Where are PJ's Pets small animals( rats, mice, hamsters ) from? I don't...

[Jackson]

...think their from mills.? I was just wondering where the store PJ's Pets small animals come from. NOT dogs. And I want to know specificly PJ'S PETS, NOT OTHER PET STORES.

Im asking this because I've bought many rats from PJs Pet. We bought 2 female last year that were about 8 weeks. They were amazing. They were 100% tamed. When they ed the lid. All the rats were so socialized and all healthy and active.

We bought 2 of them, 1 of them came on my hand and the other 1 was very beautiful.

That was last year, and they are still 100% healthy, not problems. We were playing with them the first day we got them. But I've read that they need to be not bothered for 2 days so they get use to you. But the 1's we bought, were so socialized and well behaved we didn't have to wait. We just played with them like crazy.

I definelty don't think the rats were from mills. Yes I know the dogs are. And I would never buy dogs from any pet store. But I dont think the rats were.

Next week we're going to buy 3 rats.
I'm going to buy 3 female rats from PJ's pets this weekend, and we're 99% confident of their health.
But I don't buy rats from any other pet stores, like Petcetera, since they always look unactive and not totally healthy. But PJ's Pet's rats, are alwasy healthy. Maybe they aren't from mills?

Thank you.
Well, maybe its different from dogs and rats. Dogs, from mills are almost all sick and bad temperament.

While rats, most are healthy and good temperament.

I just also want to say, that I barely see young rats from PJ's Pets. I only see them get young rats around 8 weeks old, around july and august. And the other times of the year, there are only 2 or 3 rats in a tank and they are all adult.

[Eraser Eraser]

Actually, EVERY SINGLE pet store buys from mills.

Think about it... What does it take to be a reputable breeder? Experience, knowledge, time and money. Most reputable rat breeders only have maybe 4 or 5 females and a couple males used for breeding at a time. And each female is bred at most twice a year to ensure she gets her rest. Reputable breeders also are highly knowledgable and are able to select only the right breeder animals to breed, in order to produce a certain colour or certain health, personality, etc. They also have pedigrees to go with all of their babies in case their owners wish to show them.

When adopting out thier babies, they normally would kask you questions to ensure you know how to take care of the animals, and will only give them out to the homes they think deserve them and are truley able to take good care of them. They will NEVER ship them out (which is VERY stressful!) so any person off the street will buy them and do god knows what with them.

So reputable breeders will only have maybe around 100 babies each year. And there are VERY few reputable breeders like this. Even 500 rats each year will be no match to the thousands that go through pet stores! The pet stores NEED a high volume breeder to get them the NUMBER, not the quality!

Mill-like breeders disregard anything related to health, temperment or appearence. They get paid for the amount of animals they sell, not how nice of pets they are. So they don't care about how nice they are, just as long as there are a lot of them.

Is it rare that your girls were nice? Certianly not! The character of any animal depends not only on its ansestry, but also on how it is raised. It isn't a definate that all carelessly bred rats will be horribly ill. This is an unknown factor. They could be sickly, or they could be healthy.

Your PJ's might have some very devoted employees which handled the rats regularily and in a positive way. Another PJ's, (and I know plenty!) might not have such fortunate employees, and carry rodents that never get handled, or even cleaned regularily. It isn't that all PJ stores ar ethe same, it depends on the people that work there.

You could get some more rats there. It sounds like they are well taken care of there. But just know that you are giving these miller breeders their profit. And by encouraging this, you are also encouraging the careless breeding of rats, as well as the tough conditions of the breeder rats that the millers use. ...not to sound too depressing :/
But seriously, if they are nice people working there, and you can't find anywhere else to get rats from, then go for it. At least these rats are socialized!

[CF_]

its much worse with dogs..

SOME come from people whose rats had babies and they sold them to stores..

read this link
http://www.socyberty.com/Activism/Stopping-Cruelty-in-the-Pet-Industry.91217

its excellent info - answers your questions.. tells you more.. AND no graphic pics