In my experience, petco and petsmart love to have any animals that prefer to be housed in groups sitting alone in a solitary cage and any animals that prefer to be sitting alone in a solitary cage housed socially

you’d think that an establishment that literally caters to animals make appropriate living environments to said animals. but i guess not.

Don’t forget that male mice are very territorial especially when they aren’t neutered

Fun Fact! Places where you can buy animals such as Petco don't require their workers to know anything about the animals they sell, so take everything they say with a grain of salt. This very same reason is definitely why some of these animals weren't kept in optimal conditions.

Former animal rescue vollunteer. My Rescue once took in 16 cockatiels that were siezed from a PetCo because of neglect. Never worked with such savage birds in my whole life, and I grew up around some crazy roosters! One of my friends just had one of her snakes eat the other snake. They had cohabitated for just over 2 yrs. She was super surprised because "the snakes are always together at the store though!"

It’s funny to me when people complain about zoos and aquariums when places like this exist.

"I love birds so much, I love how quiet they are." *dies laughing*

Your reaction to the reptile section is like my reaction to the rodent section as a former mouse owner😂

“Look on the balls on you.” 😂

Used to work for petco. My general manager had recommended to a customer to get calcium sand for their reptile because "they could eat it" if they needed calcium. I corrected him on it and he said that he's always been told they can do that. 💀 tbh if you love animals, don't shop there or work there. You will wear yourself out if you care too much.

As a Petco employee, I can clear some of these up. Those of us(me) who work in-store have no choice but to do this. We cohabitate our ball pythons, overstock leopard geckos, crested geckos, bearded dragons and more because we have to. Corporate is to blame for this. Why? They continuously send animals to stores, even when there's not enough space. Automatic animal stock orders are filled, sent, shipped, and delivered to stores weekly or every two weeks. We really try our best(especially me, as I'm an avid, extremely dedicated exotic hobbyist) to take the best care possible with what animals we have. It's a business, and we're not expecting to house animals for a terribly long time, which is why we often cohabitate and keep animals in less than adequate space. We employees DO NOT design the habitats, that's corporate. We employees DO NOT set up the habitats with the decor they have because we have a choice, corporate makes us do that. We have policies to adhere to, or else we lose our jobs. I've been in the hobby for 12 years, and take it extremely seriously, it is my passion. However, I do enjoy my job as well. I am an aquatic and reptile specialist at my local store, it's what I've always done. I do not like how corporate sets up these things, and I know you don't either. Just don't blame inadequacies of animal care on us. We literally have no choice but to follow the policies of businessmen who don't know a crested gecko from a leopard gecko. As a final note, I have a rather large collection of exotic plants, reptiles, amphibians, inverts, and many more of my own... Absolutely none of it resembles what you see at my job. I'll be damned if I treat my own pets the way Petco wants us to treat inventory animals in-store.

“Oh great” with just the most verbal eye roll I’ve ever heard. Thank you king, we love animals but hate how big companies treat them

This is one of the best looking petcos I have seen in my life. My usually petco stinks and the bird cages have 2 sticks max and one toy. The reptile cages are HALF the size and the betas have brown water. it’s overall really sad :/

I actually talked to someone at a local petco about the improper lighting and setup for the veiled chameleon on display. However, I understand that there is only so much you can do when working for a large corporation with its own specific policies and standards. However, I returned a couple weeks later and was glad to see the veiled getting a t5 ho 10.0 instead of a single incandescent and red bulb (if I remember correctly but either way the gal had no source of UVB) but it’s nice to know that some employees truly care and want to help these animals. This is coming from someone who purchased a young (~1 yr old) chameleon that had started at a petco and had recently ended up at a private reptile shop. She was with me for 5 years before she passed due to a ruptured egg but, in the beginning, she almost didn’t make it through her first clutch of eggs. Due to overfeeding and improper supplements and/or lighting, she ended up with MBD and 75 eggs for her first clutch which is insane.

