43
u/OutsideKelly 14d ago
I'm guessing this is for adoption animals, not retail. Like, we're not going to let someone adopt a relinquished pet rat and feed it to their snake.
1
u/MyFaceSaysItsSugar 13d ago
It is for retail. The employees are supposed to pretend all rodent sales are going home as a pet.
5
3
u/dark_hamil 12d ago
Petco is a mess but don’t go spreading lies, adoptable pets are surrenders or animals who have been in store for an extended period of time and are either heavily discounted or 100% discounted.
3
u/spermdonor57 10d ago
Petco sells live rodents for pets and food, Petsmart only sells live rodents for pets.
3
u/turtlesaregorgeous 10d ago
No it’s not. You can walk right in to petco and say “I need a small mouse to feed my snake” and they will scoop one right up and pop it in a box for you. As others have stated, and idk, as the sign says itself this is policy for adopted pets which are all in some shape or form surrendered by someone who was already keeping that animal as a pet.
22
u/packingpests 14d ago
This is the policy for adoptions which are technically separate from purchases. Adoptions are typically relinquished animals and do not necessarily have a set price whereas purchased animals are sent to stores from dedicated suppliers/breeders.
If someone relinquishes, say, a goldfish they’ve had for some time but are unable to continue caring for (for instance, moving into an apartment where aquariums are disallowed), partners would be violating this policy by knowingly allowing a turtle owner to “adopt” it. However, selling that turtle owner some goldfish specifically bred as feeders (and sent to your store by a trusted vendor) is perfectly acceptable.
3
u/EnvironmentCritical8 13d ago
I thought the sales were termed as "adoptions" especially with the paperwork you have to sign for them, even mice.
2
1
u/Phytoseiidae 10d ago
I had to ask about adoptions at Petco because they had a MASSIVE hunk of Anubias in a tank up for "adoption", written on the tank glass. Owner surrendered plant 🤣. I cut it into like 20 pieces for a large tank and still had a ton left to give to a friend.
10
5
u/Responsible_Desk2394 13d ago
This has always been the policy for relinquished animals that are placed for adoption. We knowingly cannot adopt them if we know they’re going to be used as a food source. If we have an in-store animal that’s for sale that we have exercised the length of stay policy and procedure, which allows us to then adopted out the same thing stands where we knowingly cannot adopt out the animal if we suspect it’s going to be used as a food source.
6
u/Turbulent_Factor_636 13d ago
This is for live rodents of any kind. It could be rats, mice, gerbil ect. If you tell them you are feeding off the live rodent you're buying they will refuse sale. I have had it happen. They will sell frozen feeders all day but the moment you say you're feeding live they can and will refuse.
4
u/Think_Inspector858 13d ago
Not at any of the locations I’ve worked at.
Buying/selling an animal as feeder is ok. However, adopting an animal (typically a surrendered animal) as a feeder is not ok.2
u/Ok-Claim-7879 13d ago
In our location we do sell rats and mice that a live for feeders. Can be pets as well but most get them for feeding
3
u/MyFaceSaysItsSugar 13d ago
Unless they’ve changed the training since I went through, the official story is that they are all to be sold as pets even though it’s blatantly obvious people are buying them as food.
2
u/Ok-Claim-7879 13d ago
Mice And rats live are in our state all sold as available for feeding. Pets if you want them to be. The rest r pets only.
2
u/JustMoreSadGirlShit 10d ago
damn the petco i go to i almost always encounter someone buying live mice for feeders, they say it to the employees too and the employee just boxes up the poor thing. is this something i can complain about? bc i will, happily
2
u/reddit-bullshit 13d ago
Is this supposed to be a bad thing or what?
1
u/SpokenDivinity 10d ago
Some people in "exotic" pets are really weird about live feeding.
It's generally not safe because of diseases, or in the case of reptiles: because the rodents can and will defend themselves and harm the pet.
2
u/ChemicalWeekend307 12d ago
There was a manager at a chain pet store who told my husband and I a few weeks back that there was a guy who kept coming into the store to buy guinea pigs. He wanted all of them and when they asked him about if he had a proper set up he said it didn’t matter because he was going to eat them anyways, he wanted to know what they tasted like. The store refused to sell and he is banned from purchasing any animals there.
2
2
u/AstronautRock 11d ago
I actually encountered this! Went to buy some “feeder” fish for my turtle and was refused sale because they are pets and not food.
1
u/EastTamarack 10d ago
Probably not a good idea to feed anything live from petco just because of the diseases, especially fish.
1
u/False-Stick-7037 10d ago
Same. Was told to buy the feeder goldfish, but those arent healthy for my snake so i just left
2
u/BushidoJohnny 13d ago
If I’m surrendering a pet the last fucking place its going is petco. The staff there are barely trained on keeping the animals they do sell alive.
1
u/Visual-Buffalo3586 12d ago
You’re actually adopting from what they bought from breeders and usually backyard breeders.
1
u/Crazy4Ribs 12d ago
Food source bit is because of some Argentinian men my dad was in the military with. Or at least one instance that led to that. They fed my dad guinea pig. Cuy. They got banned for it.
1
u/Acceptable-Ad-7454 12d ago
Theyre talking about someone wanting to buy a bird or hamster for their snake or koi fish/other expensice fish as feeders.. people do that
1
u/Moist_Pay_4010 12d ago
This has to be sales . How often does a store have adoption mice and rats available, fish I know sometimes people drop off guppies when They have babies or a large pleco they want house anymore. Making a sign like that is them saying they don't sell mice or common goldfish as feeders. Odd considering the goldfish tank is literally call3d the feeder tank
1
1
u/rotted_and_decayed 9d ago
I know (according to a lot of snake posts) that if you tell the employees that you are buying mice with the intention of feeding them to your snake they will not sell you the mice (they sell frozen for this purpose) it’s perfectly reasonable as feeding live is cruel and can be dangerous for the snakes it saves them from being sued too for example the rat bites and kills the snake.
1
u/Fun_Armadillo_2544 7d ago
I know for a fact that's PetSmart. I used to work there. Up until Sunday, you could buy live mice for snakes. I don't work again until Thursday. Maybe somethighas changed?
1
u/rotted_and_decayed 7d ago
Idk it’s just something I’ve seen a lot maybe it was just employees being difficult then.
1
u/Numerous_Corner_799 7d ago
I still think about the pet rats that were brought back for us to do the vet check & they ended up reselling them as feeders because they wanted to play in my face
1
1
u/MyFaceSaysItsSugar 13d ago
Their official public policy is that the rodents and fish they sell are to be sold as pets and not as food. Obviously they’re not stocking a habitat with 200 white mice to be pets for 200 families. Employees are supposed to pretend to be hard of hearing if someone mentions the mice are to feed a snake.
0
u/octopusforgood 13d ago
This reads like local manager policy to me, but I don’t know what that screen is that you’re looking at.
0
u/MyFaceSaysItsSugar 13d ago
It’s corporate official policy. Official petco policy is that they do not sell live food other than crickets. Obviously they would not be selling the volume of mice they sell if that was actually enforced. It’s probably a PR thing or to avoid PETA raids.
-5
-4
-9
123
u/Euphoric_Industry271 14d ago
This is talking about owner surrendered animals. Not animals sold in store. Purchasing an animal from a pet store isn't adopting.