• 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.

PetLand

Daeraelle

Daeraelle

New member
So, about a week ago I was at the petstore buying a few more female breeder rats. I pick out this BEAUTIFUL female, and picking her up, she seemed calm. Well, I guess when the guy went to get her and put her in the box he freaked out and dropped her in the backroom. So he spends 15 minutes chasing her. They even asked me "Is it a feeder, do you want another one?" I said "No, I'll be using her for breeding, I want that one." So, right before I pay, I was wondering why they put them both in seperate boxes, so I open the box, and see the second female I picked out, and I open the second box and to my horror the BEAUTIFUL female rat the idiot dropped had her tail stripped. Apparantly in catching her, he completely ripped the skin off the end of her tail, and my BREEDER female is bleeding in this little box with nothing but bones on the end of her tail. I can't believe they tried to do that. So I held her up to the guy and the register and said "WHAT THE HELL?!" I told him for another time I needed a female for breeding, and not one that I was going to have a $200 or more vet bill over to have the tail tip amputated. If I wanted to spend that money I wouldn't be breeding rats in the first place. So he stammers around and comes with me to pick out another female (which believe me I checked to make sure it was a different one in the box they handed me). By then it's 25 minutes past closing and I'm finally leaving, when all I wanted were two female rats... INTACT. I don't know what they did with her either, because they didn't put her back with the other rats. Maybe they made sure she wouldn't suffer. I can only hope. :realhot: I hope I'm not overreacting about this. That just struck me as a terrible thing to do to someone. They offer no guarantee on their feeder rodents, if I had have walked out that door before I saw the tail, I would have been stuck. Knowing me I would have immediately taken her to vet. She was so pretty. :cry:
 
Even though I am petrified of rats and mice that was a horrible thing to happen to that poor thing. I can't believe they were actually going to sell her to you like that. Man, if it were me I would be writting a letter of complaint to the home office and let them know in no uncertain terms exactly how you felt about the fact they were going to sell her to you after THEY injured her in such a way trying to catch her and how unhappy you were they tried to hide it from you by having her boxed up and unless you had opened that box you never would have known! That to me is so dispicable that people could be so heartless they all should lose thier jobs!
 
I agree, you absolutely should write a letter as well as call the store's manager. Someone like that has no right working with live animals.
 
I completely agree. I've had "conversations" about animal husbandry and employee behavior with the Petco management on a few occasions. :mad: I would've been on my cell to the corporate office as I was walking out the door.
 
I just burns me up because they ALWAYS pick the rats up by the tail, and it's not always by the base of the tail. They're afraid of getting bitten, but their handling behavior is what will cause them to get bitten. I've taken a rat out of the box before I bought it to see if it was calm or not, and while I was holding it the guy says "I've never seen someone hold a rat and not get bitten." I wonder how common it is, they didn't act shocked about it, or like they even cared. If it wasn't so late at night I would have driven to Jacksonville, as I try to avoid PetLand just because they sell puppy mill puppies. If I thought people would care I'd write to the newspaper, but I doubt it would even get printed. People just don't care about rats.
 
I had a petco employee pull the tail off a tiny leopard gecko and not tell me, I didn't see it until after it was payed for. I was pretty upset but they didn't care at all, I choose to keep it and her tail grew back quickly.

I've never heard of a rats tail being degloved, he must have pulled on her awfully hard, poor thing. I love rats and have never been bit by one.
Her tail would have been ok, after the bleeding stopped the end would have dried up and fallen off.
 
It was bad enough I thought she may get an infection if left untreated. If it was just a tail tip, it would have been fine, but it was a big portion of skin missing. They also had some sort of gecko missing it's entire tail. He was almost black and was just laying there, poor little guy.
 
Poor thing. This story is disturbing to me. I keep rats as pets myself and I can tell you, the only time they bite is when they are in pain, afraid or hormonal. I HATE it when rats are picked up by the tail because it really hurts them, and degloving is quite common.

