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Allen Belcher / Big Daddy's Wholesale ... WARNING
I worked for Allen for 6 weeks after dealing him with his shop for over a year. When dealing with his shop I had very few problems but after working for his wholesale biz , I can't see not letting people know who they are dealing with.
I was hired to work with the animals , the wholesale and his breeders , help at shows and build rodent racks . What I actually did was alot of crap . My time was scheduled more towards building rodent racks and making deliveries / pick ups than anything else. Unfortunately this meant the animals were not being taken care of . The wholesale room has been straightened once and I cleaned the breeders cages twice. The last time I cleaned the breeders cages I walked into the room and smelled dead , rotting animals. I opened tubs to find one tub full of mouse guts from the animals either passing them in their stool or gurging them up . Most would pay attention to this as a bad sign but no , they have apparently been fed many times while this was happening since there were multiple piles in the tub.
I opened more tubs and found about half with piles of dried feces in the tubs but the kicker was the dead mouse that had sat in the tub so long maggots had developed in the tub. This seemed to be the normal happenings there since when I first started the room stunk so bad anyone would have a gag reflex. On the rare occasion I was sent to do anything with the breeders it was mostly to feed and water , any spot cleaning was generally doing as much as I could before having to leave to do other things. I know there was one tub that I absolutely had to do about a month after starting , it was so smelly it burned my eyes. I opened the tub and found 6 adult corn snakes with piles of feces that had been in so long they crawled over it till it was mashed flat into the newspaper and half covered in mold. Keep in mind that these are his " PRIZE " breeders.
The wholesale room is a disaster. I built a 99 bin 6 qt rack and a wall unit 27 qt rack that never gets cleaned. I asked when I could have time to clean the tubs and the response I got was disgusting. I was told the idea behind the wholesale was to get them in and out fast enough that tubs didn't need to be cleaned. On the few chances I had to get into the room to check on animals I found quite a few tubs with the animals crawling through urine and feces. In the month that the room has been up and running the only tubs that have ever been cleaned are the few I did when I had the chance during breaks. There are tubs there now with moldy feces , had rotting animals in it from either regurges or dead reptiles , moldy bedding if it has bedding and piles of feces. One of my duties was to run through the tubs and pull the dead animals. I pulled way too many dead animals to count . When I asked Allen why so many were dying his response was " Because we aren't keeping them right . There is no heater in the room at all . The only heat is what comes from the few heat lamps and 3 inch heat tape. There are piles of feces on the floor , tubs of dead rodents and God knows what by know. The building is roughly 75 feet behind his house and he won't go in on the weekends to water or check the animals. That was left for me to do. I wasn't even given time to wash water bowls . Allen would hand me dirty , filthy bowls to use . I finally had it and took all the water bowls and washed them instead of doing what I was supposed to be doing . The last time the animals were fed was on Monday of this week , I went through the tubs on Wednesday and found live mice running through 3 of the tubs. I was doing deliveries on Tuesday and Wednesday so it was up to Allen to check on the wholesale . Guess he didn't.
Allen sold 50% poss het pied and albino ball pythons at the Columbia SC show and the Birmingham AL show that I finally verified are pure normals , no possibility of het for anything. Animals that are not feeding are sold as feeding . If a visual morph is to be sold and it doesn't eat on its own I was told to assist feed it or force feed it . Any new morphs were put into the breeding racks without quarantine. Babies were repeatedly bundled up in the tubs in 2s , 3s or as many as could be put in the tub. Everything morph wise was fed every 5 days but I only had time ( very little ) every 2 weeks to clean cages , so everything was sitting in its own or cage mates urine and feces till I got the chance to clean tubs. The boas are kept in 4 foot cages on heat pads with no thermostats and a room heater . One even has a heat lamp INSIDE the cage , no t-stat on it either.
As far as Allen goes , he has no idea how to care for the animals , has absolutely no quarantine at all , uses and abuses his employees , will tell you anything to get a sale but good luck if you have a prob . He obviously has a problem scheduling his employees to properly care for the animals as well , I can vouch to that. I will not recommend him to anyone and I sincerely hope his company goes under. I have quit as of today . I'm only 1 guy and could not do it all by myself as I got little to no help from Allen.
On a side note Allen is currently setting up a show promotion company . If you decide to be a vendor there , good luck . Allen told me of his plans in which he sells the tables for the show then slash his prices on his animals well below the vendors so they can't outsell him.
I would stay far away from Big Daddy's Wholesale and Next Generation Exotic Expos . I'm probably missing something but hopefully you get the idea.
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