# disturbing scene @ Petco -



## DFW_Rat_Luvr (Aug 29, 2007)

I stopped at petco today to grab another bag of carefresh and some treats for my ratties and of course while I was there, I HAD to look at the rats there. They were so cute (nevermind that their cages were dirty and it was only 10 am - rahhhh!) 

They were so adorable though - I was talking to them through the glass and mainly looking like a big freaking dork when I realized that this kid (between 18-22 probably) was standing next to me along with an older woman that I found out was his mother. They were looknig at the ratties too and giggling at my antics through the window, which made me think that they were actually potential buyers. 

Now even though I have a permanent case of GGMR fever, I thought I would move over and let the buyers see better. We started chatting and they told me they were there to get a couple of rats for their snake. :? 

Mind you, this was AFTER they had seen me dorking out over the rats and AFTER agreeing w/ me of how cute they were, etc. AND, mind you that this was ALSO after we had discussed the very LARGE sign stating that Petco did not advocate the feeding of live animals to snakes and that they reccommended the frozen nutrition that they have available.

These ppl actually picked up this little ratty and played with it claiming how cute it was yadda yadda yadda and all the time were planning on FEEDING it to their snake! Now I hate to be judgmental, but THAT is SICK.
AND they even had the unmitigated temerity to COMPLAIN that their snake had been bitten by a rat before in its 'feeding tank'.

And speaking of unmitigated temerity, they actually got angry with ME for telling the clerk that they were selecting rats for the purpose of feeding their snake. They said I 'embarrassed' them. I told them this:
Listen genius, your first clue should have been that if you are doing something that you cant be honest about AND that brings you shame, then you shouldnt be doing it at all!

Of course, I was the bad guy. I so wanted to buy up all the ratties so they couldnt and briefly considered doing so, but logic kicked in and I realized that #1, i wouldnt be doing the rats any good because Im not prepared or capable to care for about 40 extra rats and #2, the people would have just gone elsewhere to buy them anyway.

Why I have posted this anhd ranted on, I dont know. It doesnt change anything. And I know this happens everyday. It just upset me.

UGH!


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## twitch (Jan 4, 2007)

we can certainly share your sentiment though. i had a friend that would feed her snake live rodents and would play and be affecrtionate with what was ultimately going to be food. i don't know how she could feed these rodents (and the babies she bred as food) either. i really thought it was really sick. but i know the snake needed to eat too and at least the rodents were shown some affection before their death instead of just waiting in a grimy tank for the snake to get hungry....


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## DFW_Rat_Luvr (Aug 29, 2007)

I guess that is one way to look at it...and its a positive way to look at it too.
It just really offended me the way that they went about it.
But I probably offend skads of people myself.

Still....I just dont understand how someone can be affectionate towards an animal knowing that they are about to send it to its death...a grisly death at that.


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## renay (May 30, 2007)

i dont know whats worst, someone who has rats as pets yet still feeds live rats to their reptiles, or that :s


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## Matt (Jun 14, 2007)

hey!.....lol....was that directed to anyone?...lol.....*cough* *cough*...*Me*...?


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## renay (May 30, 2007)

no, it wasn't intentionally directed at anyone, please don't take it personally, i just don't know how it can be done, and I'm guessing its not you personally who feeds them to the snakes since you have them as pets. My skin crawls when I think of someone being able to play with their rats and then go into another room to another cage and pluck one out and practically place it on a dinner plate... its crawling now lol.


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## Matt (Jun 14, 2007)

lol, Sadly though....Thats my job......I do everything from feeding, to cleaning, to giving fresh water.
Except my dad helps sometimes with the Bigger Boas.


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## JESSU (Aug 8, 2007)

I don't see why there is even a want to feed live animals in domestic situations when they can be trained to accept dead.


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## Lunachick (Aug 15, 2007)

JESSU said:


> I don't see why there is even a want to feed live animals in domestic situations when they can be trained to accept dead.


Some can be trained. Others, like the picky species, or just the odd one out, cannot and will not take dead food no matter how hard you try. Wild snakes do not eat food they find already dead. It's really unnatural for one to do so. But a pet snake, even with it's instincts, can take dead food. That's just life. I understand it, as I've had snakes myself, some who've taken dead food, others that would not. I was never affectionate with the 2 mice I tried feeding my boa though. That is rather wrong...ultimately, it's why I gave up on snakes.


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## Matt (Jun 14, 2007)

Yeah, Snakes like Ball Pythons are hard to get to accept pre-killed food.
But RedTailBoas Will Switch easily. It just depends on the species.


