Pets at home selling tortoises

[ibizathetort]

Hi all

I noticed on someones thread about a petition against pets at home selling tortoises, the feeling was that many tortoises will be bought as an impulse buy and not be looked after. Im not in any way in supporting pets at home but I thought I should mention that when I enquiried about their tortoises for sale (at the stockport branch) I was told that I first had to buy and study the care book, wait a week then come back and let them know if I still wanted one. They seemed fairly well educated on the husbandry (there seemed to be one guy who had done his homework) apart from the usual pet shop errors of pushing vivs and heat mats. So I think they are taking some responsibility that a lot of smaller pet shops do not.

The worst aspect of them selling the torts is i beleive they are all from the farms of slovenia. maybe a huge firm like pets at home and with their financial clout could take a stand, show the way forward and advocate UK captive bred tortoises for pets.

[Pussygalore]

the trouble is that theres hardly any uk breeders that will sell to petshops so buying stock from abroad is the only way a shop can sell them and judging by the prices they charge and the amount they pay for them theres quite a profit to be made. The farms breed them in big quantities and can afford to sell them cheap, a british breeder who only breeds a few a year wouldn't sell them at cost price when they can make more selling themselves plus they can be more carefull about where and who they sell to, plus with defra bringing it charges for the breeder to get the certs it seems even less likely that they'd sell to shops or that the shops would pay the price without putting thier prices up even further.

[Alan1]

Just as a matter of interest, why are there no farms in the UK? Is it just down to the wrong climate?

The thing is that the more torts that are available, the cheaper they would become and the cheaper they get, the more they will be bought on a whim.

I suppose Pets At Home mentioned above (who on earth thought of that name for a shop?) are at least not just selling to anyone in this case.

The ones I've been in at Edinburgh and Livingston don't even sell reptile stuff at all, like not even water dishes never mind torts

[ibizathetort]

That was my thought, why not have better controlled farms in the UK? One pet shop owner I spoke to when I was deciding between a slovenia bred hermans and a UK horsfield told me he had been to the farms in slovenia personally and that the conditions are excellent. Well thats all very good but its the travelling thats the killer, we've all seen the pics of the crate loads of baby torts, and lots of them not lasting the journey.

Have you seen that some internet based pet shops offer torts delivered by courier? It beggars belief. They say "don't worry, our parcels are marked live delicate animals". Well thank god for that there was me thinking you didnt care about the torts...!

[Kirkie]

I suppose I should answer this as it’s my petition. At the back end of last year a thread was started on Shelled Warriors saying that a branch of Pets at Home was selling tortoises. Due to the additional adverse experiences added to the post by other people and the reports from tortoise people on other groups, I decided to both start the petition and contact Tortoise welfare groups.

Fro m this, one organisation contacted Pets at Home directly and has had an ongoing dialogue with them since and this appears to have had a positive impact.

At a lower level I myself have been in contact with some tortoise friendly Pets at Home staff and based on information I have received and passed to them, they have been able to rectify several of the issues, especially dietary, being inflicted on Pets at Home tortoises.

I happen to agree that Pets at Home are in a position to influence the shroud of mystery that surrounds the importation of tortoises into this and other countries from Eastern Europe. (check the letter to Pets at Home that accompanies the petition, this is mentioned). I also agree that this is the only source of tortoises available to them as UK breeders are unable or unwilling to supply tortoises in the quantities required by a big business like Pets at Home.

They are also in a position to influence potential owners and they are now doing so with the recommendations Ibizatort has outlined above. They are always going to try to push vivaria and heat mats because there are no commercial suppliers of tortoise tables and they are so cheap to make yourself (where's the profit in that).

In regard to Defra licensing, the increase in the fee is unlikely to impact importers as Defra have told me that they often issue a single licence for a “number” of tortoises.
In 2007 Defra issued 14,944 Article 10 certificates to cover 17,581 Slovenian imported tortoises, mainly Hermann’s. Virtually every article 10 I have seen for a Slovenian tortoise only reflects the name of the original importer or wholesaler, not the name of the retailer who sold the tortoise.

This may also answer Alan’s question as to why there are no tortoise farms in Britain. The countries these tortoises come from are the “home range” or closely resemble the wild environment for the Eastern Hermann’s tortoise. Supplemental heating and lighting bills play no part.

You are probably aware of the other possible cause for both the volume and cheap cost (to import) of Eastern European tortoises and that is there is not a commercial farming operation of the scale required to supply this many tortoises and that either the tortoises are wild caught or that eggs are taken from the wild and hatched on “farms”, giving the impression that these are captive bred animals.

[Pussygalore]

I think "the eggs are taken from the wild" would be nearly impossible how on earth would you know where they are and as far as I know torts don't nest in the same site or even live together in great quantities so I doubt you'd ever get enough eggs, certainly not the amount that is produced. Taking adult females is a probable and keeping them in enclosures to lay but they only lay at best a couple of times a year and then only a handfull of eggs at a time and we all know if the conditions aren't right they won't lay full stop so as much as I don't like the idea of farming they must be doing something right simply to get fertile eggs and hatchlings. My female spur layed 7 eggs last year and all were infertile and that was all she laid, you'd need access to vast quantities of females to get several hundred or thousands of eggs. There were pictures of a set up going around a while back but even then what we saw didn't amount to the numbers of torts you'd need, I don't know if anyone in the uk has the facilities or even the funds to put a "farm" together on that scale.

[Kirkie]

They are either doing something right or something very wrong.

The farm pic's are in this link

http://www.shelledwarriors.co.uk/for...hlight=traffic

Maybe in 15 years time this will all be unnecessary. Who knows , we may have a nation of small scale breeders and organised groups. But at the moment where would you get your breeding stock from without importing adults?

[ibizathetort]

I can see Im behind in this issue, thanks Kirkie for bringing me up to speed

[anna m]

As far as I know my local Pets at Home don't sell tortoises and have no plans too.

I agree these places push us to buy Vivariums because they will make a huge profit on them. They keep quiet on the fact that a tortoise table could be much cheeper. Even cheeper if you have some DIY skills yourself

[Kirkie]

Originally Posted by ibizathetort

I can see Im behind in this issue, thanks Kirkie for bringing me up to speed

S'Ok. I suppose I should update the petition site to reflect some of whats happened. Just that every time I see P@H mentioned on forums now I think I'm in for another slating. Not good for the blood pressure.