Breeders vs petshops

[Jack's-Jane]

I think one of the issues is that there are two types of breeder - there are those like Walnut who obviosuly care for their animals and do their utmost to find them caring loving homes and who probably make little or no money from breeding and then their are those other breeders or probably a better phrase is rabbit farmers who churn out bunnies willy nilly and supply them to petshops.

Breeders like Walnut will ensure they do their utmost to provide healthy happy bunnies who should, because of their lineage lead healthy lives. However those who supply to petshops really could not give jack-sh*t about how their rabbits end up - which is why many rabbits bred this way suffer teeth problems, illhealth etc etc.

Because of the way they are bred - these "farmed" rabbits end up requiring more vetinary care which is one of the main reasons that people get fed up with them - the sheer expense (and I suppose hassle that some may see it) of going back and forth to the vets.

We all know that there are loads of bunnies out there needing caring loving homes - however to some people lookign for a rabbit a pet shop is the only place they think of going.

Where I live there are three or four pet shops selling rabbits - there are some local rescues but they do not advertise. It is a fact that many rescues cannot advertise as if they let their location be widely known they would wake up every morning with a pile of unwanted bunnies at their door :roll: So therefore most of their work is done via word of mouth or trawling the internet. There is an SSPCA centre near me however it is about six miles north of the town and only accessible by car - again many people would be put off by this.

It is really difficult because to get people to use rescues ahead of pet shops means that the rescues need to advertise where they are - but they cannot do these for fear of being inundated with abandoned pet shop buns:shock: :?

All my buns were rescued - one of them was rung when I got her and I never bothered to check who the breeder was (wish I had now) - another was rescued from a P@H - i never paid for him. And he was "rescued" as he was past his sell by date and had been termed too savage to sell:roll:

I truly wish all pet shops would stop selling rabbits - but is is very difficult. Pet shops up here no longer sell dogs and cats however there are still huge numbers of them in rescues. So do we therefore say that all dogs etc can only be sold through reputable breeders - this would mean an end to mongrels (often the most faithful and lovable dogs of all)

If pet shops stopped selling rabbits then the problem would be hwo to control breeding - would it only be pure bred rabbits that could be produced. Woudl breeders have to be registered and who would legislate this:?

Even on this forum of rabbit lovers we have to admit that some people prefer specific breeds - my four are a right mix and I could not tell you what type of bun they were except by way of black with lop ears, black with helicopter ears, round and ginger with loppy ears and black and white with loppy ears:lol: :lol: However some people here specifically like say German lops of Frenchies and if you want a specific breed (and to know its history) then I guess you would need to go to a breeder.:?

The other thing is that with the best will in the world peoples circumstances change and while they may have rescued a rabbit with the best of intentions perhaps three or four years down the line they might find themselves unable to keep that bun - surely it is ludicrous to expect a rescue to keep tabs on every rabbit they rehome over that period. They work on limited resources and carying out monthly checks on every rehomed animal would cost a fortune not just in monetary terms but in manpower as well.

I guess the main issue is not really breeders or petshops but to try and put three things into place:-

1. stop petshops selling animals and therefore put the rabbit farmers out of business
2. educate people into a bunnies needs over a lifetime
3. educate the human race to understand that sometimes it is the imperfections that make an animal perfect

Well said BUNNYSAVvY

Janex

 

[Thea & Bobbin]

sometimes it is the imperfections that make an animal perfect

That is so true

 

[WalnutEarth626]

Walnut, I would just like to say thank you for the conversation and for answering my questions although I still think your time would be better spent at helping the needy large buns :lol:

I am a bit lost in this topic now but still have some questions that I would like to put forward to you. I have been given invaluable advice in the past from ex breeders and honestly believe that one of my buns wouldn't be here today if it hadn't been for the advice and support given by one of these ex breeders

Do you fancy continuing the conversation by pm :?: some of your answers has opened a pandora's box of questions for me that I am now interested as to whether or not certain checks on our own pet rabbits can establish how well our own buns have been bred etc:?

Yes I am more than happy to continue our conversation via PM - PM away! :lol:

 

[SOAD]

Ok, back to the original question :lol: to the people who don't go top rescues, would you pick a bun from breeder or petshop? I know most of us would rescue, just wondering about the people who don't.

 

[Thea & Bobbin]

Ok, back to the original question :lol: to the people who don't go top rescues, would you pick a bun from breeder or petshop? I know most of us would rescue, just wondering about the people who don't.

I can answer that because given the choice I went to a good breeder, this was of course when I was unaware of the rescue situation

I think that if you take rescues out of the equation (like in the original question) most would go to a breeder rather than a petshop for the simple fact that you can see the conditions they are born into, their parents, and how much the breeder actually knows. Having said that I'm sure that there are many that would go to neither if rescues were not an option

 

[ZakuraRabbit]

Ok, back to the original question :lol: to the people who don't go top rescues, would you pick a bun from breeder or petshop? I know most of us would rescue, just wondering about the people who don't.