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## Lunachick (Aug 15, 2007)

Yeah exactly Matt. I've had 3 snakes. First was a corn snake. He was a little piggy and took anything. Then I had a Solomon Island ground boa who started to take dead food then suddenly stopped and refused ALL and any food. Then lastly, was another corn snake. She only took live. So it just depends.


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## Matt (Jun 14, 2007)

It just Depends.


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## JennieLove (Jan 2, 2007)

I understand that snaks and such have to eat too, but I have to agree that it was very wrong of them to go about it the way they did...there are A**holes out there, nothing we can do about it.


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## ratastic (Jul 1, 2007)

The Petco here has like 6 tanks for rats of different size. The most in one tank is like 6, but it's the baby rat tank. When I see someone buying a rat for their snake I just tell them a lil story about a friend's snake that was bitten by a feeder rat in the mouth. The wound got infected and the snake died. Then I tell them about frozen rats and how you just have to shake them a bit til the snake wraps it up. Plus frozen rats are cheaper than using live ones.


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## lilspaz68 (Feb 24, 2007)

Once you told the Petco employees of their intentions did they still sell them the baby rats even though its not their policy? I am going to guess they did.


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## Matt (Jun 14, 2007)

Yeah, I wonder? Did they? Mostlikely...


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## DFW_Rat_Luvr (Aug 29, 2007)

they sure did. I got really snippy and snotty at that point, and left only after I verbally eviscerated the clerk and asst. mgr . Im real good at that unfortunately - its a bad character flaw i guess.


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## baebeetigress (Sep 6, 2007)

You know people are so unaware of how stupid they are. I mean I dont like the idea of feeding meat to other animals but I guess they do have to eat. The frozen meals are so much more humane! The girl I adopted Riley from had roommates that owned snakes. I was like how can you say you love yours rats so much that you could watch them let their pets eat ones like them?! I was so mad I wanted to take home all the rats but of course like I was not prepared either. I wonder what petco that was though because the one by my house apparently still does it because some guy flat out asked for them right in front of me while I was looking at them.


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## Matt (Jun 14, 2007)

Most people dont know that if you are going to petsmart or petco or whatever that if you ask for feeders the workers will ask you what size. (pinkie, fuzzie, small, medium, large, jumbo, etc...) 
Then go in the back and grab some "Regular" rats. (not my words..) 
Not the "Fancy" rats that are in the displays.


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## baebeetigress (Sep 6, 2007)

That is awful!! I didnt know they did that. The person at my petco just picked up the ones out of the little display cages and gave them to the guy when he asked for the feeders. I wanted to beat him over the head and take them away.


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## cjshrader (Feb 15, 2007)

I don't know about Petco, but I do know that PetSmart (At least the one near me) does not sell feeders. There are signs up proclaiming this, and I even had to sign something saying it wouldn't be a feeder when I got a couple of rats once.

Petco breeds their own rats so it would not be shocking to me if they do exactly what Matt said.


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## Mana (Apr 22, 2007)

When I got my Petco rats, I also had to sign something saying they were pets and not feeders, and there are signs up around the rodents saying they're not feeders. Even so, I am not at all surprised that they would still sell them to people they know are going to be feeding them to snakes. They just don't care, as long as they're making a buck.


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## baebeetigress (Sep 6, 2007)

Yeah I know the Petsmart by me does it. You know I read an article from them saying they were going to maybe not sell animals anymore? It was something about how so many people have complained about their living conditions and what not and the feeders I guess that Petsmart was in a discussion about not selling anymore animals. I dont think Petco cares. Has anyone else heard about this?


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## cjshrader (Feb 15, 2007)

No I haven't heard that, but I think it'd be some major brownie points with a lot of people if they did do that.


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## Lunachick (Aug 15, 2007)

Jennielove, I know. I wasn't saying that what those people did was ok. I think it's sick. But I'm just trying to say, some people don't have a choice about feeding live rodents to their snakes. You cannot force a snake to take dead food if it just does not want it, and shaking it will not help.
Personally, I think anyone who buys feeders from Petsmart/Petco (frozen OR alive) is not very smart at all. For a place like Petsmart who says they will not sell as feeders anyway, it's a lot of hassle for the buyer when they can get them from a breeder who sells for that purpose only. Plus, you can be guaranteed the feeders are healthy. Sad but true...


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## twilight (Apr 20, 2007)

Hmm... I was watching a show about Australia zoo. They have tons of snakes, even endangered ones. Yet they stated clear as day they ONLY feed humanly killed animals. Even to the huge Boa's and the wild snakes they have that can't be released. If they...with all those snakes including previously wild ones...all take dead food it makes me wonder why other people say their snake just won't eat it. I have a hard time believing the snake would rather starve to death, that goes against an animals strong will and natural instinct to survive.

