Now petco does it too!

[Foschi Exotic Serpents]

For a long time petsmart has required you to sign a contract stating it is being purchased as a pet if you buy a rodent. This is to prevent you from going back multiple times for feeders.

Well my ASF colony is depleted and a couple of my new babies are being stubborn and do not want rat pups. I went on the hunt for a few mice to produce some of those too for back up.

Went into petco and asked for a couple females and a male. Not even a year ago they would sell rodents as feeders but now they also make you sign a contract saying it's a pet/companion animal.

What really gets me is that they are not fancy mice. They are the small white lab mice. What if a person has new hatchlings or picky snakes that won't eat rats or frozen thawed rodents? If it were not for privately owned reptile shops or pet shops, I worry that some pet snakes wouldn't eat.

[Kinra]

That sucks.

The pet store I used to buy live mice from doesn't sell them as pets, they are called feeder mice, and that was your typical pet store. Though they do sell kittens occasionally so maybe they are a little behind the times.

[kb1290]

As a employee I can tell you that this has always been Petco policy. Corporate recently went through and cracked down on this policy, it sucks but there is nothing we can do about it.

[771subliminal]

ive never understood this policy at all, in the same store they sell frozen mice and rats as well would they not all end up in the same place?

[Foschi Exotic Serpents]

I agree. Plus their frozen rodents cost about the same as live and the quality usually isn't that great.

[Skittles1101]

lol....corporate cares so much about the pets that the mice are contracted to be pets and not feeders....but won't spend any extra money to educate their employees, update their care sheets, and correct their husbandry. Interesting...

kb1290...just pointing out nothing against the employees, but the corporate end of those chains are rediculous. As we've talked about this before, not all employees are like you BUT that's because most aren't educated on specific animal care requirements.

[wilomn]

It's all about image. Have you noticed how many pet adoption days they have? They make more money on food and supplies than they ever would on animals. People adopting kittens and puppies may not appreciate that cute little mouses are being sold as snake food.

Plus, I would imagine that hsus and peta donate significantly to their advertising campaigns to help get those future pet owners in the stores. Can't bite the hand that feeds you if you're corporate.

[AkHerps]

Our Petco in Fairbanks, Alaska does not do this. They know what it's for and they frown upon it but they don't fight it. They just strongly encourage f/t.

[Kymberli]

I can understand why people selling their own pets and breeders who breed rodents specifically to be sold as pets would be concerned about their animals being fed to reptiles. Though, I'm actually surprised franchise companies even care. They're typically more concerned about money than what happens to their animals. I would understand if an employee were to become attached to one of the animals, it would be upsetting to know that it was being used to produce feeders. But, at a corporate level, what reason do they have to dictate what we buyers use the rodents for? Does it make it animal abuse simply because they were not labeled "feeders"?
The corporate levels of PetCo and PetSmart need to enforce better feeding and care of their reptiles before they enforce buyer's policies on rodents. It's them who create the rules of how much the employees are permitted to feed the animals.

[fluffy3]

The petsmart by me only sells pets but we have a PJ's pet store that sells feeders as well as pets funny thing feeders (rats or mice) are about $3 or up to $6 for large mice/med Rats and the pet Rats are $15!! Im pretty sure they are bred the same maybe the pet ones are handled more but its a huge mark up for pet status I only looked into it for a back-up I buy frozen from a reptile store