• 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.

wots the worst piece of reptile advice you've ever been given??

Worst advice I've ever had?

*Yeah you can feed them the next size up now* (refering to going to large fuzzies)

I actually could have fed Snake large fuzzies. the ones they're on right now are slightly smaller than their girth, I just don't have faith in risking a regurge. So the advice wasn't actually bad at all really... hmm....

Nope no bad advice, hell I've had some great advice there, my mum works in the same store, I went in asking about corns, went to buy one of the books on corns they had left, if it was any good etc. The guy said it's okay but there's a better one by somebody called Kathy Love, and he'd order it in for me if I wanted.

The prices there are a bit higher than I find online, but I tend to buy there just because of the good advice.
 
Wow I read this whole thread, it was very entertaining. :D Way off topic half the time but entertaining. XD My favorite one I read on this thread was "If you cut tofu into mouse shapes the snake won't tell the difference". XD I couldn't stop laughing. XD And when I was at the pet store I saw crickets in the baby cornsnake cage! D: What is with all those people, why does everyone seem to think they eat crickets!?

Worst advice? Some of it from Petco/Petsmart (I can never remember the difference, they're so similar!), but also from the new guy at Reptile Island where I bought my baby Lorenzo. When my mom went the guy there was super knowledgable, but when I went that guy was busy with a customer who I think may have been looking into breeding turtles. :shrugs: So we got stuck with the new guy who was obviously more interested in sales. >_>


"Heat lamps are way better than the under tank kind."

"That snake's probably a male, usually the males have longer, thinner tails." I have no idea whether or not that was true, but it didn't really matter much cause I most likely won't be breeding Lorenzo anyway. :p I just didn't want the chance of my pet getting eggbound with slugs.

"You don't need a thermostat, the under tank heaters regulate themselves." (Then the person slapped on the strip thermometer on the side and said that was all I needed, even though I knew I needed two probe kinds. And I had to buy the thing he slapped on too, it was stuck on good. And crooked. >_< I tried to argue but my mom didn't want to deal with it, she knew he was wrong too. Waste of $4. :realhot: )

There was probably more, but I can't remember. :p :rolleyes:
 
Funny (but sad) thread. I'm new to snakes, but not to pets, so I have not wasted any time talking to the people at the pet stores. I've learned from the director of our nature center, Kathy Love's book, researching on my own (which lead me here), and our breeder (a lady to whom Kathy Love referred me). So, no real bad advice, although, certainly stuff you find on the web has to be weeded through.

Becca
 
cornsnakeforsale_com said:
I'm game...

"Tokay geckos make great pets."

OK, I'm not sure if they actually said that but they did get me to buy one. Evil, evil creatures. Like pit bulls, only meaner.

220px-Tokay.jpg
Click to expand...

Pitbulls are the sweetest dogs ever if raised right, just saying..

I've never really gotten bad advice. My local Petco is actually a pretty good store, besides the fact that they keep many baby corns in the same tank. The only bad advise I've gotten from them is tht astroturf is the best substrate, which isn't all that bad, since astroturf is ok even though aspen is better.
 
Dakota314 said:
Pitbulls are the sweetest dogs ever if raised right, just saying..
Click to expand...

Thank you! Yes, they are incredibly sweet dogs. I have personally never met a mean pit bull, pit mix, or general bully breed. Lots of mean chihuahuas and dachshunds, though. I can't help but seriously resent the blatant suggestion that they are as vicious as a Tokay gecko.

Sorry, couldn't not say anything.

ANYWAY, bad advice.

My grandmother, to my mother...
"Ew! You aren't going to let her get a SNAKE, are you? It'll make the house smell awful!"
Me: "No it won't... Snakes hardly smell at all."
Gram: "Yes they do! [enter name of some obscure acquaintance]'s son had a snake, and their house smelled awful!"

At Scamp's pet store, picking up a pinky for my corn's first feeding attempt.
"Of course you can feed this rat pinky to your tiny hatchling corn snake! We use these ALL THE TIME for our baby corn snakes!"

My first tortoise's previous owners purchased her at that very same Scamp's.
They sold them a 10 gallon tank with a heat pad and some astroturf. Told them it only needed to eat romaine lettuce and that it didn't need light or a water dish.

A few years down the road, after I acquired my first job at a semi-decent pet store. If nothing else, at least my coworkers knew a little bit and weren't idiots... Except for one.

Cleaning the corn snake hatchlings' deli cups one day...
Customer: "Oh! They're so little! What do they eat at that size?"
Coworker walks up... "They eat crickets! Then, when they're a year old or so, you move up to TINY baby mice..."

Same coworker would also try to feed the Russian tortoises (herbivores) mealworms and crickets.
I once caught her assuring a customer that a Russian tortoise only needs a 20 gallon tank, MAYBE a 40 breeder if you want to give it lots of room.
And yet another occasion, a customer approached her looking to upgrade her adult Red ear Slider's tank, and she promptly directed her toward the 20 gallon Critter Cages (which say right on the box, DO NOT FILL WITH WATER... and besides, 20 gallons for a 7" slider? Uhhh...)

Talking to a customer about corn snakes one day.
Customer: "Yeah, I had a corn snake once. It got out of its tank one day, though. You know how snakes' hearts are in their tails?" (Not joking. :nope:) "...Well, my friend accidentally stepped on its tail. So, you know, since their hearts are in their tails, she died."

