File :-(, x, )
Where to get a rat? Parfait
I have been looking to get a few rats for my apartment, but i have only heard bad things from pets bought at pet stores. I would never buy any animal from a large chain, so what about smaller private-owned pet stores?
Has anyone had any luck buying ratties from large stores, or from stores at all? I dont even know where to start looking for a breeder and adopting rats seems like a waste since they only live for 2 years.
>> Anonymous
LOL, only hairless live for two years, dear. I've had one rat that lived to five. Their average age is three, and they can live past that. So no, I wouldn't say adoption was a waste unless they were older than a year.
>> Anonymous
>>214298
My hairless rat lived for three.
And how would adoption be a waste? It would be great if more people would adopt older pets than younger ones because its not that hard to find homes for babies.
Its a shame that there's so many older pets that would make GREAT pets get put down because no one wants them.

All but two of my rats(i have 7 total) are adopted, four of them were a year or older when I adopted them and they are the wonderful.
>> Anonymous
I've had rats from big chain pet stores and rats from mom n' pop places. I haven't seen a significant difference. The only time I ended up with a bad rat was when I foolishly chose one for color instead of temperament.

Not to mention, I worked at a big chain pet store and our particular one took exceptionally good care of the animals there. They were always clean, healthy, and because we interacted with them, they were very well adjusted.

Whether or not you get a good rat will come down to the individual location. You shouldn't make such broad generalizations.

And adoption is certainly not a waste. That's actually a rather disturbing thing to hear a potential pet owner say.
>> Parfait
I guess 'waste' was a bit of a harsh word. I probably should have used 'disappointed'. I get very attached to my pets, and would be a little upset if i adopted a rat only to have it die in six months. Thank you for your input however, i will reconsider adoption. I'm just rather new to adopting unwanted animals, and not sure how to approach the subject.
>> Anonymous
>>214298
You're a moron, lifespan has nothing to do with coat type.


>>214240
In my experiences, larger chain stores are more apt to take care of their pets as they have the corporate codes and PETA keeping an eye on them. Smaller mom and pop shops are just horrendous 10 times out of 10. I have yet to see one that gives a shit about anything they sell simply because they care more about the dollar they get instead of their big chain competition.

ABSOLUTELY FIND A RESCUE!! Many times rescued rats will be available that are younger (usually from retards who accidentally/intentionally breed). These rats in need of forever homes are also most likely spayed/neutered already, or can be for a small fee through the rescue. This will prevent a good amount of health/temperament problems down the road in either sex. You are very likely to get a healthier, happier and overall more socialized rat through a rescue than anywhere else. Regardless of their short lifespans, please seriously consider a rescued pair of rats.
>> Anonymous
>>214882speaks truth.

The rumors you hear on the Internet about Petco/Petsmart/etc being cruel to their animals is mostly bullshit - if one of these chains found one of their stores neglecting the care of these animals, they would have their hide. There are a lot of procedures in place to minimize stress in animals and keep them alive so they don't lose money from dead pet returns. The breeders of the animals aren't always the best, but they are at least inspected for proper care practices. Chains also have more access to special breeds, like hairless or dumbo.

Local stores can't afford to give their pets proper care, so they cut corners. This ends up in them selling subpar animals. For several years I bought cheap $1 feeder rats, most of them lived 2 years but were miserable with chronic respiratory infections. My current pet is a very bright-eyed social boy from a chain store, he is "old" but shows no signs of slowing down, compared to the rats of my past who all started getting grizzled at 8 months.

If you can find a rodent rescue on petfinder.com, baby rats are given up regularly because someone will buy a female rat who happens to be pregnant, or somebody's kid brings home some baby rats from a friend's and they can't keep them.
>> Anonymous
>>214240

>>I have been looking to get a few rats for my apartment

Just dont cleanup and leave uneaten food around the apartment for a couple months. THat should do the trick.
>> Anonymous
>>214894
what kind of fantasy world do you live in? i work for petco and even though we have animal care "policies" the managers don't enforce them and most of our animals never see a vet when they need to and die slow deaths of neglect.
>> Anonymous
1. Go to Google
2. Type the region you live in (ex: southern California) and 'rat breeder'
3. ???
4. PROFIT!!

OR

1. Go to petfinder.org... and well, the rest should be obvious...

And no, large chain stores are NOT better about taking care of their animals, and get them from disgusting mills that treat them like objects.
>> MiMi
>>215081

Why the hell don't you fucking do something about it then, you lazy ass?

