#They consider themselves the Elon Musk of reptiles...

[omg-snakes]

Do you know if there are ways to know if a snake from a pet shop has been properly taken care of or not? Asking since i've been visiting some and i saw one with a boa that had some kind of sinking or deformity on his tail, so i'm kinda wary now.

Hello, friend! I'm sorry to tell you that there is not.

I've worked in multiple areas of the pet industry and I've met the full gamut of types of shop owners, and while I don't consider all of them wicked people, some certainly are. Even the best of them have a bottom line to consider. This means that they won't divulge where their animals are coming from so that you can look into a breeder before making a choice, and they're likely buying animals from backyard breeders or bulk importers. This also means that it's unlikely that the animals they're selling will have established health histories.

Having worked at one of if not The biggest reptile chain in Northern California, I saw some horrors that scarred me for life. Among the lesser sins that took place there:

Folks who bred reptiles but didn't have incubators set up could bring their eggs in for incubation services, the price of which was half of the clutch, and the store owner would then sell the resulting babies as "born on-site," which was technically true! But we didn't know the parentage or health potential of any of these animals. We didn't sell incubators in the store for this specific reason.

Surrenders came in regularly from owners who didn't have the time or resources to care for their pets any longer. They went on the sales floor with a price tag the second the previous owner walked out the door. No veterinary care, no health evaluation, no observation period, nothing. If they looked okay they were priced at regular retail price and we were explicitly told to never admit that they had been surrendered. 100% profit.

Any animal that was injured or sickly, no matter where it came from or how it got injured, was tagged as a "surrender" that we would claim was dropped off by a bad former owner and we'd had them cleared by a vet so that we could rehome them. This was a lie. None of them ever got veterinary care, ever.

Enclosures were cleaned regularly but were never properly sterilized between animals. We sold veterinary-grade cleaner in the store but we were not allowed to use it because it was too expensive. We used diluted Lysol!

Again, this is a large reptile chain with multiple stores and mostly positive online reviews* and I wouldn't trust them with a pet rock, let alone anything breathing.

You're much better off getting a snake from a reputable breeder, or at least someone who can answer reasonable questions about feeding, parentage, genetics, any possible health issues, etc.

*the owner actually reported negative reviews and would have employees write good ones while I was there.

#They consider themselves the Elon Musk of reptiles... #yeah pretty much #snake #snakes #reptile #reptiles #reptiblr #answers to questions #text post #i still have some ptsd from that job #I'm not kidding it almost destroyed me #pet store #tales of terror at the reptile shop #shockingly that's still not the WORST reptile job I've had #there was the one who tried to burn down the shop for insurance money #or the one that I'm 99% certain was a front for drugs #don't work at a pet store! #don't buy animals at a pet store!