Haveing had an acident recently ,it has been hard for me to post, and in fact this post is being dictated to someone else, I sincerely hope they word it right...
Prehistoric Pets, the on that jay works at is not a good place.
My personal experience in buying snakes from them is this:
Purchased an Eastern Indigo from them many years ago. The snake was a male, 7 ft long adult. Upon getting it home and inspecting it closer the snake had:
a) Mites all over its body and in eye orbits.
b) Belly(scale) rot on its dorsal aspect.
c) Flukes in its mouth
d) Worms in its stools(nematodes)
e) Respiratory disease
f) Nose rub which it developed after a week, and NO it wasnt breeding season at all, nor anywhere near it..
YES.....I should have known better and checked the snake out more thoroughly. Should have noticed the scale rot, the upper respiratory, and the MITES. But I was so overly enthusiastic about the snake and they were so hard to find, that I just bought it, straight out.
After running up $300.00 in vet bills(pre 1998 prices also)
Irealized I couldnt afford to treat this snake, what with a new baby on the way of my own..
Long story short, I sold it to an INDIGO keeper for about 1/5 of what I paid for it and thats not factoring the loss for the med bills.
YES...I could have complained but was disgusted at the shape the snake was in, so decided not to deal with them ever again.
FAST FORWARD..............
To 2001..............
5 local area reptile breeders, each with good reputations and great snakes all decided to go up and see LLL reptiles and then on to Prehistoric Pets. This is at the SAME time tha Tom Chambers from T.C. Reptiles went up there, 2001.
What they found shocked them........................
Bolivian Silverback Amarilli in slide drawers, each drawer full of feces and OLD hardened urates, at least a week old. These snakes had mites galore and had ticks imbedded in their cloacas and around their eye orbits. Keep in mind this isnt just one snake, rather it is 3 10 space racks full of thiese snakes, each one worse than the last.
Armed with that stark reality, the group of breeders observed more cages with snakes, all with dried urates in them, dried old feces and bone dry or non existant water bowls. They saw the same scenario in cage after cage.They witnessed near dessicated iguanas and savanah monitors with grossly swolen distended abdomens from either excess food items or heavy parasite load.
They saw cages that were to small for the snakes in them. Way to small.
They came home, shaking their heads, and all I had to say to them was this: I TOLD YOU SO........
Now, people make mistakes in this industry, accepting depoisits when they shouldnt, spending the payment for the snake before it is sent, missexing snakes, shipping icorrectly without hot or cold packs. I myself have been ashamedly guilty of some of these thing at times past. And I regret it. Peoplemake mistakes, we get ahead of ourselves sometimes.
But with Prehistoric Pets, I ALWAYSthe same thing..i.e. filthy conditions, sick snakes and all at high prices. Now..you may screw things up badly with customer relations from time to time, I myself have done that and regretted it...but to let the
SNAKES
suffer because of maltreatment, well in my book that is horrible. Im not the pot calling the kettle black, we all make mistakes, but to NOT TAKE CARE OF YOUR LIVESTOCK,
thats criminal.
I have heard that they have several EXCELLENT employees, that work hard but are spread thin. Again, you pay someone $7/hr, how much care do you expect them to take for that wage. PLEASE understand me, the shop I am talking about is owned by Jay Brewer, there is another Prehistoric Pets the location of which I dont know , but THAT shop got good reviews from customers that told me about it. Not So Jays shop. Why do people continue plunking down their hard earned bucks in places like this?
Fred Albury
AZTEC REPTILES