I work at Petsmart. We have these things called "Policies and Procedures" that EVERY SINGLE ASSOCIATE IN THE COMPANY is required to adhere to. Though I haven't looked into it, I am positive Petco has something similar.

Confront your immediate supervisor about your concerns regarding the pets in your store. If they give you the run-around or tell you to piss off, contact THEIR superior. If none of the in-store managers will listen, ask your store manager/"big store boss" for the contact information for your District Manager. And if THAT person is fucktarded enough to not listen to your genuine concerns, well no fucking wonder I see so many 'converted' customers coming into my store, after seeing the appalling state of yours.

If you work for a big company and you have real worries, you can -always- speak up.

>>even though we have animal care "policies" the managers don't enforce them and most of our animals never see a vet when they need to and die slow deaths of neglect.

That is sickening. Even if your immediate managers don't "enforce" the P&Ps, why don't the associates do so anyway? Why the hell aren't you doing your job? Why the hell do you work at a major pet and pet product retailer if you don't care about the animals you're PAID to provide for?
>> Anonymous
I worked in Petco, and I personally tried to take care of the animals as much as I could...however, I could understand that some people (i.e. managers) could care less, and give the animals minimal care. Here is a tip: if you are in Petco or Petsmart, and you see an animal you think looks sick or is actual deformed, they will probably sell it to you for discount or even give it to you for free, mostly because they don't want to get any controversy. If you are SURE you can do a better job than the store you are at, then you are most likely right.
>> MiMi
>>215301
I say the same thing to you, regarding a wish-washy manager, that I did to the other person. If your managers ever seem to 'not care', fuck ... Get them fired. It won't be hard.

But you're right - I've seen several instances where 'disfigured' animals are given up for adoption - the only difference between adopting a pet in our store, and buying, is there is no money involved, and no return policy for you to rely on.

I have adopted a perfectly healthy Calico Ryukin goldfish that would have been worth somewhere around twenty dollars, except that it arrived at our store from our vendor with only one eye. Naturally. But the company doesn't recognize "disfigured" animals as "saleable". In another instance, I discovered that one of our Firebelly toads had gone to a customer with only three legs - the last one was a natural stump. She didn't mind, but her children did, and so they got another one. The stumpy-legged one was adopted out.

We can't give you our fourteen-day return policy and the vet care that covers, on an 'unsaleable' animal, but we will still strive to help YOU care for it.
>> Anonymous
     File :-(, x)
lol, rats
>> Anonymous
So does PetCo not have the old "if it gets sick, put it in the freezer" policy anymore?

I shit you not.

They make their money selling inexpensive animals to people who don't know the first fucking thing about proper long-term care for them. Even is a store like PetsMart does have policies requiring proper care for its animals, the vast majority of them (the herps especially) survive at most a few months to a year after being sold.
>> Anonymous
>>215311

Do you pull out your peta card if anyone argues with you to try and win arguments about animal welfare or wut?
>> Anonymous
>>215314
PETA is bullshit and I'm not against keeping animals in captivity. I just think it's hypocritical to get all high and mighty about how well the animals are taken care of when you work for PetsMart of all fucking places. "Our green iguanas are hapy and healthy and will make a great pet for your 5 year-old son miss housewife. Be sure to buy a big aquarium, an incandescent lamp and plenty of canned lizard food."
>> MiMi
>>215311
PetSmart.

Shit you not. The day they made that tiny little nuance in the name of the company was the same day they started really distinguishing themselves from PetCo.

Also, I would pay you personally for the entirety of the food, bedding, cage, toys/habitat, and animal itself if, taking proper care for your animal, it died within a year in normal circumstances.

If you're a dipshit who keeps a goldfish in a vase or a bowl, most likely it will die that quickly. If you keep a herp, but without the proper UV lighting or heat or humidity, it will likely die.

There's a lot of nuanced care for some animals that people just start forgetting about or get lazy with after a year or so of having a 'small pet' of any kind. They do fewer water changes with fish, or they get lazy about spacing food properly for herps, or, reffing another thread on /an/ right now, don't want to do something a vet really recommends. Or just doesn't care enough about the pet to do so.
>> MiMi
>>215316

God, you're more bitter about the place than I am, and I work there.

I would never sell an iguana to a housewife who's buying it 'for her son'. That's bullshit. I tell them straight out that it will die without proper care usually in under six months. Don't ever buy a pet for a child under thirteen or fourteen. YOU will clean up its crap. YOU will feed it. YOU will walk it. YOU will brush its coat. And YOU will certainly be the one wasting your money initially, and then complain later about vet bills that could have been avoided with - guess what - proper care.

