Am I wrong here?

[Bo B Bunny]

I am going to post this before I contact someone about this petstore. Friday night Lexi and I went to a petstore that had been closed due to some issues nationally we think. They seemed to have gotten their act together since they reopened. Lexi and I stop in often to see the bunnies, piggies, etc. There's a bird there that she is in love with and he ADORES her.

However, I looked over at the hamsters in their open cages for visitors to pet/holdand saw a pair breeding. I thought it wasn't right cause they normally don't put them together like that in stores. So, I told someone. He said "oh that's not right" andwent over to pen the female away. She got back out and as I watched, she ran from the males (there were 2 of each we figured out) and was obviously exhausted! she was white and had a place where she had been bitten/hair pulled by the male. Also, both females were obviously very pregnant!

This went on the entire time we were there.... of course the male was fine and happy! but the female was running from him the entire time (we were there like 1/2 hour) ...... the other female went to sleep in the corner and they left her alone.

I picked up the little white girl and I could almost hear her sigh with relief. I held her for a couple of minutes and she actually rested in my hand. Some woman we don't like there said they can't separate them cause the males would kill each other.

Is this wrong? isn't that like abuse? Lexi and I wanted to take her home but we couldn't - hubby would have killed me!

We are still thinking of her today.

 

[Bassetluv]

I would personally define it as a store that should not be selling animals, based upon what you describe. (However, I tend to believe that unless a pet store is selling animals that are being rehomed from local animal shelters, they shouldn't be selling live pets anyway.)

Not being able to successfully separate any species of animal should never happen. Nor should pet stores have any animal in a cage that is a) too small; b) not adequately equipped with proper food/water/shelter/heat; c) overcrowded and (or) males/females intermixed; and d) animals in cages where the general public can reach in and touch them or pick them up. All define extremely bad management and in my opinion, animal abuse. Unfortunately it isn't all defined as abusive or bad management by many bylaws...but I would report them if I were you, if even to try to get the store owners to properly house and separate the animals.

 

[kherrmann3]

Sadly, that does happen in pet stores. When I worked for the one, I tried my best to separate the males from females. But sometimes, it's really hard to tell when you get young ones in. They should separate them. The males WILL NOT kill each other (unless they were never housed together before). Only babies should be housed together. Once they reach a certain age, they will most likely fight, anyway.

Some places breed their hamsters that way for snake food babies. I know how terrible that is, but it is far cheaper to do it that way than to order live pinkies.

I hated that part of the job (I wound up "stealing" a mama and her two babies before they were put in the inventory as "live food"). Little Hans, the baby I kept, was the sweetest hammy that I ever had

I would contact someone about the matter, though. Try the owners first, if they are complete creeps and the animals aren't getting treated better, you could try calling the SPCA to see what their take on it is. They probably won't be much help unless the animals are in terrible conditions.

 

[Bo B Bunny]

Yeah, I forgot they sold live snakes too...... but they were both ready to give birth so I don't understand why they'd leave them like that....

It is a Petland store if that tells you anything.....

On a good note:

We also drove by a petstore that we used to go in to look around. I had bought oxbow from them a few times. We weren't fond of the store because of the poorly fashioned small animal "bins" and the HUGE snakes in a small cage, and an alligator in a small tank thing they made for him. He ended up going to a zoo.

This guy was known for being "the" exotics petstore in Indiana. He also had a couple of cool animals housed in the store.

He's gone!!! :weee: I think they finally shut him down!

 

[tonyshuman]

It doesn't sound good, but it could be from a misunderstanding of how hamsters breed. For some species (Campbell's Russian Dwarf), the male is very involved in raising the young. If you had a single male and single female in a cage together, I think he would help her care for the young, and that would be a good thing. Since that doesn't seem to be happening, it could be because they have two females in there--screwing up the male-female pair bond, or they're not Campbell's (they're Syrian or Robos). It is possible that they are breeding for snake food, although that is terrible, and I would hope that they do that in the back, not out where the kids can see it. Any animal that's being harrassed that badly is being ill treated, in my opinion, so it shouldn't happen. But, they may have let it happen because they were confused. They should of course separate these guys from each other now.

 

[kherrmann3]

I worked for a Petland for awhile. Never going back there again.

Robo dwarf ham males also help with the young, in my experience. Well, he lays on them when mom is out and about the cage. I think that counts as helping?

 

[tonyshuman]

hehe. I know CRDs do because they're a model species for endocrinologists who study paternal behavior (yay science). I really enjoyed that lecture since I have them at home! They cite things like grooming and returning pups to the nest that have wandered off as parts of paternal behavior. I don't have experience with robos, but i bet they do too, especially since they're a social hamster species rather than a solitary one like syrians.

 

[Bo B Bunny]

These werea golden female, 1 REW female and 2 males I would call tort. I think the bigger ones are the syrians?

 

[kherrmann3]

tonyshuman wrote:

hehe. I know CRDs do because they're a model species for endocrinologists who study paternal behavior (yay science). I really enjoyed that lecture since I have them at home! They cite things like grooming and returning pups to the nest that have wandered off as parts of paternal behavior. I don't have experience with robos, but i bet they do too, especially since they're a social hamster species rather than a solitary one like syrians.

I used to breed the little dwarf guys (I did breed the bigger hams, too), but I used to get such a kick out of watching the daddies try and round up the babies. Bad part to keeping Ma and Pa together, though, is the males will breed with the females right after they are done giving birth. Then, you have to wean those little 28-day old babies in a hurry!

 

[twich]

Like everyone else has already said, you have every right to be upset and to file a complaint- Hamsters are my area of expertise so if you have any you'd like to ask before going with a complaint, feel free to PM me or something.

Any dwarf except the chinese dwarf hamster will be good fathers if left together, the problem (like has been said already) is they will mate shortly after the pups are born, and it's really not good to birth back to back litters like that. Generally a good breeder will give a minimum of 2 months (preferably 3 though) of rest time after the pups have been weaned before trying for another litter.

Anyway, You have every right to be upset- and if they can't separate the syrians when they become violent, they have too many hamsters and not enough cages- They'll kill the females, too... Females kill, and males kill... It's not about gender, it's about territory.