Siren
New member
I just wanted to put up a thread about the Big Al's located in Edmonton, Alberta. Everytime I go in there I am greeted by pleasant employees who always ask me what I need. I go in there so often that they recognize me and a couple can even greet me by name. Their reptiles always have husbandry that's bang-on (they have temperature and humidity gauges right in the open for anyone to see) and their reptiles are almost always CB when possible and are labelled appropriately when they are not. Prices are also fairly consistent with what you would pay for an animal straight from a breeder with no insane markups on the animals. They also seem to clean religiously since I have yet to see a dirty cage.
I go in there often, sometimes just to look around, and I have yet to see an unhealthy looking animal. The employees seem to care a lot about their stock. For example, last time I went in, I noticed a baby bearded dragon that had been separated from all the others in a critter keeper. One of the employees mentioned that it had been bitten by one of his clutch-mates and was going to be taken home and fostered until he was 100% healthy again. This would be at the employees cost. Every single time I have been in there, there have been employees with good reptile knowledge who have been very helpful to me.
Even better still, they have no problems indulging my curiosity, even when they know I'm not out to buy anything. A little while ago, they had a CB Sunbeam snake which I had never seen before. I asked a couple questions about it, saying also that my husband would never allow me to bring it home and that I was just curious, and the employee was so pleasant! He asked me if I'd like to see it (since it was constantly buried, as per usual!) and had no issues pulling it out and showing it to me and telling me all about it.
Since I know nothing about fish, I can't comment on their fish stock, but, for a company whose repertoire only recently included reptiles at all, I think this store is bang on the money and I would have no problem purchasing anything from them! Because I recieve such great service there, I regularly bypass closer, more convenient pet stores in favour of driving a little further just to go to Big Al's.
In short, I find this location to be highly professional and easy to deal with and they have nice looking, healthy reptiles for reasonable prices with a pretty decent selection.
Good job to the person who manages the Edmonton location Big Al's!
I go in there often, sometimes just to look around, and I have yet to see an unhealthy looking animal. The employees seem to care a lot about their stock. For example, last time I went in, I noticed a baby bearded dragon that had been separated from all the others in a critter keeper. One of the employees mentioned that it had been bitten by one of his clutch-mates and was going to be taken home and fostered until he was 100% healthy again. This would be at the employees cost. Every single time I have been in there, there have been employees with good reptile knowledge who have been very helpful to me.
Even better still, they have no problems indulging my curiosity, even when they know I'm not out to buy anything. A little while ago, they had a CB Sunbeam snake which I had never seen before. I asked a couple questions about it, saying also that my husband would never allow me to bring it home and that I was just curious, and the employee was so pleasant! He asked me if I'd like to see it (since it was constantly buried, as per usual!) and had no issues pulling it out and showing it to me and telling me all about it.
Since I know nothing about fish, I can't comment on their fish stock, but, for a company whose repertoire only recently included reptiles at all, I think this store is bang on the money and I would have no problem purchasing anything from them! Because I recieve such great service there, I regularly bypass closer, more convenient pet stores in favour of driving a little further just to go to Big Al's.
In short, I find this location to be highly professional and easy to deal with and they have nice looking, healthy reptiles for reasonable prices with a pretty decent selection.
Good job to the person who manages the Edmonton location Big Al's!