Why NOT to get a Petstore Guinea Pig? *Pictures*

[Fay]

Why NOT to get a Guinea pig at a Petstore or Breeder?

So your new to the forum or been here for a while and your wondering why members here are making such a big fuss about buying Guinea pigs from a petstore. I mean you would be saving them right? How bad could it be to buy that one adorable guinea pig right? Then you get bombarded by forum members telling you that you shouldn't because of breeding and the abuse they suffer and you read all the sites suggested but you still don't get why so many members are going mad when petstores and breeders are mentioned.

Well instead of just telling you I also want to SHOW you as I feel that a picture speaks a thousand words. If what we told you can't convince you not to buy Guinea pigs at petstores, Then maybe these pictures will.

Please look at the pictures in this thread and read the stories because every time you buy a guinea pig from a petstore or breeder you will be supporting this:


" Pigs being hold in a farm as if they were cattle"

"Typical backyard breeder cage"


About petstores:

http://www.cavyspirit.com/petstores.htm

Some links to read:

http://www.guineapigcages.com/forum/...r-threads.html


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Call-out to all members:

I hope all members will pitch in and post their pictures of petstores or breeders and tell their stories so we can redirect people and actually SHOW them what we are constantly talking about. I really feel a picture speaks a thousand words but right now all the stories and threads that have these pictures are scattered around the forum. I think that if we collect them all in one thread it will be easier to show people why we say what we say instead of repeating the facts that we know which I feel doesn't always sink in with a lot of people and often these people can't be bothered to look for these threads either.

!Please use this thread only to post the pictures and your stories!

[Hansel]

I do not have any personal stories or pics to sumbit right now, but I think this thread is a great idea! Props to you

[Lyndsay]

I have a picture of a pet store cage, I'll take a trip to the local Pet Store sometime this week, and get some pictures.




This is Smudgee's cage before I found the site.

[kathrynj]

I have several.
First up, dead mouse in cage



Sick mouse, same store


Piggie in small cage, no food, nowhere to hide,

[kathrynj]

Pet store piggie, severly underweight, UTI, etc

[kathrynj]

Same piggies bottom

[kathrynj]

Latest petshop piggie

[kathrynj]

[Tulia&Susie]

Those pictures are so sad kathrynj. It's pretty sad how cruel people can be to animals. The other pictures were sad as well. The one you posted last kath seemed like it would be a beautiful piggie...if just someone had known or even cared how to take care of it.

[MCR_Rox]

That is very sick of pet stores and breeders to do.

The hermit crabs' conditions at pet stores usually suck. Usually they use substrate like rock, pebbles, etc., that can get in their shells and kill the poor things. Ever since, I haven't stopped at any pet store than Petco for hermit crabs, but the one time I stopped in there, and there were bugs in the tank! Also, another time, my crab had mites!


Honestly, all pet stores care for is money. I'm thinking about asking my mom if I could adopt some hermit crabs from hermit crab forums I go on to, instead.

As for guinea pigs, I think I'll ask my mom about adoption, too. The one time I was in Petsmart, I saw guinea pigs that were in tiny cages! I'm sick of that Petsmart. They take care of their animals horribly.

[Res Judicata]

No pictures, but I do have stories. Back when I was not aware that you could adopt guinea pigs, I purchased Cloudy from Petsmart. Deplorable conditions existed in their cages. The pellets were more grey than green in color, no hay, no veggies, and so many pigs in the pigloo than when it was lifted up there was a pigloo-shaped mass of cavies before they all scattered. It was so wet under the pigloo that Cloudy's white belly was yellow. The day after I brought her home I noticed two lumps, each about pea-sized on the left side of her jaw. I made a vet appointment and found out she had been bitten so badly that both wounds made by the top and bottom teeth had abscessed. They had to be drained and she went through two rounds of antibiotics before she healed. The vet said she was lucky; if she hadn't been treated when she was, she would have ended up dead of blood poisoning. She also had such a bad case of mites that the skin on her hind feet and the inside of her ears was flaking off.

While I regret the fact that Cloudy is a petstore pig rather than a rescue one, I cringe to think what kind of horrible death she would have had had I not bought her. It sickens me to think of the awful living conditions, illnesses and deaths pigs in the pet trade go through. No animal deserves that. It is truly terrible that some have to be sacrificed if we are to save all.

[bleachmiracle]

I have posted this in a different thread, but I feel it will be useful here. I have a picture of a guinea pig that was taken at Petsmart with my camera phone. The pig was in the backroom and completely covered in ringworm. I read a note that was taped to the backroom door that was from Petsmart's corporate offices. To sum up, the note read something like this:

"No employees, including managers, should be giving guinea pigs back to the breeders due to ringworm. If the breeder delivers a guinea pig that you suspect has ringworm take it to the vet. Do not refuse to take the guinea pig. There has been an outbreak of ringworm at all of the breeding facilities due to the time of year. It happens every year around this time."

