Petstores selling Chins in Belgium

[Stormcrow]

I have no idea how good (or how much) chins they are selling in other countries, but here in Belgium it was virtually impossible to buy chins at a local petstore. To get one, you needed to go to a breeder, wich made the chance of being an impulse buy very slim.

Lately however, and by that I mean last 4-6 months, you can see that more and more stores do sell them.
Most of the time their housing in the store is a bit small, but it does the trick especially since these animals aren't there for a very long time.

One of the petstores near me (who is part of a store chain throughout the whole country) even started with putting up these basic info cards at the animal cages. It explain basic needs, acceptable treats and it gives you a number on a 1-10 scale to explain how hard they are to take care of.
This is fantastic, and there should be a law stating that every store needs to do this. Since 2010 petstores who sell fish need to label their aquariums with name, latin name and water quality demands. Why not do this for rodents right?

So, good report on my local pet store then? No! Their basic info card states that the chin's diet consists for 50% out of hay, and next to pellets the following fruits and vegetables are good treats: papaya, apple, pear, cucumbre and zucchini.

I went to see the lady that works there, told her that I think it's a fantastic idea to provide the customer with basic information (and avoid people buying animals they can't handle or take care for), but that the provided info was wrong. I told her about my experiences with my chins and told her about the fragile digestive system they have. She just interrupted me, nodded and smiled and said that its company policy to hang em up and that she didn't come up with the given info.

Don't get me wrong. I ain't a green hippy eco boy trying to persuade everyone in acting and thinking the way i do, but I wonder if those people selling animals in petstores like that never feel bad at night.
People like the ones that visit these forums, people like you and me, we tend to overreact. I've seen people on this forum go mental over a silly youtube video where you could see a chin "not being handled properly", but when you actually try and take a step back and look at it rationally you could say that all in all the chin wasn't treated "bad", just in a way we wouldn't.
Why? Cause we feel a certain love and affection for these animals, it's a choice we made and we stick by it.
We overreact cause we know the animals we have, and took the time to research them and thus know what can go wrong. That's why you spend time on this forum!

So now I am wondering... Am I overreacting towards this store? Should I try and send a mail to their main office and try to inform them about this situation? I mean, i can imagine they would like to see happy customers returning for food and toys rather then with a plastic bag containing a dead animal.
Why can't a petstore hire people that know their "products" (after all to them it's all they are), not saying everyone should be a vet but come on, it can't be too hard to find people who care.

How do you guys feel about this? Same situation where you guys live or is it different?
This all just makes me a bit sad

 

[kvatore]

This is a similar issue we have in America too. I went into a pet store and I noticed everything in their cage was made of plastic and I was discouraged from getting a cage made with wood shelves because they would chew through it. Granted, at the time I had no idea about how bad plastic was for chinchillas. I've since educated myself on the forum and looking back on that experience bothers me.

I feel that if pet stores were actually giving the full details of what a chinchilla REALLY needed then people may be less likely to buy them. Which is probably why they skate by with giving such poor information.

This issue could probably be said for other critters in that store. I bet if I bought an Iguana and did a bunch of research I'm sure I would find all sorts of things wrong with how they run things. Unfortunately these stores care only about money and make very little attempt to ensure that any of these animals go to a responsible and caring home. It really is a tragic thing to see. Unfortunately I don't think one letter will do the trick with these people. Funny though, if you tell them to just pick up a chinchilla booklet (the same one they sell in stores) it'll tell you that all those fruits and vegetables are bad for them.

Short story, I had a friend that saw my chinchillas and wanted one desperately cause of how cute they were. After I gave her an honest run down about what they needed she became hesitant and didn't end up buying one in the end because she also was going to be going off to college. She made a good decision. In the end, if she had got one I probably would have ended up adopting it anyways.

So that being said I definitely feel the same way you do. I think you should say something regardless if it changes or not because then at least you can say that you tried. Heck, maybe I'll say something to my local pet store. Hope that helps a bit

 

[Caroline]

In defense of at least some of the employees at these pet stores, they feel as frustrated as you do. How the cages etc are set up all comes down from corporate, even the colour of carefresh bedding is dictated. They recommended writing a letter to corporate but were honest and said they didn't hold out much hope that the letter would be acknowledged.

 

[Cuddlebug]

Just a quick note, people. All of those care guides that the pet stores sell have the same BAD information in them recommending veggies and fruit for chinchillas. Where do you think the stores got their information from in the first place? there isn't a good book with the right information being sold that I am aware of.

 

[kvatore]

My bad, I could have swore that when I read one it said something about dried fruits being bad for chins. Why hasn't someone written a good book yet? I know there are lots of knowledgeable breeders out there that could.

 

[NiftyKat]

I agree that most of the petstore information care sheets are extremely wrong. When I was in highschool, I had gotten two dwarf hamsters. The care sheet at PETCO stated they could be housed together as long as they had grown up together. I had always been told to never put hamsters together because they will most likely fight, I however thought maybe dwarf hamsters were different. A couple months later I woke up to find that one hamster had literally disembowelled the other one. To say the least, I was traumatized. When my mom went to talk to PETCO about what happened, they were like "Oh no, you are never suppose to put hamsters together!" We then showed them their care sheet they had right next to the animals and what it said about Dwarf Hamsters, and they were shocked. They replaced my hamster and I had two cages from them on, and actually a few months later their care sheets did no longer say you could house two of the hamsters together. I don't know if my local PETCO took the initiative to take it off the care sheets they printed, or said something to their regional managers, but at least the care sheet was fixed.

I've also had a lot of friends telling me lately how difficult and a "pain in the a**" chinchillas are to have, the few random people I know who have owned a chinchilla for a short time period. I just reply back that I have done my research and know what I'm getting in to, plus I'm an animal person and like involved animals. I then ask if they ever did any research before they got one, and they all reply "no." I agree, if more people had knowledge about chinchillas, there would probably be far less who need adopted. However, the human race is terriby impulsive, which drives me insane!

Sorry for the rant and long story! I'm done!

 

[Amphy64]

There's definitely a lot of wrong information out there, I think you're doing the right thing by offering good advice. Best of luck!

I agree that most of the petstore information care sheets are extremely wrong. When I was in highschool, I had gotten two dwarf hamsters. The care sheet at PETCO stated they could be housed together as long as they had grown up together. I had always been told to never put hamsters together because they will most likely fight, I however thought maybe dwarf hamsters were different.

Sorry to hear that, that must have been horrible. From my experience with hamsters and the Midland Hamster Society, I believe the original information was correct, however, it's Syrian hamsters you can't keep together, dwarf hamsters often are kept in pairs or sometimes larger groups quite happily. It was just one of those unfortunate things that can happen, I think, same as with pairs of chins.

As for chins being a pain...did my research before getting one, and yeah, still would say they are! :laughitup: When you find poos everywhere, they eat everything in sight, demand attention, scare you by sleeping in odd positions, bark in the middle of the night... Worth it, though!