Herp half way house

[Sylvias]

Apparently I am quickly becoming an unofficial reptile rescue for my area -.- because of my love and knowledge of herps my coworkers are accepting relinquished animals that none of them even know what they are with the intention of having ME take them home.... which is all well and good except for that I can't really afford to be a rescue. Of course I don't mind helping out and for the people that are smart enough to give their animals to a pet store or rescue or what have you instead of releasing them or worse then I definitely want to be able to do what I can and encourage that behavior. For the time being though... I have asked them to stop accepting random animals thinking I will take them. I can care for them at the store until they get adopted no problem but I can't keep bringing things home to care for out of my pocket....not like any of them are really expensive...
I am sure I brought this on my self by always being willing to take on new critters and adopting a lot of unwanted animals from work but now I'm not really looking anymore. If we get in something cool and unique I will probably take it but other wise... needs to stay at the store.
So what brought this on is my recent acquisition of 3 new critters all in one day.
Yesterday, someone relinquished an "armadillo lizard" (I believe the scientific name is Cordylus tropidosternum, otherwise known as girdled lizard or dwarf sungazer as well as armadillo lizard). Today someone brought in a huge fatty leopard gecko and a very malnourished tiger salamander... all of which are now sharing my home. And of course ya'll know about the texas spiny lizard, Sparky. I don't really want to complain about the new critters because I, of course, love having them, i am just not really in a place to be getting so many more animals so I will probably be finding homes for these.

Sparky, the texas spiny lizard already has a new home at the college in the life science building, he/she will be going there once the semester starts. As per my Herp professors advice I am letting sparky hibernate in peace now as he was probably trying to do when he was found


The armadillo lizard will probably be looking for a home soon. If not I will probably try my hand at a desertish vivarium eventually


The leopard gecko....is huge... very well fed critter and appears to me to be a female even! (though I really am not much of a leopard gecko person) I honestly wouldn't mind holding onto her but I don't need to and probably shouldn't so i will be finding a home for her


and last... the tiger salamander. starting my new years resolution early as it would seem (to keep more amphibians) I am going to try and get this guy in better shape but as of now I have no idea why he is skinny.... no word as to what he was being fed or anything about his care. If I can get him to pull through I'll likely keep this one
He is rather active and seems healthy otherwise, just thin. Aside from crickets what else should I try feeding him? earth worms? wax worms? I should be getting roaches soon....

[Donnie_K]

Good thing you're starting to realize you're biting off more than you can chew... have seen all too many people get themselves in way too deep, and then the animals start suffering for it. I know a rescue is a kind thought, but unless you have a very large facility and an endless amount of cash, you just can't save them all.

On the topic of people being smart enough to surrender them to a rescue (I don't trust pet stores, they usually just flip them). There is positives and negatives to that. Yes the animal ends up with better care (sometimes). But alot of those people see how easy it is to just dump them off when they get bored with them, and get something else. So in a way, accepting all these animals is almost encouraging these people to keep acquiring these animals, cuz when they get bored, they can dump them somewhere and get something else. Not saying all people do that, but it's all too often the case.

[Sylvias]

Better to take in an unwanted animal then let it suffer and die though.... most of the people who relinquish them aren't simply bored and going to get something else immediately... but yeah we have had a few... and those whoa re like that we refuse to sell anything else.
These 4 at least are not from such homes. Sparky is actually wild but no tellin where he came from to release him again, he was found inside of one of those wrapped fire starter logs they sell at walmart!
The armadillo lizard was from a kid who has a lot of medical problems and is going to be spending a lot more time in the hospital soon so he wanted to make sure it would go to someone who would care for it.....
the leopard gecko and sally are from an older guy who had em for his grandkids but they don't come around to visit to much anymore and he wasn't giving them the care they needed... and he acknowledged that.

obviously thats not always how it goes though..... to often we get people returning or relinquishing animals they never should have had int he first place...
Just the other day we had someone return a ferret because it "ruined" his christmas.... what the idiot failed to mention when we sold it to him was that he DIDN'T actually have a cage yet (said he did) and he was planning on having it free roaming.... BAD idea with a ferret.... it's damn near impossible to ferret proof a house and while you CAN teach them to use the litter box it takes a little bit of work... none of the ones at the store are doing it atm because we just don't have the time to put in to reinforcing it.. they pick it up quick though when you work on it. but yeah thats definitely cause for a cage at the very least.

and another one... with a corn snake of all things.... all the corns were eating just fine before this was sold and all of them were normal little corns.... well these people brought this one back claiming it's not eating.... they gave me all the right answers to my interrogation so i took it back and gave them a refund...on a gift card...cause they didn't have a receipt -.- which they got all pissy about but whatever.
I have no idea what they did to this poor snake but it is absolutely terrified of everything... it doesn't strike or even run... it freezes and flattens its head out and tries to hide. and for the first time in my almost 2 years of working at petco... the returned snake that they claimed wouldn't eat... actually WOULDN'T eat (every single other snake return that "wouldn't eat"... would turn out to be rather ravenous the first time i tried feeding)
So... yeah we get abandoned animals for those bad reasons to....

[Pirarucu]

Jeez, poor corn. I've seen some bad off corns, but never one that bad. Sadly, idiocy has no cure.. Shotguns work though.