TifaBea
New member
I'm so disgusted right now.
I've been looking for a female for about a month now, online, in the area, etc.
In all that time I found it extremely hard to find a breeder even in the state of Michigan which is why I'm looking for a female. I'd like to breed in the future, just to give people an opportunity who would like to get healthy geckos in my area. I finally found a non-commercial pet store that carried all sorts of exotic creatures about 50 miles away and made the trip.
Upon entering the store I was instantly hesitant. It smelled awful and was dirty. It could be a nice store if they kept it up. I do realize there will be some smell but it was over powering. But this wasn't even what killed my mood.
I asked the girl at the counter if I could see their selection of leopard geckos. They were upstairs with all of the other reptiles in about a two gallon tank each. The Iguanas had about a 5 gallon. I don't think it would be so bad temporary except they over stock each one. That was the first thing I noticed. When she showed me the first tank it had 5 juvenile albino leopards in it. Out of the five, one was healthy and had it's tail intact. Three more had lost their tails, and were having shedding issues. The fifth made me so sad. He was awfully skinny. Had virtually no tail and his body just lay there.
On top of that, they were on wood chips. Now this isn't even the start of my story.
The next container had two high yellows, both missing toes and tails were extremely skinny.
The tank with two albinos had both tails missing and were attacking each other, I then informed her that they were both males after inspecting them. Aparently she had no idea how to tell them apart and I had to show her how.
The next one was a normal, looked slightly healthy, and full grown. He had lost his tail but did not the proper care so it grew back twisted like. She tells me that they had housed him in with the five iguanas. SERIOUSLY?
The final one was a blizzard. He was pretty, regular size, maybe a slightly small tail. The only thing I could see physically wrong was he couldn't open his left eye. I asked if I could pick him up and she tried to get him out for me. He hissed at her and I told her it was ok, to leave him be.
Somewhere in all the conversation I told her I was looking for a female to breed in the future. She then said "Well if you do breed them my boss would probably buy them off of you."
I'm not sure what my face looked like, but thinking to myself "No way in hell."
I just felt so helpless. How do people treat their animals this way and think it's ok? I just figured I'd share this tidbit with everyone to show some more of the ugly side of breeding. Even if you take care of them, who knows if the person you let take them are going to care for them.
I've been looking for a female for about a month now, online, in the area, etc.
In all that time I found it extremely hard to find a breeder even in the state of Michigan which is why I'm looking for a female. I'd like to breed in the future, just to give people an opportunity who would like to get healthy geckos in my area. I finally found a non-commercial pet store that carried all sorts of exotic creatures about 50 miles away and made the trip.
Upon entering the store I was instantly hesitant. It smelled awful and was dirty. It could be a nice store if they kept it up. I do realize there will be some smell but it was over powering. But this wasn't even what killed my mood.
I asked the girl at the counter if I could see their selection of leopard geckos. They were upstairs with all of the other reptiles in about a two gallon tank each. The Iguanas had about a 5 gallon. I don't think it would be so bad temporary except they over stock each one. That was the first thing I noticed. When she showed me the first tank it had 5 juvenile albino leopards in it. Out of the five, one was healthy and had it's tail intact. Three more had lost their tails, and were having shedding issues. The fifth made me so sad. He was awfully skinny. Had virtually no tail and his body just lay there.
On top of that, they were on wood chips. Now this isn't even the start of my story.
The next container had two high yellows, both missing toes and tails were extremely skinny.
The tank with two albinos had both tails missing and were attacking each other, I then informed her that they were both males after inspecting them. Aparently she had no idea how to tell them apart and I had to show her how.
The next one was a normal, looked slightly healthy, and full grown. He had lost his tail but did not the proper care so it grew back twisted like. She tells me that they had housed him in with the five iguanas. SERIOUSLY?
The final one was a blizzard. He was pretty, regular size, maybe a slightly small tail. The only thing I could see physically wrong was he couldn't open his left eye. I asked if I could pick him up and she tried to get him out for me. He hissed at her and I told her it was ok, to leave him be.
Somewhere in all the conversation I told her I was looking for a female to breed in the future. She then said "Well if you do breed them my boss would probably buy them off of you."
I'm not sure what my face looked like, but thinking to myself "No way in hell."
I just felt so helpless. How do people treat their animals this way and think it's ok? I just figured I'd share this tidbit with everyone to show some more of the ugly side of breeding. Even if you take care of them, who knows if the person you let take them are going to care for them.