=]


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## Lunachick (Aug 15, 2007)

Ok, but I'm trying to tell you, I had a Solomon Island ground boa who are known to be terrible eaters. Look it up  I had mine for about a year and only got her to eat twice. It's not TOO common when a snake would rather starve then eat dead food, but it does happen. Maybe not to that zoo (lucky them). But I assure you it's a known fact that some will just not do it.


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## twilight (Apr 20, 2007)

Honestly, I would have to see it for myself. A snake that would rather chose death than eat something dead. There are so many tricks. Like using a heat lamp to make the dead animal warm to trick the snake into thinking its alive. Then making it move and struggle a bit with your hand. I'm not denying that it doesn't happen, I'm just trying to point out that people need to try really hard and give it time (not saying you didn't).


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## Matt (Jun 14, 2007)

twilight said:


> Honestly, I would have to see it for myself. A snake that would rather chose death than eat something dead. There are so many tricks. Like using a heat lamp to make the dead animal warm to trick the snake into thinking its alive. Then making it move and struggle a bit with your hand. I'm not denying that it doesn't happen, I'm just trying to point out that people need to try really hard and give it time (not saying you didn't).


Well if you need to see it yourself then come and look in our Python Room.
We only have 2 Ball Pythons that WILL NOT eat Frozen Thawed Rats.
Some Snakes WILL Choose NOT to eat then to eat Frozen Thawed.
Although our Red-Tail Boas Will Eat Both any day of the Week.

And that Heat lamp trick? Where the heck did you learn that?
Nobody does that to a frozen rat. You put it in a bucket to thaw it out then heat it up when it is fully thawed with hot water.


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## twilight (Apr 20, 2007)

Heh...

I didn't learn the trick, I was on a snake forum a while back and saw someone mention it can be used if you do not have access to hot water.

Like I already stated... I'm not denying it doesn't happen.


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## Hippy (Jul 23, 2007)

-rubs the back of her head-
Ive applied to the Petco near me....
As far as I can tell, the cages are cleaned often, the mice look healthy, and the Petco just recently has been updating everything to make it tip top. That doesn't many that the pets they sell are as perfectly healthy as they can be, but I hope by working there, I can help out more with the rodents section, cleaner cages ect.
Yes, Petco says they don't sell their rats as feeders but people come and get them for that purpose. They emphasis though on the FANCY rats, which are a bit more and look a bit better then the other, PEW and black and white rats. Sometimes feeder buyers can be real smooth on buying rats. You can never tell if a rats going to a good or bad home.

And Petsmart, I think it higher ranked then Petco. Every store wont sell different sexed, all rats must be one sexed which makes me happy. They also spend more money on getting their rats, seeing they tend to sell a high quality of appearence. Blues, dumbos, ect, unlike petco who mainly just gets black and whites and the occasional, 

"Please buy my baby rats I bred, or find my rat a home because I cant take care of him anymore."

There is also another petstore near me, family owned, who breeds their own rats, so if you ant quality, you have to wait until a new litter comes, and thats rare, or else they just buy the plain black/white/brown rats.

One of their females had just weened her babies and I got to see them out and about. Hairless, double rex, rex babies. SOOOO CUTE. And did I mention, dumbo eared! They were so active and the mother rat is soooo sweet. :]


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## gen120 (May 14, 2007)

aww..that is sad!


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## Lunachick (Aug 15, 2007)

Well I'm glad you don't think I didn't try, Twilight  I mean, come on...I had that snake for a year. Don't you think I'd have tried everything? I was really quite desperate. A warm dead mouse does nothing for a snake that wants live food. Did I mention rodents aren't a Solomon's natural prey? It's actually frogs, which are NEVER recommended for the reason that, once they have one, there's not a chance in **** of them ever going back to rodents. And frogs are really difficult to get as food.
So, as I was saying...I do have first hand experience with snakes that only want live. I've had it happen, so I KNOW it does. And that's why I gave her up.


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## chrisstrikeagain (Apr 10, 2007)

I work at a petstore(family owned). And i will admit it(please dont hate me)...we sell feeders. They are kept in good condition, they go in tanks, but we clean them often). It kills me to give a customer a rat. What i do is tell them rats are more messy, so i try to convert them to mice. doesnt always work. 

Before i give the ratty away, i give them kisses and apologize. Its taken a big big toll on me, but i cant quit.