I have kept rats for 4 years now and have only had one biter. He was a frightened unsocialized hormonal rescue boy that should have been nuetered, but I didn't have a vet I trusted with that at the time. Eventually he and I came to an understanding. He lived in a 20 gallon long with no lid and never left his cage except to sit in the basket of dirty rat towel-bedding I kept next to his tank. And he took treats gently. As long as I didn't overstep my bounds, he didn't overstep his. He really was a character :) All my other rats have been licky sweethearts that loved human attention.

A substantial part of my paycheck every week goes to buying frozen mice for my snakes (I can't breed my own, I'm a soft hearted idiot) and vet bills for the rats (yup, they are my pets and if they get sick, they see a vet...and animals with a 2 year lifespan get sick alot!).
 
The potential vet bill for that rats tail was what really scared me away. Normal vet care is one thing, but if the vet wanted to amputate the tail tip, I had no idea how much that would cost, and it would eat into my vet savings. I didn't want to straight off the bat purchase an injured animal. I've never degloved a rats tail, because I don't pick them up that way. Before I got my cat, when I was in 9th grade, I had a hairless rat that had a lot of free roam, he mostly stayed in his cage, or in my bed though. Now all my ratties have to be safely double screen topped to keep the big fat cat out of them. I used to hate snakes, not because I thought they were icky, just because I didn't think I could ever feed a rodent to one. I LOVE rats. I'm happy now with my 8 adults, and I have four little (well... FAT) babies that I'm letting grow up a little bit that are getting all fuzzy and roaming around. They're so cute I could just choke on the cuteness. I'll probably end up getting another huge cage and keeping them, I haven't even checked to see if they are girls or boys yet. I randomly picked out four to let get big for my black rat snakes. I don't know how I'll ever put them down though. I don't think a thump on the head is going to do it for anything more than a couple of days old, lol. I'll have to rig up a co2 thingie.
 
starsevol said:
Poor thing. This story is disturbing to me. I keep rats as pets myself and I can tell you, the only time they bite is when they are in pain, afraid or hormonal. I HATE it when rats are picked up by the tail because it really hurts them, and degloving is quite common.

I have kept rats for 4 years now and have only had one biter. He was a frightened unsocialized hormonal rescue boy that should have been nuetered, but I didn't have a vet I trusted with that at the time. Eventually he and I came to an understanding. He lived in a 20 gallon long with no lid and never left his cage except to sit in the basket of dirty rat towel-bedding I kept next to his tank. And he took treats gently. As long as I didn't overstep my bounds, he didn't overstep his. He really was a character :) All my other rats have been licky sweethearts that loved human attention.

A substantial part of my paycheck every week goes to buying frozen mice for my snakes (I can't breed my own, I'm a soft hearted idiot) and vet bills for the rats (yup, they are my pets and if they get sick, they see a vet...and animals with a 2 year lifespan get sick alot!).
Click to expand...
I also have a pet rat, this story gives me chills just thinking of it. I can't even imagine the kind of pain that comes with having your skin ripped off down to the bone. My guy tends to be a bit of a biter but only when hes in his cage, he never bites when hes out. I have had my rat for 3 years nows and so far spent over $200 in vet bills, and thats a lot of a animal that costs $5. He is getting so old now and has cataracts in one of his eyes, poor guy, but I guess thats what I get for getting such a short lived animal. ;)


---Kenny
 
DogStar5988 -
He might be biting because he's lonely. He's too old to worry about a friend now, but if you get any more rats it's better to keep them in pairs.
 
Rats

I have 2 degus which are very similar to rats in many ways, and have had pets rats in the past.

Degus will bite hard when given the reason but like my rat will nibble on a nail or knuckle to show affection. Also most redents tails will break off and never grow back if they are trying to excape a predator that has hold of their tail.

but the fact that the employee tried to hide is is completely uncalled for.

Just my thoughts. :shrugs:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top