AgileGSD
Posted : 5/18/2010 9:42:46 PM
Petco got in bed with PETA a couple years ago (hence PETA changing their PetNO campaign to an anti-Petsmart campaign, seemingly without notice). Rumor is they will be phasing out selling most small animals over the next few years. We had a Petco which closed due to lack of business. Now a couple years later they reopened in the same place but it seems to be a different store format from the normal Petco. The only animals they have are rats, mice, goldfish and beta fish and the store is much smaller with more limited products than the old one was. I doubt they will stay in business, as any time I stop by there either no one is shopping there or people are shopping there complaining that it's too expensive, they don't sell pets, they don't sell fish and/or they have a poor selection.
I have been involved in ferrets for many years, before they were a more common small pet and could be found in every pet store. For the past decade or so, vast majority of pet ferrets are from one of three large scale commercial breeders: Marshall Farms, Path Valley or Triple F. Commercially bred ferrets are altered at extremely young ages (between 3-4 weeks) and because of that, combine with other stress associated with commercial breeding such as early weaning, shipping, excessive caging and exposure to excessive light the vast majority of pet store purchased ferrets will develop an adrenal disease. Adrenal disease is often fatal and almost always means a shortened lifespan and the most common treatment for it costs between $500-2000 dollars.
There are reputable, private breeders of ferrets but the number of them have drastically declined since the 90s. They simply can't compete with the commercial breeders. Commercially bred ferret kits are available year round due to manipulation of the light cycles that the breeding animals are exposed to. Privately bred ferret kits are only available spring and summer, because ferrets naturally only reproduce in the late winter/early spring. Commercially bred ferrets are extremely cheap compared to privately bred ferrets, especially taking into account that they are already altered. Pet store ferrets can range from $99-300 already altered and privately bred ferrets are usually $100-400 and the owner must alter them at a later age. Altering ferrets in my area has gone from $50-60 ten years ago to $300+ now. And even if a person found it important to buy from a private breeder, there are many states that have no private ferret breeders in them at all - not even one! An added issue is that commercial breeders have put it into people's minds, even most knowledge ferret owner's minds that ferrets have to be descented. Descenting is not at all necessary for them but it's hard for private breeders to fight this misconception while selling ferrets which have not been descented on a contract stating they should not be.
I bring this up because while I understand that most pet store animals are from commercial breeders, there isn't much which can be done about it. People want these animals as pets and the vast majority of them are supplied by commercial breeders via pet stores. It is similar to the reason people continue to buy petstore puppies but on a much, much larger scale. When people want a cavy or a ferret or a hamster the idea of finding a
private breeder if one likely doesn't even enter into their minds. And most people can't avoid shopping at stores which sell small animals, no matter what their feelings on the issue is - even our scaled down Petco sells some small rodents and fish. When people want a cavy or a ferret or a hamster the idea of finding a private breeder if one likely doesn't even enter into their minds.