Be careful with breathing too…hantavirus is carried in the droppings and urine as well and is primarily transmitted by inhalation of microscopic particles and droplets.
Sure!
Plenty. Our store was in a location that placed it squarely between a college, a low income/ high crime area, and a rural community that visited on weekends. As you can imagine we had quite a wide range of clients, and plenty of them were difficult. One that comes immediately to mind was a typical “thug” type who came into the store early one morning. He was looking for a feeder rat for his animal. It went like this (names changed to protect the innocent):
I was minding the front on a nice, slow morning in the fall. It was pleasant outside so we had left the front door open to air out the building a bit, as well as admit some sunshine which many of the animals seem to enjoy. Noticing some movement out of the corner of my eye, I stopped playing with the guinea pigs in their run and turned around to help out the customer. The guy gave me the “wassup” nod as I asked him what I could do for him. He was about 20 or so, little dreads sticking up out of his head, wife beater and shorts about 5 sizes to big for him. Maybe a little taller than average and rail thin.
" I need a rat" he replied flashing a mouth full of gold teeth.
“No problem, what size?”
“Medium.”
“Cool, just a second. Take a look around while a get one.” I headed off to the rat rack and began wrangling the sleepy rats out of their cuddle pile and into a take-away box. He browsed for a minute but seemed in a hurry so I skipped the small talk and wrang him up.
“That’ll be $1.50. Need anything else?”
“A buck-fitty? That’s too much man!”
“That’s the same price they’ve always been, we haven’t raised our feeder prices.” I was honestly confused here.
“I get 'em for a dollar at Bonnie’s Bunnies.” Now it is important to note that I sell Bonnie her rodents. I know very well what she sells them for, and a dollar is only a little more than wholesale.
“No you don’t. I sell Bonnie her rats and she sells mediums for $1.75.” I can see where this is going already, and I’m not about to dicker over the price of a feeder rat.
“What?! Yes I do! Bonnie sell’s 'em for a dollar everyday! I’m only paying a dollar.” He’s getting way too agitated over this and I go into alert mode.
“Look man, the price is a buck-fifty, and it’s the cheapest in town. Take it or leave it, it doesn’t make any matter to me. If you’ve only got a dollar I can sell you a small rat.”
He sneers at me. “Fuck them small rats!” The guy then knocks over a display of lights, completely failing to break any of them. “Fuck you too!” He then tries his best to puff up and pull off a gangsta attitude. I’m not in the mood. I come around the cashwrap and stop about a foot from him.
" Get out. You’re not welcome here and I don’t want your goddamn dollar. Come back and you’ll deal with the cops. Now piss off while I’m feeling generous."
“Oh yeah? Whatchoo gonna do?..” He gives me the “high school shove” to the chest. That’s it. I give it to him back, with a good deal more force. I’m short and stocky; when I push up on you, you go back. He goes back ass over teakettle into the front.
I point at the door. “Piss. Off.” He gets up and starts bouncing around yelling.
“Fuck you man! You dead! I’m gonna get my pistol! I’m gonna get my pistol!” By this time I’ve gone back around the cashwrap and placed my hand on the handgun I kept there.
“Go ahead. You know where I am. I’ll be here all day.” After repeating his dire threat several more times he wandered off and we never did see him again.
We had a Vegan guy who couldn’t stomach the thought of feeding frozen or live rats to his snake, nor could he kill them himself, so he had me kill them for him while he shopped next door. One time he came back in as a was in the middle of snapping a jumbo rat’s neck for him and he fainted.
Probably a large venomous special order. I think it came to a little over 7 grand.
I’ve no idea why she hated the things. Lemme think a bit on the others.
Not really, We bought out an existing business and retained the clientele since we had little interruption of operations.
I have absolutely no questions and can only say that I’m certain this is going to be a fascinating thread. I just wanted to provide a link to the original thread for anyone who wanted to go back and revisit it.
I have no intention of owning pets beyond my cats, but out of curiosity: are red bar chameleons considered decent starter reptiles? What conditions would you require the potential owner meet before selling one?
The reason I ask is my next door neighbor got one early this month; the chameleon lasted seven days. I assume that this was because of the cold (as did the store that sold it to him): my apartment complex was built in the fifties or sixties, it is single-story and except for the bathrooms, heated by baseboards pumping hot water. Although my neighbor purchased a nice lamp and a ceramic heat plate for his chameleon, I was not at all surprised that it died - although I thought it would last a month or so initially. Other stress factors include the nearby street which is a main road for the local university, and the fact he housed the reptile in his living room. My neighbor frequently has guests over, the living rooms have the largest windows in our complex and it is also the room that the front door opens into, letting in cold air whenever it is open. Quite frankly, I can’t believe the pet store sold the chameleon to him in the first place (granted, he probably did not fully disclose pertinent information about habitat where it would be kept).