Friendly reminder please don't take this out on the employees 🖤 I know, no one in the video did, this isn't an accusation. I just know how people can be. I worked at PetSmart 15yrs ago, had a lady throw her bagged fish at me because I told her I wasn't comfortable selling her any more as these put her at max capacity. I've seen the "I know more than you" meme. Plus I've seen so many people online bragging about how they tore into an employee for the way the animals are kept. - standards are set by corporate, employees have no say. - they're (generally) minimum wage retail workers who just needed a job. Often times they're highschool or college kids. - if they cages are dirty or the animals are neglected, bring it up to a manager district manager.... it's most likely because the employees are rushed. They have a checklist to do at open and close, but some managers rush them too much and they don't have time to do everything properly. Complaining to the floor employees won't change anything, and likely they already feel bad about not being able to do things right as most people who work there are animal lovers. Going to the managers is risky, because it's likely they will just yell at the employees and expect them to do it fast *and* properly rather than allowing for more time. Going to district manager *might* trigger them to do a (possibly spontaneous) check in on the store to ensure they're following guidelines set by corporate (which yeah they're far from perfect BUT don't allow enclosures to become dirty or the animals to go hungry) - if you want to complain about the general standard of care, like housing or diet, please contact corporate! again, employees can't do anything about that. Corporate probably won't care, people have been complaining for ages. You can *try* talking to the store or pet care manager. If you're lucky they will car enough to make minor changes, though this is breaking corporate guidelines so not many are willing.

as someone who runs a guinea pig rescue, petco is my worst enemy

The number of bearded dragons that would get sick and die due to cohabitation when I worked at PetSmart was tragic. The larger ones would sit on top of the smaller ones and hog food. We tried our best in the PC department to take care of them, like keep small ones separated from large ones if we had any other tanks open, but there was only so much we could do.

I've been working at a petco for almost 4 years now and I'm a manager, and now that I see the behind the scenes stuff, the limits to animals per enclosure definitely is not something I like to follow and we fight with our district leader about stuff like that all the time but a big problem for petco stores is a bad staff who don't know about the care of animals or don't care to learn about it themselves, I like to think that my store has a good staff and we try our hardest to keep our animals in tip top shape given the conditions we have to abide by according to corporate rules, and we have also refused animal sales on multiple occasions because the customers have straight up refused to give the animals what they need. I'm a reptile and fish keeper myself and seeing customers come in and expect to leave with an animal after just learning about them that day is just not adequate for me or the animal itself

That’s literally the best looking petco I’ve ever seen 😂

Me everytime I walk into a pet store.

I worked at Petco as a Reptile Specialist for several years they fired me when I insisted it takes more than two hours to take care of the 50 animals under my care. That's the reasons every hour the p.a. speaker says, "here at Petco the animals come first" that was our cue to check for dead animals. Couldn't let people see the aftermath of the terrible housing arrangements

I work at a PetShmo and I hate that shit, they do it to save money and have more animals less space. They have a limit to how many can be housed in a certain space. But for me it still isn’t enough

I pray that you all randomly find the petco that has some actual passionate reptile keepers. I worked at one that had a few. And none of the animals were ever cohabitated

Those chameleons weren't supposed to be cohabbed either. Part of the reason is because of what we saw in the video. They compete for food, and they can injure their tongues going for the same prey. Chameleons need their tongues to eat on their own. A minor injury to the tongue can result in needing to assist/force feed them for the rest of their lives. Those were also two sub-adult/adult males. Best part of it all, pet stores that carry chameleons don't have the supplies needed to keep chameleons alive.

“Look at the balls on you” I died 💀

It absolutely frustrates me to see the male mice being kept together. They fight to the death with other males. 😭

"hey, what did you do today?" "ah, just went to petco and admired a mouse's testicles. you?"

You should have checked out the beardies, they’re ALWAYS way too humid which is especially bad for babies-which is what they have!! The pore dragons are nearly sweating.

