in my power to see they live long full lives actually i am. i dont see how people can keep them in a plastic bin all that great for the snakes. the snake cant streatch out and does not have that much room to move around in, but i guess thats ok as long as they are not living together a plastic bin is good enough. i guess these people are probably the same ones if they owned dogs that they would keep them outside all the time and say its a dog it doesnt need to live in my house. My dogs are my buddies, the live like me, sit on the sofa and sleep in my bed. i belive the same for my snakes, i give them a good enclosure to live in, plenty big enough to move around, lots of things to crawl and climb on. But since i have two together I'm just harming them. :flames::smash::punch:
 
Personally, I'd rather not see this sink down into another flame war over co-habbing. Bsr8129 clearly has made up his/her mind regarding the issue. If/when something happens, it happens.
 
Before this turns into a back and forth thing...let's just let it go..some people will always think cohab is okay and some will always think it's wrong..both have valid points but no matter what both will always have their own opinion..so this is a battle that nobody will win...:smash:
 
My local petco cohabs, but at least this one keeps the hatchlings seperated from the adults. My local petsmarts don't even sale snakes, only lizzards and toads.
 
What is a valid point, my snakes didn't eat each other/become gravid by accident YET? There is no benefit to the snakes by cohabitating- only potential harm.
 
To someone who supports cohab valid points could be that it saves space, or that then they don't need to buy extra supplies...I'm not even sure what their valid points could be because I myself am not a supporter of it..but..If that is what a person thinks is okay..I'm not gonna try and convince them otherwise because in the end they usually can't be turned to think differently..Me personally..I keep my snakes seperate..but that is just the way I am...:)
 
Back
Top