Yes, we aware of that. We also have a good half dozen (at least!) running around our apartment peeing and pooping on everything, and probably have had them for months. That seems a mite more hazardous than confining one or two in a box, you know? Why do you think we’re setting a half dozen traps out every night?
I live with a man who rescued a half-frozen bat, rehabbed it, and took care of it for several months before releasing back into the wild. He’s a bit nutty like that. I did get him to agree to no venomous snakes, no scorpions, and no spiders as pets as long as we’re married - he’s kept all manner of dangerous animals. He’s got a scar on one hand from a shark bite from a pet nurse shark (which eventually got too large even for him and now lives in the Shed aquarium).
Personally, I could throw them outside to freeze to death with no problem. He can’t. In any case - they’re notorious for re-entering homes they are ejected from.
From your post it’s obvious that you knew more than your neighbor did! I don’t recommend any chameleon species as a starter reptile due to their finicky nature. The easiest species to keep is the veiled chameleon which is widely available as captive bred babies. Most of the other species are imports with a heavy parasite load and are unable to acclimate to the stress of a normal home.
Personally, I am not doing anything with them other than admiring their cuteness from afar. My hands are always getting nicked and cut, I figure handling wild rodents is just asking for trouble under those conditions. The Other Half is taking on all mouse care, and he has experience with dealing with potentially hazardous animals, including those that are possible disease vectors. You’ll have to take my word for it that he’s capable of doing that as I have no way to prove it via the internet.
In that case, enjoy the little buggers, and get something that likes to eat pink mice when they breed! Which they will. A lot. Seriously.
Uh, yeah - like I said they’ve invaded our home. I suspect that if any of the mice in here were active carriers we’d be sick/dead already. It took us a month to capture one after we saw the first one, the damn things were stealing the bait off the traps so we had to get different traps. Like I said, there’s mouse poop and pee in the environment already. I wear a mask when I do heavy cleaning of corners I haven’t paid attention to in awhile, wear gloves, etc. Other than that, there’s not much I can do.
And no, moving elsewhere is not an option. We just don’t have the money. It sucks to be poor.
We also suspect they were deliberately released by a disgruntled neighbor. If so, they’ve been in the building over a year. Keep in mind, too, those things are all over the place outside in our area, they’re natives. Anyone who lives around here has been exposed to mouse poop and pee just by virtue of living around here.
We aren’t going to be stupid about handling them, but there’s no reason to panic, either.
Well, a snake would not be compatible with our parrots.
However, the conure is taking inordinate interest in the mice these days, and given her like of red meat I’m pretty sure that if she has them over for dinner it won’t be as an overture of friendship… (She’s already attacked one that got into her cage. With a little more experience she probably would have killed it. As it is, she almost removed a leg and was going back for more when we removed the offending animal from her talons and euthanized it. That is also when we realized we didn’t have ordinary field mice)
Obviously, parasites are very different from bacteria, but my neighbor claimed chameleons do not carry any bacteria on their skin. I presume he meant bacteria potentially hazardous to humans, but is this at all true?
Is stress, such as the noise from traffic or the presence of multiple people, likely to be fatal for chameleons?
Jesus Christ.
I mean, pardon me, what city are you in that you keep firearms in a pet store?
I’ve seen them in liquor stores but no pet stores in central AR. 
A killed a deer mouse in my dresser drawer with a rat trap. She was chewing up my clothes and making a nest. 
Have you encountered anyone who owns tigers? Do you consider the enclosures they’re in to be secure and their owners capable of maintaining order?
Florida can be a very rough place; further, I imagine exotic pet stores are quite likely to have large bills in the register. Have you ever heard of Little Haiti? I doubt any place in AR (or WA, where I live) could compare.
Wait… he couldn’t handle feeding frozen rats, or live ones, but he was OK with freshly killed-but-not-by-him dead ones? 
I’m a vegetarian (not a vegan), but I just don’t get that. Then again, I’m not the squeamish type, either. (And my ferrets have always had a diet of heavily-meat-derived kibble, with two starting off on freeze-dried meat patty chunks.)
All reptiles carry bacteria on their skin, salmonella and fecal bacterias being the most common. Nothing to worry about unless you like to lick your pets.
Stress is not usually fatal, it’s secondary infections from a stressed system or failure to feed that gets them. A captive bred chameleon should be reserved, but not shy.
Tallahassee Florida. It was a sensible precaution. We dealt primarily in cash, our location was in an older, more crime prone part of town, and many of our animals were in the several hundred or thousand dollar range. We’d been robbed of animals a few times.
Only once. The Fl state mandates are inadequate as far as I’m concerned and are both too small, and too insecure for a carnivore of that size. An owner can keep order only so long as the cat decides to tolerate the daily routine and owner’s handling. They are not pets.
Thanks, man. I thought it was a ridiculous assertion. When I was seven, I was allowed to purchase two leopard geckos with my (painstakingly saved) allowance; it was made very clear to me that it was important to wash my hands after handling them. At the same time, I was deathly afraid of germs, so I didn’t need much encouragement.