Funniest thing, when I went to go get my pet rats from Petco (female) they apparently only have female rats, but literally I was looking at the rats in one straight up gave birth in front of me. They had to figure out which one of the rats were male lmao

Just last week I went to my local petco. There were two baby corn snakes soaking in a water dish. I looked closer and they were covered in mites. 😢

I bought a saggy aquarium plant from petco. i also bought some moss that ended up being dead, and I bought a container of earthworms that, upon opening, were all dead and covered in alien like mold 😅

I hated working at petco. We had a certain type of lizard at one point and one guy came up to me and said that they didnt look right (i dont know much about reptiles i was more familiar with the rodents) so I went to our CAL at the time (the guy that creates the enclosures and takes care of the animals) and he just brushed it off. Then one day another employee that i worked with showed me how an app that shows how to set up each enclosure for each animal and we find out that the lizard that he put in a desert habitat was supposed to be in a “jungle” habitat. Not to mention the harassment from all management from my assistant manager to the district manager.

My *favorite* is how they house their chinchillas. No dust baths, paper bedding that blocks their digestive system and kills them, plastic huts that do the same, too small a space, wrong temperture (which gives them SEZIURES) and the wheels are ridiculously small and damage their already floating ribcage. ALSO Chinchillas are typically not pets for children, and they're advertised like they are! Pisses me off to no end

i just went to petsmart to get flea treatment for the cat, saw 6 baby beardies living together, im amazed they even seemed to have all their toes

hi i work at petsmart 90% of the time we dont and cant control what animals the vendors send us. if they send us 4 snakes and we only have one free enclosure, thats just how it has to be. people who know about the animals they work with are the saddest to work under these conditions. i am sad.

Getting around the highly inappropriate enclosure and cohabitation (which I will mention is a major flaw at such big box pet stores), the animals seem (at least) mildly healthy. I’ve found a very emaciated ball python (on the brink of starvation) at my local store, and cohabitation with various animals (which should not be kept together). As a side note, when did Petco start selling plants?

I feel like this wasn't too bad for a pet shop. I have seen things SO much worse in big pet chains

Worked both places (as a dog bather), and I always asked. It's the higher ups that mandate this stuff and if it's not what they think is right, you get fired. It's insame

You want to know what's bad.... I worked a pet store one time. The owner was definitely only there for the money and nothing else. Would sell feeder mice and he had so many mice in one rank that they would start eating each other and I had to be the one to clean it up so customers wouldnt see it... Thank god the store is now closed.

I used to work for petco and it sucked. The people I worked with genuinely cared(not saying that’s true everywhere but at my store it was) but we weren’t given the proper equipment or resources to care for the animals we cared for. And whenever we would make a change to try and benefit them corporate would get us in trouble☠️

The ball pythons at pet supplies plus are always ontop of the thermostat!

I remember about 8 years ago I went into Petco and saw a tank filled with atleast 15 bearded dragons literally piled up on eachother without proper heat or lighting, and there was a thin, malnourished one at the very bottom of the pile. At the time, I already had two Bearded dragons and couldn’t afford a third, but I wasn’t gonna let this guy possibly die. I asked the worker for that one specifically, and started drilling the guy with questions regarding why they aren’t getting the right care at all, and he said it’s because the tanks have to be “exactly what corporate wants, and wishes he can change their setup.” I bought him a 20 gallon tank, correct heat bulb, and uvb fixture, and took him home. When I put him in the tank, he literally couldn’t walk in a straight line and couldn’t keep himself upright, continuously flipping on his back. Thankfully after 3 days of force feeding him crickets and receiving proper care, he made a full 100% recovery-although he absolutely despised me by biting and hissing at me(I guess as a thank you for bringing him back to life🤣🤣). He is now over at a family friends as his forever home, getting spoiled, although I’m not sure if his temper ever changed. I don’t blame the guy for having a temper though after everything he’s been through. For this reason, I will never buy a pet from petco, and avoid this company at all costs. Please, don’t support this company. They’re sick.

Yeah they’re the worst, I’m a rat fanatic and I always tell anyone interested in rats never to go to a pet shop, but especially petco. Some locations have literally thrown animals into the trash if they got sick.