I would definitely buy from a breeder over pet shop.
I don't want to support the business of selling animals in pet shops also buying a kit from there you never know what you'll get. There's no guarantee the rabbit is purebred, and it would be kind of bad buying a whole lot of equipment for a baby dwarf rabbit, only to realize your rabbit suddenly grew to twice the size you expected it too:shock:
All my rabbits are from a breeder (Zakura's litter wasn't very well planned though...) but the rexes are wonderful.
Both have very good tempers and Sasuke even has good show results (Aroma was disqualified because of a minor detail:evil: ) and are all in all perfect pets. (Sure they have their flaws...Aroma isn't litter trained and Sasuke is extremely lazy...judging by her hyperactive personality I wonder what personality their kits would get:lol: )

 

[Sooz]

well the money i get from my buns gos straight back into them for thier food, bedding, rent, vet bills and at the moment im trying to by a new hutch at £325 so i truley am make no profit

pmed you tamsin

None of the above mentioned is actually of benefit to the owner though is it? They are not 'buying' something that they would have to pay for otherwise themselves, except for the rabbit.

The only thing our adoption money is spent on is neutering and worming and vaccinations.

All feed, bedding and OTHER vets bills come out of my pocket.

So for £30 the owner is getting neutering, worming, fly,flea & mite treatment, food, a weeks worth of probiotic, any ongoing medication, food and in some cases vaccinations.

All of the above being worth in the region of £80 on average.

So you are selling the rabbit to break even (or try to) with your previous costs during rearing them....which IMO are your responsibility anyway as you brought that animal into the world, whilst I am 'selling' owners discount neutering, vaccs and basic treatments they would otherwise be expected to pay for. I am not selling them the rabbit itself because, shock horror, I dont believe in 'selling' animals. IMO It is immoral to sell a life, but thats a debate for another thread .

 

[Theresaclaire]

I don't think anyone is saying that all breeders are bad and I agree with MacGyver Bunny that each should be judged individually. There are of course the ones that truly do love their animals although a lot of people on here find that hard to believe because in their own opinion if they loved them the would not continue to breed them because so many are homeless or mistreated. Either way if someone does state that "breeders are bad" this is a public forum where we are all entitled to our opinions, as long no one personally insults another individual I do not see the problem.

There are many breeders that insist on home checking first or at least give you 20 questions before you buy, but because they are private individuals it would be alot harder for an organisation to check on the welfare of the animals that they are breeding, but yes, I agree that there should be a proper license system for all breeders of animals and that they need to prove initially and in yearly intervals that the animals they are breeding are healthy and properly cared for with adequate housing. Perhaps there should also be a limit to the number of breeding "stock" per breeder and the number of litters each animal is allowed to produce in a year and in it's life time.

Now to pet shops - Without a proper law in place that states that all bought animals should be supplied with a proper information pack (such as the law that has recently come in when buying a home:roll: ) this issue will continue no matter how hard people try to resolve it.

The problem with large chain pet shops is the staff turn over rate. Staff will come and go and the store will probably see a training excersise in animal welfare as a bit of a waste of time especially if they don't know how long their staff will be staying. I am not condoning this in anyway, there should be proper training in place no matter what the costs.

Perhaps the correct way of implementing this would be to set up some sort of organisation that deals specifically with the training of new staff in shops that sell animals. It should be the law that any employee who starts work at such shop be put on a short course run by such a charity.

Of course this all costs money and likely it would have to be a government run organization. This is the key issue here, money, people and companies down want to fork out money on the welfare of their "stock" which will be sold on soon anyway :?

Hi all, I know I'm probably desperately unpopular already, but hey, you cant please everyone all of the time.
I'm glad that most people are seeing that not everyone can be classed as the same if they're breeders, or pet shops, as I said in another post, we have / are both and do desperately try to be different.

I've quoted the above because having to be licenced as a pet shop which sells animals, you must have at least 1 member of staff who has qualified for the City & Guilds level 2 in pet shop management. the pet care trust allows 2 years to complete this course otherwise any licence is revoked. We completed this in 5 months. I dont think this is enough, only one person has to be qualified in order to keep the licence which must be renewed annually without any requirement for refresher training, and there's no restriction on whether you have to be the 1 person who's been trained to be able to sell the animals. the training covers basic animal care (and it is a general overview - in the rabbit section it even says rabbits can be taken in for sale from 6 weeks old!!! we made an official complaint about this as the BRC state 8 weeks as an absolute min, and we never put the buns or any animals into the shop at any younger than 8 weeks). Also, there's no substitute for experience. I've taught my staff more about rabbits from my own experience than they ever learned about them from the training! I feel that the training should be higher level, and more in-depth and anyone actually involved in the sale of animals should have to be individually trained. On a plus side, it does cover the law in some depth, and the local authority are quite hot on this - at least in my borough.