Every Pet Care associate I've met (and trained) knows this, and is not hesitant to say so. If you actually come across one who will, I guarantee you she or he is new, or is the jackass employee who's there because it's "another retail job". They'll be gone within a month.
>> Anonymous
I had a rat once. His name was Huey. I got Huey at a small chain store that has since disappeared. I purchased him for $2 because he didn't piss on me when I picked him up, and he had balls like a mule.

I had Huey for two years and a bit before he knocked over a barrier in his cage and heroically raped my sister's rat. A few weeks later, my sister ditched her rat in favor of a newly appeared cuter, younger rat. She sold her first rat an the rest of the litter back to the pet store for $9, and didn't give me any of it because she's a little bitch an my parents hadn't yet explained how pregnancy worked.

A bit over five years after I got him, Huey had trouble waddling. He was never big on running; I imagine he was terrified his nuts would catch on something whenever he had too much momentum, which I took as a sign of good health. At the same time, my sister's rat developed cancer. By "developed," I mean the tumor was almost half again the size of the rat. This was not a sign of good health.

When the vet finally convinced her that he couldn't operate on her rat, we scheduled a 2-for-1 because the incredibly limited novelty of supporting your weight on your nuts had worn off for Huey.

So, at about five and a half years, my store-bought rat perished due to natural means and a big does of happiness in a needle. My sister's rat, born of two store-bought rats, naturally weened, and raised on advice of the vet, lived about three years and died from too much time on the cell phone, and again, happiness in a needle. Potentially she was a retard baby because of the incest.


...I was intending to have some sort of message towards the end here, but I'm not sure I had one in the first place. Fuck rats. Buy a chinchilla or a badger or something.
>> Anonymous
>>215317
>>There's a lot of nuanced care for some animals that people just start forgetting about or get lazy with after a year or so of having a 'small pet' of any kind. They do fewer water changes with fish, or they get lazy about spacing food properly for herps, or, reffing another thread on /an/ right now, don't want to do something a vet really recommends. Or just doesn't care enough about the pet to do so.

That's my point. Most of the people who go and buy animals from PetsMart haven't really done a lot of research and/or will simply lose interest in what was an impulse buy, and the majority of their employees are young high-school or 20-somethings who don't know much more than the basics about anything other than cats and dogs. I've gone into a PetsMart and found leopard geckos in a tank with nothing but moist sphagnum. Shit, most PetsMarts still sell and recommend incandescent UV bulbs despite the fact that they're pretty much useless except for anything other than heat. Last time I went (3 weeks ago because I ran out of crickets) they still didn't even carry compact fluorescent UV lights. How many of the bearded dragons that have gone through your store do you estimate are still alive today and being properly cared for? I promise you, most of them never made it into adulthood. I realize PetsMart is a lot better than PetCo (I wasn't kidding about the 'put the sick animals in the freezer' thing) but as a corporation when it comes to the animals they sell they still profit off of people making impulse buys. The fact that they even carry green iguanas is testament to that.
>> MiMi
>>215321

And I'm not saying that the Petsmart company is perfect - far from it.

Yes, we make our money off of impulse buys - but people impulse buy all the time. It's their own fault, and that's capitalism and greed at work for you. Why do you think there's such huge opportunity in advertising?

ITT: People who derail the thread (lol hi), and debates on the ethics of having 'pet stores' of any kind existing.

HA. HA. Internet.

...

Also, really. If you see a Petsmart with a leopard gecko habitat such as you described, and the associate isn't cleaning it or something, please, christ, SPEAK UP.

Why do you stay quiet about it? Or are you so bitter because you did, and it didn't change? Make enough of a fuss, and you can change the entire store, without ever needing to be employed there.
>> Anonymous
I've bought three rats and five mice from PetCo. En, my first rattie, lived to the ripe old age of four years, two months, dying from natural causes (two years after having his nuts ripped out of the sac by a ferret my brother was having him fight while I was away - $300 surgery, /totally/ worth it to me). The other two lived for about 3 years each, one was exceptionally sweet tempered and would kiss you died from cancer and an inhaled anesthetic overdose (I had heard needles can actually hurt the rat before it dies), the other bit (but because I reasoned he'd be adopted as snakefood, I couldn't just give him up) died of natural causes at home (couldn't take the biter to the vet). Most of my mice (2 PEW-feeders and 2 Fancy females)lived for 2 years each, except one that I bought specifically because she was sick and I felt she deserved to die comfortably - she hung on for four months.

