Doomed Petco Hissers

[dragonfire1577]

Hi I'm Connor im new to this forum and last week I was at a Petco near me and found little boxes labeled "giant islander roaches" with the date 7/22 on the bottom. Inside were sexed pairs of very skinny or dead hissing roaches and one had a pair with interesting colors so I bought them. When I opened the container after cutting the piece of plastic sealing it closed off I found the roaches inside had eaten the plastic mesh they were packed with and there was no trace of the orange food block they were packed with. The roaches inside were so weak they wouldn't even attempt to hiss though now the male is like the most flighty, loud, territorial hissing roach I've ever had. Overall this seems like a pretty poor way to sell hissing roaches as most of them seem to end up dying and not selling and the ones that do sell aren't in good shape unless they sell early. Also these guys seem hybrid does anyone have a guess what species were probably involved? (I will attach images of them)

 

[dragonfire1577]

Here is the image of them.

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[dragonfire1577]

This is the mesh they surprisingly ate since it doesn't look very edible.

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[Hisserdude]

Over here they pack dubia roaches in deli containers with eggcartons and some sort of bran as the substrate. Most of the roaches are always dead and dehydrated, and they never have food or water. They really need to find better ways to pack roaches at pet stores. Glad you were able to rescue some of them, though buying from them promotes this method of packing. They do look like hybrids, so if they breed and you want to sell them, please mark them as such.

 

[dragonfire1577]

Yeah I'm keeping their colony separate from my other hisser species and probably won't sell any unless I end up with way too many nymphs to house or feed off and will make sure to label them as hybrids.

 

[Doc]

One of the many reasons why I don't go to petcos or petsmarts anymore. They should just store the feeder insects in large tubs and then package them as they are sold. You wouldn't expect them to store feeder mice the way they do their insects. They shouldn't be treated differently.

 

[Hisserdude]

One of the many reasons why I don't go to petcos or petsmarts anymore. They should just store the feeder insects in large tubs and then package them as they are sold. You wouldn't expect them to store feeder mice the way they do their insects. They shouldn't be treated differently.

They store the crickets in tubs here, they should just do the same for roaches.

 

[Doc]

The one I used to go to had crickets in plastic bags and many were deflated or full of condensation. Just dozens of bags sitting there. Is it really that hard to prepare live feeders as they're needed?

 

[dragonfire1577]

I think big chain pet stores find there is more appeal to customers pre packaging the insects because like everything else today since pre packaging makes it more convenient for people since they don't need to wait for an employee to catch the bugs for them. But it does seem kinda stupid to house them like this too since how much more money are they really making when maybe only 50-60% of their insect death boxes sell and I'm pretty sure out of 15 packaged multiple month old hisser boxes I'm the only one who bought one before they all ended up dead. They should just keep them in bins so they don't just waste insects. I wasn't going to buy them because I didn't really want them to be encouraged to order more but the male had really nice striping and the female has a nice dark color I found really cool looking.

 

[Squidsalad]

Vanwaerebecki X Portentosa ? Petco places don't always seem to take care of their animals. I'm glad you've got them!

 

[dragonfire1577]

Well they are looking a lot better now that they have had food for a while

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[varnon]

I've seen these too. They are really expensive and not well taken care of. It makes me sad.

Also, I'm curious about why they call them giant islander roaches. Maybe because they are selling them as feeders and hissing cockroaches are more of a pet name?

 

[Salmonsaladsandwich]

Either that or the "hissing" part is too scary. Or they're just trying to make it seem like a new thing, since many people are familiar with hissing cockroaches.

 

[wcbpolish]

The one I used to go to had crickets in plastic bags and many were deflated or full of condensation. Just dozens of bags sitting there. Is it really that hard to prepare live feeders as they're needed?

Over here they pack dubia roaches in deli containers with eggcartons and some sort of bran as the substrate. Most of the roaches are always dead and dehydrated, and they never have food or water. They really need to find better ways to pack roaches at pet stores. Glad you were able to rescue some of them, though buying from them promotes this method of packing. They do look like hybrids, so if they breed and you want to sell them, please mark them as such.

I worked at a local, family owned pet store. We had to pre-bag crickets every morning, because people invariably want crickets at a rush time, and are not willing to wait 10 minutes for a sales associate to be done helping a kid make smart decisions as he picked out fish for his tanks... and we were told that the profit margin for product was too low to have more people on the clock, so it was generally 2 sales associates and a cashier on the clock at a time. We'd still bag crickets if asked, but the fast-food mentality affects pet owners too.

Also, the local pet store wouldn't sell my bugs... I traded them 8 adult hissers for 3 very used 10 gallon aquarium screen tops that probably would have went into the trash in the near future anyway, but they were asking $8 for them, and none of the associates (aside from myself) would even touch them. They won't sell if the salesmen doesn't even try to sell them! I tried to convince the owner to let me start a small dubia colony for him... they threw out so much damaged/expired animal food that the dubia would have eaten that they could have sold them at next to nothing and still turned a profit... but not if no-one will touch them or bag them. Now I sell dubia on craigslist off and on, so I guess it's their loss.

 

[Hisserdude]

In my opinion, petstores should ONLY hire people willing to handle ALL of the animals they sell, and they should only hire people that actually know about the hobby, people with knowledge about what they are selling.

 

[RomanBuck]

If they did that, there would be so many idiots holding a defensive tarantula or scorpion. The way they label the inverts is so stupid.... I've seen a G. porteri labeled as B. vagans.... It's getting bad in Minnesota... Could be everywhere else (more than likely) but I've noticed it the most here. My local mom and pop pet store actually gives me the expired foods for a cheap cheap price. Plus I can go in there and collect Germans!

 

[stronin]

Not trying to get you to do criminal activity but if theres more and you don't have enough money to save them all, you can always bring in a backpack and save all of their lives, rather than having them die a slow death in the back of a store.

Just a thought.

 

[stronin]

Not trying to get you to do criminal activity but if theres more and you don't have enough money to save them all, you can always bring in a backpack and save all of their lives, rather than having them die a slow death in the back of a store.

Just a thought.

I would never steal roaches if they were in good shape, but the fact that what Hisserdude even said, theres no reason for us to just let them die out like that. no reason at all.

 

[wcbpolish]

If they did that, there would be so many idiots holding a defensive tarantula or scorpion. The way they label the inverts is so stupid.... I've seen a G. porteri labeled as B. vagans.... It's getting bad in Minnesota... Could be everywhere else (more than likely) but I've noticed it the most here. My local mom and pop pet store actually gives me the expired foods for a cheap cheap price. Plus I can go in there and collect Germans!

I watched for Germans at my local mom & pop store when I worked there. I'm pretty sure they didn't have any, which surprised me greatly! I was always watching for them and for oothecas when cleaning behind and beneath fish display cases. Nothing. Not sure I really want Germans anyway... but I did keep my eyes open!