As a fish keeper my best advice to the people that want to buy a pet, DO NOT BUY THEM FROM BIG LEAGUE FRANCHISES!! They do not take care of their animals at all, and you'll end up with a pet that has so many diseases or is on their last legs.

I like Big Man on Campus. He's my favorite.

Glad to know that going to petco is a unanimous experience for herp keepers

You’d think with as much complaints and bashing they get they would change their terrible ways

One time my friend saw a dead conure in the cage and told an employee and they laughed and said “Aw dude you’re a real one!” and gave her a high five. Don’t buy from these places.

“I love birds, I love how quiet they are”. Got screamed at through my staff meeting yesterday because one of their two food bowls had no seeds in it. So tranquil.

the blood on the glass in the mouse tank 💀

Dang, that's bad. We have a petsmart in our area and I think only a few geckos are ever cohabbed but other than that all the reptiles are happily solitary. I always cringe at the look of the betas though. They can't be put together because of their aggression but their little plastic containers seem so inhumane 😢

You would think that in this day and age that a big chain pet store would actually do research as to how to care for these animals correctly and not cohabiting, absolutely shocking.

“I love birds so much, I love how quiet they are” aha dude I wouldn’t describe parrots as “quiet” 😭 they seem quiet but then they throw a fit or do their flock call and suddenly you loose your hearing, imagine a screech the sound level of a gunshot or higher, now imagine that constantly throughout your day

I work for a commercial pet store, not as commercial as petco/smart but close. It sucks that corporate dictates how the animal enclosures have to be set up or how long preparation can be done. Don't even have time to drip acclimate the shrimp. At least we don't co habit the snake or lizards, tho we do have 2 crested geckos together. At least we have to clean their tanks and mist them well. But corporate also dictates we have to use bark or green mats for substrate, not allowed to use coconut Husk. And even tho it's stated pythons should be frozen fed the breeders usually never do, so you're almost always getting a live fed python cause they don't get any consequences. Ugh. Our fish tanks have a lot of aquatic plants tho, which is really nice.

As much as I hate how cramped it is, the enclosures are temporary and I've noticed some workers there work really hard trying to make sure that when they do adopt out an animal, it's going into a proper setup

I would never buy anything at Petco. We have an excellent local establishment here in my city that sources its animals from reputable breeders and hire knowledgeable staff and pay them an excellent wage.

Not the chameleons 😭

that mouse was READY JESUS

WHY WERE THEY ALL IN THE SAME CAGE. But those birbs were cute and didn't deserve to be in that tiny cage

I complained to petco corporate on Twitter of all things about how my local one was treating the birds. The next time I went the birds were unable to see each other (which was stressing them out beforehand) and their cages were spotless (completely filthy before). There was also a cockatiel plucking itself and now that one is completely separated from the other birds in the back with its own big cage. Guess corporate actually cares, it’s the locals running the places that suck

Sounds like the petco near you is run by people who know nothing about what they are doing. The petcos by me have good base level employees that actually care

I got my leopard gecko from someone who got him from a pet store where he was cohabitated and he has multiple bite scars and a lost toe from other geckos. He is still very skittish with me even after months of living with me. If he sees his own reflection in his enclosure wall he will try to attack it or run to hide. I love my gecko more than anything and I can’t believe that someone would do this to these poor animals

Didn’t think I’d get flashed by a rat today

Not petco, but st petsmart their ball pythons enclosure was at 50% humidity with one small plants and a hide. They also keep green and brown anoles together, despite brown anoles being known to eat them? The rest of their animal setups suck too, I frequently see tiny wire wheels in rodent enclosures, which caused spinal issues and their feet and be caught and severly injured 🤦‍♀️

Ik the rest of the video is sad but the “I love how quiet they are” line for the birds took me out!! As a parrot lover myself I to love the quite ness the bring to my house lmao!!!!😂😂😂