We do spend hours talking to people before they buy rabbits or any other animals, and even advise them to go away and think about it and do some more research and give good web and book references for all animals, and ask that they come back if they're certain they want to commit to caring for the animal for the rest of it's life, and, as I said before, we've refused to sell animals to people and banned them from the shop.

there are good and bad everywhere, but I would like to point out that we NEVER see the animals as "stock", but as the beautiful living creatures they are, and we do keep in contact by phone / email with a lot of the people who buy animals from us because it gives us pleasure to hear how well they're gettin on. As most breeders will tell you, there's not much money in breeding if you are committed to the care of the animals. I completely agree with this and the money we make in profit is actually completely from the ordinary pet supplies, such as food, toys, treats etc. as opposed to the animals themselves.

 

[Denny]

there are good and bad everywhere, but I would like to point out that we NEVER see the animals as "stock", but as the beautiful living creatures they are, and we do keep in contact by phone / email with a lot of the people who buy animals from us because it gives us pleasure to hear how well they're gettin on. As most breeders will tell you, there's not much money in breeding if you are committed to the care of the animals. I completely agree with this and the money we make in profit is actually completely from the ordinary pet supplies, such as food, toys, treats etc. as opposed to the animals themselves.

It is good that you as a pet shop owner are leaning towards educating the public in animal care prior to purchase, it is a starting point at least compared to other pet shops I was a little dismayed when when I first looked into the pet care trust as being as the majority of those who govern that trust are in fact in the pet trade themselves so they are hardly going to be strict in their guidelines when themselves could theoretically do themselves out of a business IMO, those that govern the pet care trust should not have a vast interest in the pet trade giving these guidelines a more un-biased and realistic standard of rules to stand by

Your last statement highlighted above has me confused some:? The majority of pet shops around me gave up selling animals years ago, their reasons were that there was no money to be made and yet they still continue to trade as a pet shop supplier so are still very successfull . If you make no money in the selling of animals, why do you sell them? From what I can see, the biggest sales pitch that p@h use is that of tempting people into the shop to see the animals which leads to some sort of purchase before the shopper leaves the premises, boosting sales. Is this possibly the reason?

Out of interest, how do you breed as I was more than gobsmacked to find out the correct way to breed a rabbit and started to understand why many vets find genetic issues in pet shops rabbits and why many of those who have purchased a rabbit from a pet shop end up tirelessly in the vets

 

[chloaster]

Ok, back to the original question :lol: to the people who don't go top rescues, would you pick a bun from breeder or petshop? I know most of us would rescue, just wondering about the people who don't.

My first rabbit came from a market and Effie and Jess I got from a local farm. Now if I had the choice of breeder or petshop I'd choose breeder and find a good one; but that is now. If I didn't know what I know, if you know what I mean :? , I'd have no idea about the difference between a good or bad breeder or indeed where to find one and would probably go to a pet shop because a) it would be easier and b) less personal and I could just look and choose without anyone looking over my shoulder.

 

[montyflossy]

I am defiently going to get slapped for this...I work for a Pet Shop (website is on my siggy) and I happen to think that although we cant be totally perfect, I think we are pretty close.
I have worked for this compnay for nearly 7 months, have gallons of experience with most small animals, but I am not allowed to sell any of them. Our company has a policy that every member of staff has to undergo a training scheme, whereby we are taught how to sex an animal, the needs for the animal, diet, cages, socialbility, and if we dont feel confident with an animal, then we dont have to handle them or sell them.

However, we all spend time with the animals. Mycolleague, spent 6 months with a wreck of a senegal parrot that we had bought in.
I have spent the last 2 months taming an agouti lion head and her sister. We wouldnt split them up because they were so close to each other.

Every customer before being sold an animal is grilled (as much as we can) into why they want this rabbit (or any animal) I admit most do walk away, when we go through the costs. Pkus our animals are much more expensive than most other stores (£32.99 for most) so most of the muppets are put off by that.

We always have folk ringing up asking for info on an animal, I even had a lady in who had adopted a pair of mini lops from a big rescue, they had told her that it would not be safe to neuter them and that its okay to wash their cage in a bleach/flash solution.

All of the breeders of our animals also go through a similar grilling. Our livestock manager goes and checks the breeders animals and the premises. Each animal must have an accurate birht date and documentation.