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## Hippy (Jul 23, 2007)

chrisstrikeagain said:


> I work at a petstore(family owned). And i will admit it(please dont hate me)...we sell feeders. They are kept in good condition, they go in tanks, but we clean them often). It kills me to give a customer a rat. What i do is tell them rats are more messy, so i try to convert them to mice. doesnt always work.
> 
> Before i give the ratty away, i give them kisses and apologize. Its taken a big big toll on me, but i cant quit.


Its ok, Im sure a feeder rat lives in worse conditions in most stores, and as much as I HATE the fact that people come in to buy feeder rats, its the way things happen, you can only try so hard to get them to try the already frozen rat, but it doesn't always work.
A lot of the time, people come in and want to try what a real feeder thats alive would be like, a lot of the time they cant feed it to the snake, frog, lizard ect, and they give the rat away, ect. You can only hope.


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## Lunachick (Aug 15, 2007)

chrisstrikeagain said:


> I work at a petstore(family owned). And i will admit it(please dont hate me)...we sell feeders. They are kept in good condition, they go in tanks, but we clean them often). It kills me to give a customer a rat. What i do is tell them rats are more messy, so i try to convert them to mice. doesnt always work.


I think it doesn't work when you try to convert them to mice is because a)If you do your research, reptile owners should know that rats are nutritionally better then mice. Mice are more fatty, etc and b)If you own a bigger snake, it's rats you need, and c)Again with the preference thing, some snakes prefer rats over mice.
My last corn would only take live mice. Not rats.


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## camel24j (Feb 27, 2007)

right now my snakes are at my freinds house becuse of a new law in the small city were i live (you cant even have rats its $1000 fine for each animal) any way she got my jungle carpet python to eat frozzen/ thawed i was working at it and had her eating thumped but at least now as soon as i find a new place and get back my snakes i know that she will eat safer. but there are a few snakes that will only eat live still like one corn but that corn is going to a show to be sold hopefully we are selling both corns.


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## Lunachick (Aug 15, 2007)

Glad to hear that camel! I just recently heard that my cousin got my stubborn corn to eat frozen/thawed. But I know my Solomon is still only eating live. I like to keep in touch with the people I adopt my pets to


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## JennieLove (Jan 2, 2007)

*Petco says they don't sell their rats as feeders but people come and get them for that purpose*

They actually do sell rats as feeders, but they would prefer that you buy frozen.


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## MagicalLobster (Jun 30, 2007)

Well, I can deffinitely sympathize. It sucks. Especially someone taking the same pet that you own to feed it to a snake.

On the other side, my brothers snake isn't very big and it eats pinkies/fuzzies (baby mice). I always hate seeing it happen...but it's what snakes eat, you know? I've never seen a snake eat anything else in my day, and we've tried the frozen stuff before.


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## chrisstrikeagain (Apr 10, 2007)

Lunachick said:


> chrisstrikeagain said:
> 
> 
> > I work at a petstore(family owned). And i will admit it(please dont hate me)...we sell feeders. They are kept in good condition, they go in tanks, but we clean them often). It kills me to give a customer a rat. What i do is tell them rats are more messy, so i try to convert them to mice. doesnt always work.
> ...


Hmm I did not know that, you always learn new stuff. My store doesnt sell frozen rats....so mice is the only other option. I hate sellin the ratties. I always give them kissies and apologize.


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## Zach (Jun 2, 2007)

Well, that's the circle of life. I've seen many more horrible things, like a gerbil swimming around in a pirahnna (SP?) tank... so sad and gorey, it was at my friends house, and he was laughing about it. Almost punched him in the nose.... But, that's just how the cookie crumbles, I guess you can feed them not live food though, that's better.


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## Nova (Sep 14, 2007)

DFW_Rat_Luvr said:


> they sure did. I got really snippy and snotty at that point, and left only after I verbally eviscerated the clerk and asst. mgr . Im real good at that unfortunately - its a bad character flaw i guess.


if all they care about is business then take you business elsewhere

I don't buy my supplies at a store that sells rats because 

1) like you, I don't want to bump into someone buying them for food right after I was making kissy noises at them through the glass

2) like you, I can't very well buy them all up so that I can protect them

I don't know where you live but there are pet stores that don't sell rats but the do sell supplies. I know the pet supermarket in my area is set up that way.

I actually found a feed store that I can buy my food & bedding from so now I don't have to go in & look at all those bright eyes anymore


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## Ratty_Mama (Oct 29, 2007)

I definantly do not believe in live feeding. Thats why they sell frozen pups! That still is wrong but oh well. Anyways I once witnessed something like that to except it was with mice and the guy actually ended up getting two and walking out with them(stupid petco dde was completely blind to it!).