Now to me all that says is that they know they are buying sick pigs, and they are selling them to people! I don't know about you, but I do NOT want ringworm on me or any of my pets. I cannot respect a business that continues to give their money to breeders that cannot even keep their animals healthy. They knowingly give their sick animals to Petsmart because they will still get a profit!

[Cavyslavesteph]

I just have a story as well, no pics. My first guinea pigs were Sally and Eleanor, a Petsmart purchase. Sally was ok, but we realized something was wrong with Eleanor right away. She kept sneezing and was wheezing a lot. Not knowing anything about guinea pigs, we took her back to Petsmart, hoping they would let her see their vet under the 14-day health guarantee. Instead, the person working in the small animals department told us it was probably a cold and to not handle her too much until she got over it. As we were walking out, he added "but I'm not a vet".

Well, it wasn't too long after, that we came home and saw Eleanor's head tilted sideways. We rushed her into the vet and her white blood cell count was 3 times higher than that of a normal pig! The vet said she had a URI that had probably clogged up around her ear and that's why she was tilting her head. Two weeks of antibiotics later and she showed no improvement. So, we went back and she was put on a stronger antibiotic for two more weeks. She was still sneezing. Back to the vet we went for a third time. This time she was treated for a sinus infection. There was some improvement, but she was still sneezing. She spent two more weeks on the medication.

The last (and fourth) time, the vet told us she may never fully recover. He explained that if this round of meds didn't do the trick, Eleanor would probably permanently sneeze. He said that when a guinea pig gets sick and is not treated properly and right away, they usually die. He said if they don't (and this was Eleanor's case) their body builds up a protective wall around the infected area in the lung. It helps them survive, but makes treatment nearly impossible because the medicines are usually unable to penetrate the wall to fully take care of the infection. He told us she had probably suffered all this before we had her.

Eleanor still sneezes. We just have to keep an extra eye on her to make sure she doesn't go downhill. We footed a bill of over $350 to treat her and she will never fully recover.

I am so angry at the breeder and Petsmart for Eleanor. How long did they listen to her wheeze and do nothing? How could they claim she was "vet-checked" when we could hear her wheeze immediately after getting her home? Had we not gotten her, she would probably be dead. I don't know too many people (family and friends included) who agreed with us for spending the money we did to treat her. If nothing else convinces people not buy a petstore pig, at least think of the bill. It is true, many petstore pigs are sold already sick! Eleanor is proof of that. On the other side, we adopted Lizzie, and have yet to have any health problems with her.

I would never trade any of my pigs, but I will never buy a pig again. The money I gave them just allowed them to breed and sell many more "Eleanors" to unsuspecting owners - and if they don't end up in an educated home willing to foot a large vet bill, they may not fair as well as our little pig did.

[PookiesPiggies]

I hope this isn't off topic but my fiance lives in Pennsylvania. He goes to an auction monthly to buy landscape supplies. Not only do they auction off supplies but small animals too. He said they sell baby Guinea Pigs by the crate load for like $10.00 or so. It doesn't matter what the condition is, whether sick, pregnant, dying, or just a product of some sick persons way of making money. What would someone do with a crate of Guinea Pigs like that? I'll tell you, the pictures taken above say it all.

[enchantingcavy]

Oh gawd I have so many petstore photos I'll just do the ones I have on hand atm...

Cricket...recently rescued baby guinea pig suffering from severe bacterial infection, bloat, couldn't walk and went cold and basically he passed away within two days of being rescued. Two other guinea pigs were for sale in this situation aswell I convinced the petshop lady to give me cricket and I contacted the rspca about the other two the petshop was investigated and the two baby guinea pigs were taken.

http://www.pix8.net/pro/pic/8054Dh2CL/992452.jpg


This petshop below has been reported over and over again by myself and volunteers for mistreatment of it's small animals...it is still allowed to sell animals and for over 2 years now has not improved its standards. The conditions and photos below have been taken over the course of these two years...
1: strong ammonia ( suffocating smell of ammonia from tanks )
2: up to 4-5 pigs sometimes kept in fishtanks that are no bigger than 40cm x 25cm in size.
3: filthy bedding
4: no food or water or filthy water
5: DEAD guinea pigs and dead rats seen on occasions
6: very sick guinea pigs seen / rats seen eating their offspring
7: flies and nats often found/seen inside the tanks
8: No hidey holes or toys

