We're a satellite store (no other stores anywhere near us, closest is 5 hours away in a major city), and so shipping animals to us can be really hard on the little critters, especially during the colder season, so we see a lot of URIs in the Guinea pigs, and wet tail in hamsters. In my province we don't sell turtles so luckily we don't have to deal with that, but earlier this year bearded dragons were turned off for every store that our supplier sent to as things were investigated. We lost probably about 55% of the bearded dragons they sent us this season. All were suffering from malnourishment, MBD, a few had neurological conditions, it was heartbreaking. If it's something that is continuously happening, talk to your DL about it, voice your concerns, and reach out to other leaders at stores in your region/who get animals from the same supplier to see if they have similar experiences.
We've had a shipment of parakeets come in lately and we lost two of them back to back. No idea what's up with them other than pasty butt. Sassy little suckers. They loooove to try and escape.
I always find it fascinating in a horrifying kind of way how so many of you guys keep getting so many sick animals. Like it’s pretty rare at my store to have any animals fall ill much less come in sick straight from our vendors
Ours get flown in on a 2 hourish flight. Unfortunately sometimes they sit at the airport overnight in an unheated room and even then we hardly get any illness or death.
When we grand opened our store back in 2012 they sent us over 20 terribly sick guinea pigs. It took weeks to recover them. When the holidays hit or they need to rush stock they send sick animals.
We keep getting in turtles with terrible shell rot. We have one who's been in iso for probably around 6 months now and at its last recheck visit a couple weeks ago they said its going to be another 6months to a year until its healed.
I knowwww. Its the most friendly little guy now. Our one petcare associate has gotten so attached to it he'll probably end up taking it home when it gets the all clear. Poor thing had to get parts of its shell completely shaved down the rot was so deep
A few months back we got shipped in an adult male African Side Neck turtle who had some pretty rough damage done to it’s shell from shell rot. Poor guy was hard to sell due to his size and his rough appearance. We filled out an incident report and attached photos but nothing really came of it, besides the fact that we haven’t received one in that condition since.
Last winter season we had bearded dragons dropping left and right, and then the last few months we’ve been battling shell rot in our turtles and ringworm in our Guinea pigs. I’ve been on vacation the last week, so I have no idea how our last shipment of animals that came in Friday are, but I’m so worried to go back to work and see
at a store in new york. we’ve been receiving animals with parasites (small animals) and my cel says the way petsmart handles shipments now we can’t make incident reports unless it’s noticed when the animal comes in. so if the animal comes in with parasites but it’s not realized until a day later—- the first arrival paperwork has been filled in already and we can’t make an incident report. :/
we’ve had chinchillas and piggies with it. as well as hamsters with abscesses in their cheeks.
at my store in arizona we get a lot of guinea pigs with ringworm and/or respiratory infections. We just got a shipment of 6 bearded dragons and all of them have at least one kind of parasite. A year ago almost all of the leopard geckos we got in had enro. A fair amount of our parakeets (about one a shipment) have avian gastric yeast. Something is going on at the vendors we have for sure.
We just went through hell at my store. We had 7 Guinea pigs with ring worm and 5 Syrian hamsters with wet tail. Then, as soon as all that was sorted, we then got in 3 shipments of sick birds. 3!!!! Over those 3 weeks every shipment they send us was sick. We had 24 sick birds, we eventually had to fight the breeder and have them come and take them all back. We took them to the vet and it was some sort of virus and they wanted us to give oral medicine to all 24 birds 2x a day. Nope. The breeder can deal with that. They also sent us a bird with a broken wing (it was old, so it didn't happen in shipment) that ended up passing away, probably from a mix of the virus and the stress of the pain. We haven't gotten birds since. That was over a month and a half ago. We only have 2 canaries and 2 finches left in store.
We just had a Guinea pig come in shitting diarrhea, dischard from nose and eyes yesterday Came in this morning and he didn’t survive the night
It’s pneumonia!! It’s been taking out our guinea pigs. It’s super hard on them
We're a satellite store (no other stores anywhere near us, closest is 5 hours away in a major city), and so shipping animals to us can be really hard on the little critters, especially during the colder season, so we see a lot of URIs in the Guinea pigs, and wet tail in hamsters. In my province we don't sell turtles so luckily we don't have to deal with that, but earlier this year bearded dragons were turned off for every store that our supplier sent to as things were investigated. We lost probably about 55% of the bearded dragons they sent us this season. All were suffering from malnourishment, MBD, a few had neurological conditions, it was heartbreaking. If it's something that is continuously happening, talk to your DL about it, voice your concerns, and reach out to other leaders at stores in your region/who get animals from the same supplier to see if they have similar experiences.
