i got a bird (a parrakeet) about 2 years ago from petco, and she seems to be doing fine...i have recently heard some rumers that petco abuses their small animals including birds...she is ready to mate and i am thinking of letting her...i want to buy the bird that she mates with...i am debating if i should buy it there, or go some were else...my moms friend can get me a good deal on one cause she works there...she seems pretty determined, and i want a good excuse if i were to turn her down....does any one know if the petco theory is true or not?
it wasn't petco, but I worked at a similar pet store when I was in college. It's true that no matter how caring the employees are (and we all cared very deeply about the animals we sold) they cannot possibly be taken care of properly in that environment. There's also the issue of where the store is getting their live animals. The suppliers breed them in large quantities, and sell them by the crateload, sending extras to cover the ones that die in transit. They are a commodity and not treated with the respect that living creatures deserve. Good news is that most of the animals weren't there long enough to suffer long-lasting damage, and the unlucky ones simply died and were disposed of. If you know someone locally who breeds parakeets, I'd get one from them, or try the local animal shelter or a budgie rescue organization (yes, they do exist). If not, just consider yourself to be saving the poor creature's life when you rescue it from the torture it has known all its life.
Any animal from a pet store can be considerred a rescue. pet stores are terrible. animals should not be sold like products on shelves and kept on display.i bought my cat from a pet store just because i wanted to take him out of the condition he was being kept in. but i hated giving my money over to the pet store owner. we must remember supply and demand. if we stop the demand they will stop the supply which is an ultimate goal. no matter what it's always better to support rescue groups and shelters rather than breeders or petshops.
I would neither breed the animal or buy from a petstore. At least Petco and Petsmart don't sell puppies and kittens. They both DO bring in shelter animals to be adopted, which is why I still shop at Petco. We had a bad experience there and reported the manager and nothing got done about it.. Peta had a campaign against petco a few years back but dropped it after Petco got their shit together. They sell fur toys, though. I think most pet stores do. Right now, Peta has a campaign against petsmart for using glue traps (which are the cruelest trap you can buy).
i will always have a problem with these stores selling live animals but what really gets to me everytime i go into petsmart is seeing their jap fighting fish kept in these TINY cups where they can barely turn around let alone swim. i was thinking of getting some sort of petition going but i wonder just how much difference that would make...........
there's a yahoo group for betta fish keepers and breeders, they have a campaign to stop the torture of these fish (and other animals). ...a quick google only turned up PETA's website, http://www.peta.org/feat/aquab/ but it's a start.
Every pet store or supply store I have been to has done this to bettas. I asked one sales associate "when are they going to get adequate housing for those bettas?" and he said "they aren't. If they get put in a bigger tank, they'll die." which is COMPLETE bullshit. They naturally live in rice paddies which are miles long. I had a betta and he had a 2 gallon aquaraium all to himself. I am sure if that guy was the fish guy then of course they died! I also hear the "they don't die from being in those containers" thing. A child wouldn't die if you put it in a closet, either. Doesn't mean it is ok to do so. If you look, you will notice that many of the fish have pale colour. This is not healthy! The females are more mildly coloured, but these fish are miserable. The LEAST a company could do for these fish is put them in a larger tank with dividers.
With the (male) betta's they always say that when you get it it has ot be in a bowl by itself and can't be with other fish, which is why they keep them in those cups. mostly for money reasons because they can't clean a million fishbowls, but you get my drift. however, my friend has a 10 gallon tank with a wide variety of things living in it, one of which being a male betta. it lives with a giant snail, 3 different kind of fish, a turtle some crabs and frogs. right away he fit right in so i don't even see what they were talking about. this fighting fish gets along better with everything in the tank than anything else does. i know with pet stores they have to look after the issue of money, but i mean, would sticking one male betta into every one of their fish tanks with other fish be so bad? maybe just combining 2 males is bad, my petsmart in town has about 40 fishtanks. i, unfortunately, don't have good luck wiht fish and don't have proper housing for them. but i always want to buy all of the bettas and try to give them a better pace to live. i feel so bad.
Years ago, before Wal-Mart was a completely and totally corporate-controlled oasis for all that is evil (okay, before Walton died) I actually lodged a complaint with my local store about them carrying fish, and they stopped! I wrote a letter about it, and sent several copies to the local management, as well as the corporate office, specifically talking about the treatment of the betta-fish, and pointing out that since it seemed like ALMOST ALL of the poor fish that ever went into one of their stores, died there, it seemed stupid and cruel to keep doing it. Within a month, all their fish tanks were gone. Of course, since then I've moved. I'm sure they have a bigger fish section than ever now.