“Look at the balls on you!” I CANTTT😭😭😭

The pied just chillin Like wat do they have a pied for

My parents bought me my second lizard. They got it at Petco. Normally I would never buy from Petco but my parents wanted to surprise me and honestly I’m glad that I got my second lizard from Petco because the lady that was handling him kept trying to pin him into the container and put the lid on first time she got him out he had no issues with being picked up because of her pinning him in the cup. He hates people he doesn’t like it when I go near the cage he doesn’t like it when I put my hand in to remove his food and water dish or refill them and the last time I went to Petco was couple months after my first lizard died. Both of my lizards are crested geckos I wanted to get a chameleon, the chameleons were all cohabited, and they looked fine until we looked at the ground. One of them was sitting there dying, and none of the employees had checked until we went over and told someone. Went back I’d say about couple months later they don’t sell chameleons anymore. needless to say, I will never buy any animals from Petco ever again.

Fancy bear hamsters, and Russian Dwarf hamsters are LITERALLY my dream pets. 🥺😫

12 Years ago I got a green tree python from Petco for 75$. I still have her, no health problems or complications. Sweet as can be.

The thing is and most people don’t realize this, those animals won’t be there long. It’s a temporary enclosure. Same with the cohabitation, they get them and quarantine them than move them to the tanks where they stay for as little as a day. People often see pet stores like zoos and that they need adequate space. It’s more like an expo where you have reptiles in containers all over the place. Atleast here they make it look nice and feed them until they leave

Dayyyyy 166666 of askinnnggg for a snailllll named keeeeiiithhh in your terrarium!!! Bro I can’t believe you making me wait one week for each vid 💔

It’s a retail shop. Not a zoo. They aren’t supposed to be there for long.

I used to work at Petco and there were sooo many sick animals kept outback. So sad

I remember seeing some ball pythons with mites. I went to find someone and there was already an employee with a tank that had some mite treatment in it, he said he's the only one who actually takes care of the reptiles and that he's been fighting a mite infestation for months and that was the last tank he needed to clean. He said his shift manager gets mad at him for taking care of the animals and actually caring about them because it means he's not available to help customers. I hope he was able to open his reptile shop he wanted to open.

my local petco has an amazing reptile section and seeing others always surprises me

Got my crested gecko from Petco it was on sale for $15. Glad I rescued the little fella from that place.

My first ball Python I got from Petco 8 years ago (had no idea what to look for, was 17 and wanted a snake so I went and got one). Looking back, it was actually kind of messed up. They had 8 ball pythons in small tank. I now go to a mom and pop pet store, and I am so grateful to see owners who actually take care of the animals they sell.

This is insane. Actually dropped my jaw

crazy whenever I go to every petco that isn't "mine" I visit I'm glad the one by me, the ppl they hired (especially for fish and reptiles) hire people who already have them as a hobby, and would hide or have gotten rid of fish bowls. also relabeled small tanks as "transportation only" or quarantine tanks

I love birds so much I love how quiet they are Ahajajnanahaahahah

THE BUDGIES THE BUDGIES THE BUDGIES I LOVE THEM LOL.

Maybe petco is trying to make people feel upset and want to rescue them so that they buy them💀

His reaction to the mouse at the end was so precious. Their little hands are so damn cute! and yes the males have huge bolls 😂😂😂

Crying at the end lmfao

They’re probably doing that because most of those reptiles are abandoned. I had a friend who worked at a pet store and it seemed like every week someone was dropping off MULTIPLE snakes. She ended up taking most of them home with her. It sucks, but I wouldn’t blame the store, they’re probably doin the best they can with what they have.