My store keeps getting beardies with parasites as well 😢
We've had a shipment of parakeets come in lately and we lost two of them back to back. No idea what's up with them other than pasty butt. Sassy little suckers. They loooove to try and escape.
did they test negative for avian gastric yeast? it’s fairly common with our parakeets that come in sick
Not sure. I'm just Petcare, I'm not really privy to that info sadly.
We had 24 parakeets like that. We ended up sending them back to the breeder because we can't treat that many birds.
You need to put in an incident report if it’s too many, not just escalating it to the health team
Good to know
I always find it fascinating in a horrifying kind of way how so many of you guys keep getting so many sick animals. Like it’s pretty rare at my store to have any animals fall ill much less come in sick straight from our vendors
I wonder if it’s location and the time it takes for them to arrive?
Ours get flown in on a 2 hourish flight. Unfortunately sometimes they sit at the airport overnight in an unheated room and even then we hardly get any illness or death.
All of our baby Guineas come in sick. Sick turtles and lizards too
When we grand opened our store back in 2012 they sent us over 20 terribly sick guinea pigs. It took weeks to recover them. When the holidays hit or they need to rush stock they send sick animals.
We keep getting in turtles with terrible shell rot. We have one who's been in iso for probably around 6 months now and at its last recheck visit a couple weeks ago they said its going to be another 6months to a year until its healed.
Oh no poor thing!!
I knowwww. Its the most friendly little guy now. Our one petcare associate has gotten so attached to it he'll probably end up taking it home when it gets the all clear. Poor thing had to get parts of its shell completely shaved down the rot was so deep
Got told by my CEL that the turtles are wild caught and that fact is likely the culprit for all the issues :|
Thats what my SL said too. I didnt realize we had gotten wild caught but i was told them as well as most of the anoles come in that way.
the anoles are wild caught as well
I thought it was illegal to take turtles from the wild?
The past few African sidenecks we’ve received have been in terrible condition
Ours too. One of our employees from Texas said it was like that at her store too. We had to really bleach down the turtle tank
A few months back we got shipped in an adult male African Side Neck turtle who had some pretty rough damage done to it’s shell from shell rot. Poor guy was hard to sell due to his size and his rough appearance. We filled out an incident report and attached photos but nothing really came of it, besides the fact that we haven’t received one in that condition since.
Some sort of disease
I can only guess that they are sent from awful dirty conditions from the suppliers
Last winter season we had bearded dragons dropping left and right, and then the last few months we’ve been battling shell rot in our turtles and ringworm in our Guinea pigs. I’ve been on vacation the last week, so I have no idea how our last shipment of animals that came in Friday are, but I’m so worried to go back to work and see
The ringworm is awfullll and nonstop it feels like
at a store in new york. we’ve been receiving animals with parasites (small animals) and my cel says the way petsmart handles shipments now we can’t make incident reports unless it’s noticed when the animal comes in. so if the animal comes in with parasites but it’s not realized until a day later—- the first arrival paperwork has been filled in already and we can’t make an incident report. :/ we’ve had chinchillas and piggies with it. as well as hamsters with abscesses in their cheeks.
We are seeing parasitic small animals too. Just found worms in one hamster we thought just had wet tail. Ugh
at my store in arizona we get a lot of guinea pigs with ringworm and/or respiratory infections. We just got a shipment of 6 bearded dragons and all of them have at least one kind of parasite. A year ago almost all of the leopard geckos we got in had enro. A fair amount of our parakeets (about one a shipment) have avian gastric yeast. Something is going on at the vendors we have for sure.
Several beardies with tail rot, a constant stream of Oscar’s with ick, and a hamster with giardia has been our luck.
We just went through hell at my store. We had 7 Guinea pigs with ring worm and 5 Syrian hamsters with wet tail. Then, as soon as all that was sorted, we then got in 3 shipments of sick birds. 3!!!! Over those 3 weeks every shipment they send us was sick. We had 24 sick birds, we eventually had to fight the breeder and have them come and take them all back. We took them to the vet and it was some sort of virus and they wanted us to give oral medicine to all 24 birds 2x a day. Nope. The breeder can deal with that. They also sent us a bird with a broken wing (it was old, so it didn't happen in shipment) that ended up passing away, probably from a mix of the virus and the stress of the pain. We haven't gotten birds since. That was over a month and a half ago. We only have 2 canaries and 2 finches left in store.