Surprising Quality From PetSmart

Report on pet stores that are either doing a great or terrible job of looking after their hermit crabs on display.
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stargatedalek
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Surprising Quality From PetSmart

Post by stargatedalek »

I picked up my hermits yesterday at PetSmart since they had a sale for members and I was rather surprised to see how good the conditions were. The tanks were not very large but this is of course to be expected, most of the reptiles are in small tanks too. I've heard before (in reference to the reptiles mind you) that they don't typically keep them for very long unless an animal is ill so the display tanks are often smaller than they recommend buying.

First signs were not great though, one of the smaller crabs was pale and weak looking, barely inside it's shell and not moving around much. I was told that I shouldn't buy it because it had just shed. The staff were all very dedicated and even helped pick out the healthiest crabs. I was originally going to get smaller ones but they (rightly so) recommended the larger ones as they are older and hardier for a beginner.

*edit* Forgot the best part, they only have natural shells. They don't even sell painted ones!
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aussieJJDude
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Re: Surprising Quality From PetSmart

Post by aussieJJDude »

Wow, that does sound amazing. I'd love to see some pics of their setup, it's refreshing to hear a store that actually takes care of their animals.
246L/65G - 'Tidal Jungle' (Crabs) | 246L/65g - 'Backwater Pool' (Fish/Snails) | 96L/25G - ''Twisted Minds" (Fish/Snails/Shrimp) | 300L/90G Fancy Pond (Goldfish)

I've never had any problems with 'Impulse Buying'. They're just animals that I forgot I had planned to get.
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ladybug15057
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Re: Surprising Quality From PetSmart

Post by ladybug15057 »

It is refreshing to hear of a good pet store. I had issues with the PetSmart hermit crab tanks in my area a couple years ago. Now when I see a tank kept in fairly good condition I compliment the employees as well as contacting cooperate again telling them the good job they are doing caring for the hermit crabs.
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Re: Surprising Quality From PetSmart

Post by Arirang »

I work at a PetSmart and we recently revamped our crabitat. I was kinda sad that they didn't ask me to do it, as I am the only crab parent in the store and could have done a very good job, but we did well and I was happy with it. If all you listen to is the rants, you'll get a horrible impression based on those half-dozen bad locations- in actuality, as a whole, we care very deeply about all of our animals. It's sad for us whenever something gets sick. We will spend hundreds of dollars to have an exotics vet take care of every problem for any pet. One time, we spent almost $1,000 for a guinea pig with some sort of respiratory infection gotten from a pet parent who owned a sick guinea pig and had just handled him. Once healed, he sold- for a whopping $37. So yeah, you'd be surprised how well pet stores (the good ones) treat their animals ^_^
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Re: Surprising Quality From PetSmart

Post by StellaCrab »

I have had really good experiences at PetCo, but also some not so good ones as well.

An example of a bad experience that I had, when I went with my brother to get him some crabs for his new tank that we set up. We brought home four hermit crabs, and one had died inside of its shell, which we thought was just him retracted. There wasn't a smell from the distance we had at the store, the employees really don't give you a good chance to handle and inspect the crabs before you buy them.

I have gotten four compressus from there, and they have been in good health, never had a problem when buying them from a chain store. I have gotten a majority of my crabs back when I kept crabs in my newbie days, but I have preferred adopting since then, which is where my five clypeatus came from.
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