A Pityful Lps

[KathyM]

lps's have to rely on quality stock these days, its the only reason people will go to them. Its certainly not for cheaper/convienence, we have pets@home for that. Its to get that bit more care over what you are buying

I realy disagree with this.


People don't go to petshops for pets for their superior care or "stock", they go to a petshop because it's dead easy to buy any animal there - you go in, pay your money and there you go. Some people buy small animals in petshops because they're not aware of other avenues such as rescue or decent breeders.

 

[dgwebster]

thats true. what i said was relating to which pet shop they go to. any idiot round here at least can point to pets@home - they cant point to a tiny one man band which is fighting against pets@home for the pet shop customers.

 

[libertine]

The moral of this story is not to buy animals in petshops - they don't have the welfare of the animals at heart, and by buying them all you've done is create room for them to get more in

As a long time rat owner, I would advise anyone against going to the petshop for them - they'll be undersocialised, bred in rat farms, most probably inbred, and often pregnant. They have higher risk of contracting genetic disease, and more prone to myco related pneumonia flareups.

Saying all that though, this is a valuable lesson in inspecting the health of an animal before bringing it home, no matter what the source. It's worked out okay for you as you're willing to do what's right, but please educate your friend about petshops.

I was just reading along and I see someone said this. I have ALL my rats from a pet shop, the two girls weren't pregnant, are extremely well socialized and the boy I have was born wild in the shop because a pregnant rat got loose and he's one of the most docile rats I've ever had. He cleans me, sleeps on my shoulder, and as never once tried to bite. I would say that is extremely socialized.

 

[KathyM]

I wasn't for one minute saying pet shop rats aren't lovely, I'm saying there is no effort made to care for them or socilise them properly (as is demonstrated by your pet shop letting rats get pregnant, probably inbred, and run loose) or to breed them responsibly for their health and temperament.

If you wish to support petshops, then that's up to you. Personally I feel buying animals from petshops does not go along with my views on animal welfare, it's a contradiction to my regard for the animals.

Rats bred properly after research of their health and their lines health, and socialised properly, have a much better chance in life than these poor animals bred in or for petshops.

And I say that having experience of both petshop bred rats (rescues), and rats from responsible breeders. When you've had an inbred rat develop an excruciatingly painful condition from genetic problems and have to be PTS, or had a rescue petshop rat that was a nervous biter from lack of socialisation in the early weeks, you may think differently.

I love all my rats, petshop bred or otherwise, equally. They're all wonderful. But I'd never pay a petshop to play russian roulette breeding poorly animals.

 

[liz2]

years ago I bought my 2 boys a rat...the bloke handled it and said it is a bit feisty but it is ok. We did all you were supposed to but we could not handle it ..it ended up biting me really badly. So we got the biggest cage we could and it lived out its life in there. It suffered a stroke very early in its life. We later learnt the bloke bred the rats to feed to snakes and sold surplus as pets. When it died we decided to try again and had a succession of delightful pets, so loved we used to take them on self catering holidays with us. Rat in someones pocket! Cage dismantled and carried into chalet or flat in bin bag

 

[dgwebster]

lol before I got my license back, should have seen some of the things we were doing to get them on coaches etc. and hiding them during flat inspections!!

 

[PlecMama]

I'm horribly allergic to rats, they give me chronic asthma. Isn't that odd.

We found that out when we bought ourselves two and then I lived out the remainder of their lives on Salbutamol, steroids and antihistamines.

That was a fun episode.

Anyway, good luck with the rats, hope you find some happy, healthy ones. They are lovely creatures, but we wont be having any more.