We happened upon this pet store while out and about, thinking we might find some natural perches for our parakeets. We ended up taking home two hamsters. We received a fairly good deal on the hamsters and accessories, which we appreciated.
Here's the thing though...the young employees really need to educate themselves on some of these small pets. Two hamsters shouldn't reside in the same habitat, they do not require a "friend" and are solo creatures. They don't actually "like to climb", rather when the habitat is too small, they will climb to try and escape out of frustration, as well as chew on the bars (harmful). We are housing the two hamsters in separate DIY habitats that are over 4 feet in length. Hamsters are small but require a large square-inches habitat with lots and lots of enrichment. We also discovered once home that these were not same-sex, we were told that they are females but one is definitely a boy. I pin this error on the lack of supervision of the store's hamster habitat, one side with females and the other side with males. Kids are in there handling the hamsters and may be distracted by all the cuteness and put one back on the opposite side. Having the hamsters handled frequently is probably not the worst thing, as these are sweet and friendly little hamsters and they love being handled, but definitely they need more forethought in housing them in completely separate areas so there is no mix-up and no one takes home a pregnant female (female hamsters go into heat every 4 days).
This all being said....the store has a lot of small exotic pets (birds, spiders, snakes, fish), it was about as clean as I would expect it to be with two young people working there on a Saturday afternoon. Thankfully the animals we saw looked healthy. read more