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## FelineWolf (Nov 13, 2007)

I actually got my 2 rats from a reptile shop! But (AFAIK) they didn't feed any of their snakes live food, they would get a load of rats in and occasionally if there were some good looking and good natured rats in the bunch then those would go in a nice seperate tank to sell to people like me as pets, the rest were gassed and used/sold as food.


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## glindella (Sep 9, 2007)

Ratty_Mama said:


> I definantly do not believe in live feeding. Thats why they sell frozen pups! That still is wrong but oh well. .


This was already said but Ill repeat it anyway, some snakes refuse to eat frozen/dead food. Also, why is it wrong that snakes eat other animals? 

I saw a speaker tonight who brought a gorgeous Burmese python (among other animals, the Siberian tiger cub was incredible). He talked about how people 'humanize' animals and give human traits and personalities to animals *like* humans, like anything fuzzy. Snakes don't get that. Not really related but I thought it was interesting


btw why are all these old dead posts being revived?


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## Kimmiekins (Apr 14, 2007)

I feel the need to give my own 2 cents on this topic (though it WAS an old post, why's it back up??)

**NOTE: Links in this post do discuss the humane killing of rodents and the process of feeding rodents to herps, read at your OWN risk**

It's not wrong that snakes have to eat, and I don't understand anyone say such. What IS wrong is that many, MANY experts (owners, breeders, experts in the field, and vets, my own vet included, who specializes in rats, but also loves snakes) disagree that any snake shouldn't be able to eat frozen if properly offered (thawed, etc and if that doesn't work, then fresly killed). The, "it's natural" argument (a popular one) doesn't hold to much, because keeping snakes in glass tanks isn't natural. The injuries (and death) that can and DO occur to snakes is painful to me, even though snakes aren't my thing. Snakes in the wild hunt when they're hungry. Giving a LIVE rodent to a snake that's not hungry can, and often does result in serious injuries or worse.

http://www.anapsid.org/prekill.html
http://exoticpets.about.com/od/snakes/f/snakesliveprey.htm

And so on... Search Google if you're interested in more.

What's really "funny" is that I found this article ON Petco's site, encouraging converting to feeding frozen:
http://www.petco.com/caresheets/lizards/Reptile_ConvertFrozenFood.pdf

The article reads that they don't really support live feeding. Then why on earth do they not adapt the same principals as Petsmart (at least, they're supposed to refuse sales when it's believed it's for feeding) and the like?!


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## twitch (Jan 4, 2007)

i have nothing to add to the topic but the old posts will sometimes get revived when new members read it for the first time and want to add to it. for the most part this is fine. its less acceptable in the bridge section as people are trying to get past their grief and sometimes being reminded of it is painful for them. but discussions like this, i see no reason not to talk about it again if there is a new interest in it.


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## madonnaswimmer (Jul 31, 2007)

1.) Most snakes don't even know how to eat live food

2.) The snake can get hurt by eating live food

3.) It's very inhumane

4.) It's best to buy dead rodents for your snakes anyway. They are grown in a lab and are free from diseases. That's part of the reason why it's bad to buy from pet stores.... the rats often come with disease.


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## Matt (Jun 14, 2007)

madonnaswimmer said:


> 4.) It's best to buy dead rodents for your snakes anyway. They are grown in a lab and are free from diseases. That's part of the reason why it's bad to buy from pet stores.... the rats often come with disease.


No there not. You Buy frozen rodents from a rodent breeder if you are in the snake and reptile buisness. it gets to expesive going to petco and petsmart if you need hundreds of rodents.


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## madonnaswimmer (Jul 31, 2007)

Matt said:


> madonnaswimmer said:
> 
> 
> > 4.) It's best to buy dead rodents for your snakes anyway. They are grown in a lab and are free from diseases. That's part of the reason why it's bad to buy from pet stores.... the rats often come with disease.
> ...


But most snake owners only have a few snakes and don't need "hundreds of rodents" and do just go to the petstore to buy their food. Meaning, they buy the lab-grown rodents in the freezer at Petco and Petsmart. In which case, my point still applies.

But also, with rodent breeders, you are still getting controlled rats... the breeder is held to some level of accountability for the health of the rats. When you just pick a rodent out of the live cages at the petstore, you never really know what you're going to get.


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## Nomadofthehills (Dec 1, 2007)

I keep snakes, as well as rats. I love rats, but my snakes need to eat also. I feed f/t, but I have fed live occasionally (never a rat, but mice, once or twice).

Feeding live is dangerous to the snake when left alone overnight or unattended. While I love rats, I also know that nature is nature. That said, almost every snake can be persuaded to take f/t despite what many people think. They anthromorphize the snakes, which can go months without food. The trick to switching from live to f/t is by going cold turkey, for weeks, if nessesary.


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