yeah, i know i've gotten into it with the folks at my local petco a few times, including with the store manager who knows absolutely nothing about reptiles. they always talk like they're listening to you, but you never see any real changes. i don't understand how a person who knows nothing about animals gets a job running a pet store.
diablo, No one ships live so you would have to either find a local rat breeder or breed your own rats.
actually, if you know something about it, they probably wouldn't hire you because it would cost them too much money. If you got in there and started trying to change things, it would not only cause them problems, but also cost them more money to deal with you. I think the ignorant managers they have are exactly what they want. I work at Petco, and my fiance works at Petsmart. There are worlds of problems with both stores, but here in Waco they are the only two that carry reptiles (there is one more, but amazingly they are 10 times worse about torturing their reptiles than petco or petsmart - they just recently killed a $150 beardie because they wouldn't listen to any of our advice - i hate stupid people). Both of us are always trying to help the people that keep reptiles and that's the only reason we are where we are with our jobs. I'm actually working on getting a reptile day at my store where we can do small presentations on several different common pet reptile species. I'm going to try to force people to learn at least a little about it. And believe it or not, my in-store managers are actually going for it! Anyways, we want to bring in examples of all of them so people can see and learn hands on. One of the biggest things I'm tired of is people wanting the huge pythons and they don't have clue what they would be in for. We are planning on bringing a 15 ft. burm in there to get peoples attention. They shouldn't be scared of it, but they sure do need to respect it. It's not something you just mess around with because you will get hurt. We're just trying to get that through to people. If any of you on here are from waco or around here, please contact me if you're interested in helping out. The managers are okay with people coming in for this and helping that don't actually work there as long as they aren't trying to sell anything of theirs. You know how that goes...
i was afraid you were gonna say something like that. i was hoping for something more along the lines of "most mom and pop pet shops carry them, i'm sure you can find one in your area"! i seriously doubt i'll find a rat breeder around here. thanks.
I'm nearing that problem stage soon..the Col's hitting the large adult mice nicely...next step up at the pet store is a small rat which is WAY too big. No weanling rats around..what to do, what to do!
I feed mine live. I ALWAYS watch the whole process. I will defend my snake if I have too. Mabe theres something wrong wih me but I think its entertaining. Even my dog likes to watch. And if it doesnt get eaten I have a new short term pet. Have not tried to feed dead ones yet.
i also find it very entertaining. lol at the "short term pet". i had to keep a mouse in a box in my garage last week but after four days the little critter escaped! then i hunted him down and he had to die...
I've only fed live and I barely have a chance to get the lid on the bin before Dues goes for it. He striked at me once since I didnt get the mouse in fast enough...guess he was pretty hungry.
I am going to go on the side of F/T or fresh killed here, it maybe nice to watch it catch and kill the mice, but it serves no real purpose. We feed our Balls F/T every week, it is tricky to get them going sometimes at first, but once they are going F/T then you are good to go. Plus who really wants to have loads of those stinky mice hanging around the place. (I hate the smell of mice). Most of our snakes still strike for their meals and coil, others we just drop them in and they mosey over and just swallow it, just depends on the snake. Plus feeding F/T my snakes can eat a huge rat and never worry about getting hurt. I saw SHRAP 5 in 1000 comment too, I would rather have 0 in 1000 and you get that with F/T. I don't want to see any of my animals hurt. How would you like that 1 in 1000 be you brand new Piebald eye ball getting gouged? No thanks F/T it might sometimes be a pain at first but I like my snakes, the way they are.
randytkdbb, i see where you're coming from, but i have a "real purpose" for feeding live... getting my ball to eat. all he'll take is live. i have tried to transistion to F/T and i've tried to transition to P/K and he simply won't take it. if it ain't runnin around it's not food to him. people give us live feeders a bad rap, it's usually because we have no choice, and it's plenty safe for the most part.
Live feeder here too, not a day's problem. Supervision and acting responsible is the key. As you well know, not every snake will eat F/T or P/K, so not feeding live isn't always an option.
See I understand if it "won't" eat F/T but I would never choose to Feed Live. What we have done in the past is fed "Stunned" Mice to the snakes Whack em, then toss them in. If they get lively Pull em and Whack em again. They are fresh and stubbling (hehehe) but not much threat to the snake. Then the snake can eat it without much fight, then we would transistion them to Fresh Killed and later to F/T. I agree as well that supervision and acting responsible is the key to successful live feeding, but make a serious effort to move your snake to F/T as soon as possible.
Some of us have....but they just simply wont take it...bub will have nothing to do with anything that doesnt move and sometimes "cuddles" with his dinner before he really decides to eat it....which is pretty dangerous cuz i never know if the mouse is going to get to him before it can hapen the other way around...but i NEVER leave him unattended with his dinner...and im sure skunky and diablo dont either.....
what we are saying randy, is that WE HAVE made a serious effort to transition and it just ain't happening. as far as stunned mice, i've tried. even if the mouse is twitching so much that it's practically hopping around my snake has no interest in eating it. he needs the mouse to be walking around naturally to catch his interest. i've tried the stunned/dead mouse puppet show, he didn't fall for it. i've tried chasing a live mouse with a stunned mouse, that worked once. after that i was just wasting mice cuz he never took the second mouse again. the point is we are doing what we have to do, we know the pros and cons, we have snakes that won't take anything but live and we are safe about it. with all due respect, we really don't need to be told what we should to be doing. babybub, i gotta tell you something... every time i see the end of your sig, ".1 rat (not feeder)", i can't help but think to myself "yet". :wink:
Dunno..woke up one morning with voices in my head..always assumed it was earwigs. They do sound earwiggyish.