Yup was at Petco the other day and they had 2 adult crested gecko in one tiny enclosure 💀

As a current Petco GSL manager, I would love my job if they allowed us to do things the right way. I tried telling my animal companion leader and GM it would be a good idea to add a stress coat for the bettas since we quite literally do nothing but put them into water and it would help their coat from the abrupt transition. I had worked at Pet Supplies Plus as the Animal Leader b4 that and we added a tiny drop of Prime and Coat to help. The smallest difference helped immensely there but bc standards are so strict at Petco, it’s not allowed😢

As a guinea pig owner, I think every exotic animal keeper can agree that petco sucks at providing an adequate environment for the pets they sale, would it be in-store or through the (often) bad informations they give to their clients

bro is cute and a good dad

I laughed, but then my jaws dropped. Holy cow those are some massive balls

The poor geckos I couldn’t imagine having to share a tiny room with my whole family I hope they fix that

Started at one of these places. Intentionally understaffed to save on money with many employees only getting around 15 hours a week. I've already (in a week) had to turn away a few customers who weren't adequately set up to care for the animals they were interested in. GM practically said that we can't handle and acclimitize animals (feed and clean, you're not here to play with them). Aquatics tanks are pretty much established for what are in them with certain animals only allowed to be 1/tank but still poorly stocked for territorial animals (wrasse bullying a tang, which is probably because the wrasse considers the whole tank its territory from likely being solo in the tank at some point). Lonely anemones and anemonefish (clownfish) because of what "goes" in that tank (no bubble tips in stock with one group of clown fish, no cinnamon clownfish in stock with one anemone). Small snails in every freshwater tank with their empty shells all through the substrates. The salt water tanks are broken out with cyanobacteria because the company doesn't want to pay for UV sterilizers. No phosphate testing. I spend more time on the registers than in aquatics (my department)

"got a piece on you" this hilarious cause I was just at Petco yesterday getting some baby cat milk and I seen several mice with big pieces lol 😂

I’ve owned 3 ball pythons who all lived in the same tank and they did amazing and had loads of room

It's honestly so wild to see this because last month I had to make a pit stop at a PetSmart in Evergreen Park, which is a suburb of Chicago, and I've always jokingly said how I wanted to check out a PetSmart/Petco in a larger city like Chicago to see how different they are from the ones where I live. I live like 3 hours south of Chicago in what's known as the Peoria Metropolitan Area of Illinois. The PetSmart closest to me I absolutely LOVE. They have all of their socially grouped animals actually cohabbed, and their solitary animals are actually solitary. Its been like that for years. They take really good care of their animals and it really shows. I've had friends buy animals from them and none of them ever complained about the animal. I think it's part of it has to do with the fact that that PetSmart is one of very few in the area. You have that store, then another store 15 minutes away, but then a third store almost 45 minutes away, and then hardly anything at all, and there's only two Petco locations in the area as well. Major chain pet stores are pretty few and far between here, but this area is BIG with pets and farm animals alike. So all of the employees actually know what they're talking about, and it shows. I don't own any reptiles or fish (my mom won't let me) but whenever I'm waiting for any of my dogs to get done grooming I like to watch the reptiles, and the employees and I always talk up a storm. And this year, their reptiles are getting adopted a lot more often than before, and some employees have admitted they're a little concerned for why that is, because just because people are adopting these animals it doesn't mean they're going to good homes, but it isn't like they can check up on the person who bought a gecko or a ball python, because that would be weird. It's amazing to see just how much the employees care for this store, and it really shows. Meanwhile, I went to that PetSmart in Evergreen Park, and while that store was HUGE and I saw products that I've never seen my local store sell, their animals were so much worse. They had a lot more enclosures, but that just meant that they could put a lot more animals in the enclosures. The store was so busy it looked like the employees hardly ever had time to deal with the animals. I mean, I feel kinda bad for the employees, cause they were clearly understaffed at the time, cause they had like 5 checkout lanes open, lines in all 5, and I saw the manager literally trying to juggle three different tasks at once, but I don't really see that as an excuse. I mean, it looked more like they "overstocked" on their reptiles and whatnot. It was stressful.

you should try reading all the species names and comparing them to what's actually inside. about 10 years ago I was an inexperienced kid getting my first gecko and I thought I bought a crested, about 3 months in I realized he was a leopard

"wow, beauty" he says about a butterflyfish thats starving to death

Man I went into a petco the other month and I remember seeing like 5 snakes in one tank! You could see how stressed all those babies were

This guy is a ball gazer 😂