Rat for sale and eating its offspring ( had nowhere to nest and had no food )
http://www.pix8.net/pro/pic/115549YXUp/950090.jpg
Photos taken of how the guinea pigs are commonly kept...the ammonia coming from inside the tanks when the lids were lifted on this day was suffocating to say the least.
http://www.pix8.net/pro/pic/115549YXUp/761545.jpg
http://www.pix8.net/pro/pic/115549YXUp/761546.jpg
http://www.pix8.net/pro/pic/115549YXUp/761547.jpg
http://www.pix8.net/pro/pic/115549YXUp/761549.jpg
http://www.pix8.net/pro/pic/115549YXUp/761551.jpg
that's not food in the bowls its droppings and dirty shavings
http://www.pix8.net/pro/pic/115549YXUp/761552.jpg
mice...nowhere to hide no food or water
http://www.pix8.net/pro/pic/115549YXUp/761563.jpg
A popular highly regarded petstore...this is the guinea pig setup...the store is supplied regularly by breeders...the staff don't check out where the pigs go after recently visiting the petstore to see what it was like I saw a very rough family walk in take a look at a young sow no older than 2-3 months she points to the sow and asks the staff member " is that one good for breeding " staff member sais she dosn't know much about the guinea pigs background so the woman sais " I'll take 'IT' "...staff member goes and grabs a box and I watched as the poor little sow was sold to this grotty woman who definitely looked like a backyard breeder...anyhow has put me off the place for good now...
The enclosures may be clean but personally I don't think the pigs would be comfortable hiding in thoe metal houses and on a couple of layers of butchers paper...???
http://www.pix8.net/pro/pic/8054Dh2CL/967285.jpg

Jess

[Cavy Ema]

I don't have any pictures either but I do remember visiting a local pet shop when I was in high school (only a few years ago). It was not a "big business" pet shop like Petco or PetSmart. However it was pretty horrible in there. There were ALWAYS dead animals in the cages. There were rats, hamsters, guinea pigs, rabbits, all kinds of small animals in their cages but they were stuffed in there so bad they couldn't move around. There was NEVER any food or water in there (or a bowl or bottle to put it in) and the place smelled horrible. The turtles, fish, and alligators were swimming around in brown and green slime water and the dead animals were still floating around in the tanks. It was HORRIBLE.

Fortunately this place was shut down, however I know for a FACT that there are pet shops out there that are 10 times worse than this and no one says or does anything about it.

[fourbwabbys]

Hollister was also a breeder supplying a pet store I believe.

http://www.cavyspirit.com/hollister.htm

[strigercake]

I have a picture. I bought my first pig at a petstore because I didn't know better. Thankfully, he wasn't sick, but they did tell me he was a she. I did research and found out he was a he before I went and got him a friend.

When he passed away, my husband went out and bought another at a petstore a few days later. I did not approve, but I certainly couldn't take her back. This was her. Obviously, she was sick and had infections in both of her eyes. A day or two later, she developed an abscess. See second pic. You can see it bulging out the left side.





Once in a while I go to petstores, just to have a look around. The same petstore that Sage came from (guinea pig above), there was a bunch of guinea pigs stuffed in this glass cage with an open top. There was a really cute silver agouti, drooling, wet from chin to belly, nose all runny and just sat in a corner fluffed. I felt so bad for the poor pig. I knew he was going to die which I mentioned something to the owner. Supposedly, she was going to get him meds. I went back a few days later and he was gone. Im sure he died. Shortly after, the store shut down due to them selling sick puppies which some died and they refused to give the money back to the customers. It was held up in court for a while, but all did get their money back from the puppies.

[Cavy Ema]

A friend of mine was talking about wanting to go to a pet shop to buy food for one of her animals today. It was Petco. And the food is the same you could buy at a vet or a supply shop that DOESN'T sell animals. I told her about all these pictures and stories (including my own) and asked her if she still wanted to support these stores. She said it wasn't like she was buying animals there.

Anyways then she told me a story that would be great to add onto here. When I was talking about some of the abuse these animals go through in there she told me about a store where she used to live where if they had pets that didn't sell for one reason or another they would take them out back, throw them into trash bags, and kill them by slamming them against the concrete.

Even MORE of a reason for her to not go to a pet supplying pet store!

[fourbwabbys]

I got somewhat lucky with my petstore pigs. They were both healthy, yet mis-sexed.



We started out with 2 "girls", ended up with 7.


Just a few weeks ago, I stopped by in a brand new Petco to look around. They had a beautiful New Zealand White rabbit who had horrible hair loss and a URI. When I brought it to the store's attention, she said he came from the place that way and "he was under observation" yet still for sale.