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petstore has me upset!!

S

snakeladyamy

New member
I just wanted to vent a little- I went to a local petstore- it is a national chain- and i was looking for corns. Normally they have only normals and amels, so i was thrilled when they showed me two BEAUTIFUL ghosts. Upon further inspection, though, i noticed that the tip of BOTH corn's tails had probably two sheds worth of old shed attached to about the bottom centimeter of it. I looked closer to see if it could be easily removed, but they both looked infected, and one was so bad that the tail looked like it was falling (Rotting?) off.
Normally this petstore is really clean and pretty good with care, so i was very flustered. I felt i should tell the manager since the kid that showed me the snakes didn't seem concerned. They had just gotten in the snakes the day before, so it probably wasn't the petstore's fault, but doesn't anyone inspect the animals?

so, i was curious what some of you senior members would find appropriate to do in this situation... i am worried the snakes might not receive proper care (if i had the resources myself, i would 'rescue' them, but unfortunately i don't).
thanks for hearing me out !
-Amy
P.S. what could be done for these snakes?
 
This is unfortunately something that happens from time-to-time. Even hatchlings from reputable breeders aren't immune. I had this happen to one of my Amels right after I received it last year.

Although missing a tail tip is cosmetically unpleasing, there is absolutely nothing wrong with the snake. Matter of fact, unless one is really looking, it wouldn't even be noticed.

My advice, if you like these corns don't let the tail tips be the deciding factor. It may be possible to remove the old skin using wet paper towels.
 
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One of Anerys had that problem when I got her as a hatchling and she is an adult now and you can only tell if you really examine her tail.
 
I also forgot to mention in my first long-winded message that one of the two had a severe kinking in the tail below the vent. I don't think i would purchase that one because of the deformity- it's hard to tell how that would turn out. I don't think the shedding problem was due to the kinks though, as far as i could tell. I think i will try to go in and see if the snakes are still there and what they did about it.
-amy
 
snakeladyamy said:

P.S. what could be done for these snakes?
Click to expand...

The end of the tail will dry up and fall off during another shed. The old skin that is stuck on their now can be soaked off if they will take the time. They should be fine. Hopefully since they just got them in they will take the time to fix them up:)

I have a Desert King with bad kinks on the end of his tail and I have to remove the old skin everytime he sheds. It's no problem just part of his maintenance:D
 
you should report it to the petstore most of the time they do not meet the needs of the snake. thats why i work at a petstore to ensure the snake we sell are in perfect health
 
What ever you do, do not buy the animals. If you do buy them, you give them the money and the space to get more animals in. Yes, I work in a petsmart, and yes, I do advice people against buying certain animals. I was rather frustrated to hear that I wasn't supposed to be feeding the lizards the amount of crickets they needed, because then we couldn't sell them. I don't work in that area, but I was there with nothing to do on break. Ooops, I can't help it that I poured in 50. No way I can get half off them back at the speed they're being eaten. Anyway, back to the point. Tell someone. Not the employee if they don't seem to care. Tell a manager and sound really frantic and panicked about it. If you sound really frantic about it, usually someone goes running right away to do it. If you say it casually, it may or may not get done that day.
 
kinks

I just wanted to say that I have an adult female corn that has several kinks in her tail below the vent. Now, I bought her over the internet and was not told she had them. I don't know if it was a deformity or just that her tail got shut in the cage one too many times. But this year I bred her, she laid 14 perfect eggs. She also had horrible scars, that I didn't know about until I recieved her. They are close to the vent, about an inch above. I wasn't sure if it would affect the laying process or not, but obviously nothing seemed to get in her way of carrying out her duties. Now, I know for sure these things aren't appealing to my eyes or anyone's for that but she is still a wonderful animal that priduced for me. Out of those 14 eggs, 12 are still good with about 20 days left in incubation. I just can't wait til they hatched.

thanks Charlene Dourty
 
Charlie,

Please let us know if the babies have any kinks. I am very interested in knowing since I also was sold a cornsnake with a very badly kinked tail (also below the vent) without being told. I have been debating on whether to keep him or sell him as a pet. I am a bit afraid to breed him because I don't know if the kinks are hereditary.
 
Speaking of kinked

The last corn I got has a slight kink about an inch and a half above it's vent.
I was at my local reptile shop when they showed me this tiny little snow with a kink. They asked if I wanted it since they didn't feel anyone would buy it. Of course, I said yes. They only asked that I continue to buy occaisionaly from them. ( mainly mice). Although I have a couple of hundred mice in the freezer I still buy a few mice from them every couple of weeks.
Five of my snakes came from there by the way.
Anyway I digress, the little snow's kink seems to have gotten a little less noticeable with it's last two sheds. You really have to search to find it.
I think she will turn out to be an excellent snake.
I am also pretty sure that kinks such as this are not hereditary. I beleive a high percentage of them are due to incubation temperatures. MHO.
By The Way...The fact that the ends of the tails were damaged due to incomplete sheds isn't the stores fault since they just received the snakes. This is something that does happen on occaision. Most of the time when this happens to a young snake it is almost impossible to notice when they are older.
 
So here is my snakes tail...

Do you think it was damaged or was born this way?
 

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I think it may be kinda hard to tell if that is damage or a birth kink....but it is so close to the end I don't see why it would be a problem with breeding. I have been trying to figure out this whole kink debate "incubation temp v. heredity" and though it is still up in the air...I go with incubation temps. I now know some local breeders and that is their guess as well. However, one way for you to figure it out would be to breed him and see if the babies have kinks. I might get some flack for that, but oh well. Just my two cents!
 
Thanks VegasGhost

I was thinking that same thing. It would be very interesting to see if he produces babies with or without kinks. I would simply end up having a bunch of babies to sell as cheap pets if they do have some kinks. Luckily, I've not had any abies with kinks (in the 2 years I have produced babies). I guess my time is coming, though:rolleyes:
 
regarding kinks-
i just wanted to mention that my female anery had two small kinks in her back when i first got her. Because of this, the breeder gave her to me for free. the kinks were originally about halfway down her body ( as a hatchling). Now she is two and the kinks are almost completely gone- i have to really search to find them. She laid a modest (unexpected) clutch which is just starting to hatch- one is out now and no kinks on it. I'll let you guys know if any DO have kinks, though...
 
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