I now own rabbits and chinchillas, but like everyone else says - do your homework on your pet, and make sure you're ready to give that pet the commitment it deserves (chinchillas = potentially 18 years!)

TL;DR Depends on animal, breeding and store, do homework, be prepared
>> Anonymous
>>215323
>>Why do you stay quiet about it? Or are you so bitter because you did, and it didn't change? Make enough of a fuss, and you can change the entire store, without ever needing to be employed there.

I did point it out. Whether anything was done about it, I don't know, I didn't stay to watch. And I'm not by any means opposed to pet stores in general, but to Wal-Mart equivalent big-box stores peddling animals bought in bulk to impulse buyers and then claiming some moral high-ground. Yes, it's capitalism at work- the same reason we have puppy mills.

And since the OP's post is about large chains vs small privately owned pet stores, I don't see how this is a thread derailment.
>> Anonymous
chinchilla, chinchilla, chinchilla, they are more expensive but live longer and are softer to the touch. FUCK YEAH.
>> Anonymous
     File :-(, x)
>>215326
If a store tosses a couple rats in a woodchipper instead of witch-doctoring them, does that effect the health of the rest of their stock? Does it matter that the pet store doesn't stock the right light for some lizard whose cum costs $200/cc? They're -rats-. They naturally live in your garbage, and continue to do so even when you throw poison at them. They require generic, warm-blooded care that often doesn't reflect the care given to more complicated cold-blooded animals which aren't nearly as classically adorable.
I bought my rat at a local small chain. It went bankrupt, and the manager of the local store opened and closed 3 more independent shops, in almost the same place, where I continued to buy feed. My rat lived more than five years. A rat I had born to my first rat only lasted three years. I think luck was involved with my purchase.

I personally recommend Dave's Soda and Pet Food City, even though it's a very small chain with about four locations. Last time I was there, the dirtiest part of the store was where my dog pissed on the barrel of peanuts. It also helps that I've met the owner, even if he does look a little fruity.
>> Anonymous
>>215321
>>they still didn't even carry compact fluorescent UV lights

http://www.petsmart.com/search/index.jsp?kwCatId=&kw=fluorescent&origkw=fluorescent&sr=1
>> Anonymous
>>215399
I didn't go to their online store to buy crickets, I went to the local brick-and-mortar store.
>> tigerfeather !CrwtTbFNxQ
>>215552
That doesn't necessarily mean that they wouldn't have helped you if you were looking for one either, though. They will carry what most people will be looking for, especially locally. You think that all Wal-Marts carry the same stock? I'm sure that California Wal-Marts and Texas Wal-Marts and Maine Wal-Marts carry different stock, and I'm darn sure that different PetSmarts will carry different stock too. Perhaps it's just the people in your general area who don't like the compacts?

Sage for not adding anything useful to the conversation.
>> Anonymous
>>215614
My point was that they primarily stock, and their employees still recommend, incandescent UV lights- which are virtually useless when it comes to preventing metabolic bone disease in reptiles. They're simply overpriced heat lamps. They do carry fluorescent bulbs but the 'starter kits' they sell often come with either a single clamp lamp and no fluorescent fixture and some with even just a heat rock- which are dangerous, especially in enclosures of tropical reptiles, and are outdated by at least 2 decades.
>> Anonymous
>>215783
Then clearly you need to give the employees a good ass-chewing in an effort to curb this awful problem.
>> Anonymous
If you buy a female rat from a petstore, she will probably be pregnant. They don't separate the sexes.

How many rats did you want, again?
>> Anonymous
>>216180
Uhh?

Petsmarts, at least, separate males and females. By store, even. I worked at a female store and we had one instance of males getting mixed into one of our shipments. Once in the two years I worked there, and it was mice. Tricky little ball-hiding bastards. Never rats, though.

So instead of making an assumption, you could.. not. You could also be observant when you went to the pet store or (gasp) communicate with the owners to see if the sexes had been mixed at any point.
>> Anonymous
My info came from employees. Believe what you will.
>> Anonymous
>>216190
my AIDS came from negroes./b/elieve what you will.
>> Anonymous
A chinchilla is moar expensive. But it lives a lot longer, bounces instead of walks, and is so fucking fluffy oh holy shit it's so fluffy you will fucking shit yourself.