One occasion that really surprised me. My former boss was generally decently knowledgeable about reptiles. Had some strange opinions on some points, but overall not bad. One day, he was talking to a customer about how to take care of a baby bearded dragon. His advice?
"Feed it around 6 crickets every day, and offer a little bit of salad once or twice a week."

Holding an adult ribbon snake one day at a different pet store...
Employee: "Yeah, ribbon snakes are SUPER easy to take care of. You keep them kinda like this" (indicating the little critter keeper with a bit of bark, a tiny water dish, and no heat or light) "and all they eat is goldfish!"
(The last set me off. He got an earful of exactly WHY goldfish are NOT good reptile food AT ALL, and uh-huh'd me until I was done. Sigh.)

Well, that came out longer than I intended! HA. There's some of the awful advice/comments that have stuck out during my brief time with reptiles...

Haven't yet had anyone tell me my snakes should be vegetarians, though!
 
LoL hi zombie thread!

When I bought my leopard gecko in January the Petsmart employee was FLIPPING OUT because I wouldn't buy a UV lamp for her. He threatened not to sell her to me, he threatened to void her guarantee, he called over a manager who thankfully had a grain more common sense and let me take the gecko home.
 
I just read this whole thread.. and have SO MUCH to say about some of the older posts o.e but considering I have only seen one name around recently, it wouldn't be worth it..

Any way.. bad reptile advice...

..I don't think I've ever gotten any! :)
 
I've gotten most of my advice from here so its all been pretty good but the other day i went to the local petsmart who actually takes pretty good care of their animals, we were talking to a girl who had just recently started working there and she said that the baby corn snakes "eat either baby mice or crickets i think" at least she was sort of right haha i have enjoyed reading through this whole thread.
 
used to work at a petstore and heard one of our reptile exsperts tell someone that it was okay to keep a baby redtail boa in a 5 -10 gallon tank (university dorm room tank size limit apparently) as it would not out grow it in the year or two the student still had in the dorm, and that all snakes only need to be feed every 3 to 6 months depending on the breed:headbang:
other then that my first three corns came in a single tank. (no they are not still in it) although it did result in babies before i learned better.
and last but not least they wont even consider mating until they are at least 3years old.
 
I've noticed a lot of pet store folks assume that all frogs are the same-so they'll do things like say that the frog food is in Aisle 3 when I've gone in to buy crickets for my leopard frogs, who definitely want their food alive and kicking or wriggling.

There was also the mom in our homeschool group who asked for tadpoles for her kids to observe changing into frogs for science, and then keep as a pet in a 5 gallon aquarium-and who, to hear her tell the story, explicitly stated both of these requirements. They sold her BULLFROGS-who take up to 3 years to become frogs and who definitely need a bigger than 5 gallon habitat. Not to mention that they prefer mice to insects.
 
Alli_Draggy said:
I've noticed a lot of pet store folks assume that all frogs are the same-so they'll do things like say that the frog food is in Aisle 3 when I've gone in to buy crickets for my leopard frogs, who definitely want their food alive and kicking or wriggling.

There was also the mom in our homeschool group who asked for tadpoles for her kids to observe changing into frogs for science, and then keep as a pet in a 5 gallon aquarium-and who, to hear her tell the story, explicitly stated both of these requirements. They sold her BULLFROGS-who take up to 3 years to become frogs and who definitely need a bigger than 5 gallon habitat. Not to mention that they prefer mice to insects.
Click to expand...

Oh, I do know that frogs are amphibians, not reptiles, but they tend to have the same pet store staff. If anything, I think the folks in the stores here know more about reptiles than about amphibians.

Donna
 
Firefur said:
and last but not least they wont even consider mating until they are at least 3years old.
Click to expand...

When I was cleaning my 2-month olds' tanks today, I put them briefly in the same critter keeper (with my roommate ready and watching in case anything went wrong). My little male was AGOG over the females. Kept sniffing them again and again. I reminded him he was only two months old and well before puberty and promptly put them all back in their cleaned cages.

As to advice, well, I don't talk to reptile people at chain stores. I have had people try to scare me with the baby snakes at the chain stores, only to have me coo over the little darlings. I was deeply tempted by a Cali King once, but I didn't want to spend the next 20-odd years being chewed on.

I did get some terrible fish misinformation, though, most notably, "All of our fish are bred and raised in America." I'd come to the store to pick up supplies for our fish who had just bred, and was seeking advice because these fish (dojo loaches/weatherfish) DO NOT breed in captivity except by happy accident and I didn't know what to do. He was referring to similar kuhli loaches, who have essentially never bred in tanks. I raised an eyebrow, immediately forgot everything he told me, nodded, and walked away. We dubbed him "America guy" and saw him several more times in subsequent visits.
 
Keeping multiple corn snakes together in a tank with an unregulated heating pad and feeding them live is A OK.

That is the worst advice on reptiles that I have ever received... It was either that or something that was so out of this world dumb that I forgot it. LOL
 
I've never really gotten any bad advice, due to the fact that I did a HUGE amount of research on my snakes before I got them lol. I guess the worst advice I've gotten would be, "Garter snakes make horrible pets". Or, "Snakes in general make bad pets".
 
I went to the pet store today to get a tank,substrate,and decor so i could set up my corn snake tank for when i get him/her, and the employee there told me my baby corn would be able to live in a 5 gallon tank with cedar substrate,no heating at all, and no decor what so ever.i was like WHAT?!?! i tried to explain to him that everything he just said was wrong,but he would not listen. We argued until we were ready to :punch: each other. I ended storming out of the store and going to a different pet store 24 miles away.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top