Yes there are bad pet shops, there are bad breeders and there are bad rescues..but some of us do work our butts of for these animals, and their future owners

Hi,

I worked for this pet shop when I was younger. To be honest these things you talk about must be specific to each store as I as an 18 year old school leaver attended a short course and then was allowed to sell any of the animals. The forms the customer filled in were frankly rubbish and we as staff would have no real idea where the animal would be going.
I pointed out things I was not happy with and turned down a lady who wanted a rabbit to 'keep her kid quiet' - her words not mine! I was made to feel silly for turning people down.
Needless to say I left after 6 weeks as it was just not what I wanted to be promoting as an animal lover - selling animals.
ps. not shooting you down! Just wanting to make a point that yours may well be of a high standard but ultimately it is still selling animals to ANYONE and it doesn't need to!
Lucy x

 

[Theresaclaire]

hi Denny, we continue to sell animals as, like it's been mentioned there are bad breeders and rescues too, some people aren't eligible for rescues, and its purely for the pleasure of placing animals with good homes. ideally we should've had a farm, but in London that's not easy, and setting up a rescue would've been dificult because we's have to do it from home and for various reasons that's not something we can do.

We breed bunnies for our own pleasure, from excellent stock where we've spent time speaking to breeders for a long time and establishing thier background to try and ensure there's no genetic defects in the line. We try and breed pure-bred bunnies, and dont buy in farmed rabbits. we do occassionally have cross-breeds but again, try and ensure there's nothin in the background which could pass on to the kitts, we also spend hours talking to prospective new animal mums & dads, and try and continue the contact once they've gone to thier new homes, we dont over-breed. Our does have a good rest between litters and never have more than 2 litters a year - we've not go to the stage of having an older doe yet, but Brandy's getting there. She'll have 1 or 2 more litters and then will be spayed and bonded with a male bunny to relax and enjoy the rest of her life without the strain of being bred & having kittens. we'd never just re-home a bunny because they're past breeding age because the rabbits we breed from are our own pets and we love them like everyone else loves thier pets. They're all vaccinated (every 6 months for mixy, annually for VHD), and have MOT's with the vet every 6 weeks and daily checks from us. it's hard work but we love it.

All I can say is there are always going to be things which go wrong - in any situation, but you do your best to make sure that they dont, and if and when they do, you get them to the vets and make sure that they get the best possible care at all times - if the problem means they cant be used for breeding, so be it, it's not a problem, they're just kept as our own pets then and not loved / cared for any less - what more can you do.

We've never had less money than since we opened the shop and started breeding the bunnies but the pet shop is fairly new (open just over a year & a half) and the first few years are always the hardest with any new business, the bunnies pay for thier own care part of the time, the rest comes out of our own pocket - but like people who breed to show - you sell a few kittens which you're not keeping yourself in order to bring in just enough money to keep afloat and sustain your hobby.

Pets @ Home use the animals to bring in the people who then spend money in the shop, we dont do this. We dont let unaccompanied children into the pet room - which is behind the main part of the shop, there's never too many people out there and we dont let people handle the animals unless they're actually looking to buy them so as to try and ensure the animals dont get too stressed. We handle them all daily ourselves so we can make sure they're tame and so we can also do all the health-checks (eyes, ears, teeth, claws, bums etc.) like we do with our own pets, but they're animals, they dont need strangers coming in and pulling and poking them around for thier own pleasure all day every day. Also, we're not nearly as big as P@H. we're tiny and only family-run and dont have the volume of stock in the shop to warrant people coming in and browsing around and using the animals to do this. Most alrger items we have to order in specifically for people and the rest is just the basic pet stuff food, toys, treats, cages, medical stuff (ie:- vitamins, minerals tonics etc.) so we'd have no choice but to fold if we just relied on passing trade coming in to see the animals.

We're fairly new to breeding too, nearly 2 years, and learn something new every day, but do work closely with the vet and other breeders to try and ensure we're doing the best we can by the animals, and never go in to anything just on impulse / a whim. As an example, we recently bought some pet rats and the lady we bought them from believed we'd been keeping, breeding & showing rats for years because we'd looked into it so much and knew what she was talking about and asked questions they would only expect to hear from people established in rat care. We'd simply spent around 2 months finding, reading and talking to people as much as possible to find out about rats. We've got these 2 females as pets now, but we wont breed from them until we've spent even more time checking it out and feel comfident that we know as much as we can, and are pre-pared for anything which might arise from the breeding & having pups - the rest, as I said before, and as can be said about most things - even having children ourselves, has to come from experience.

 

[Denny]

Morning Theresa:wave: :wave:

Reading your reply it is clear that your business plan was clearly thought out prior to you opening which is admirable that such thought and detail has gone into it compared to some business's

I note that you are a reletively new member here, how do you feel about the p@h adoption scheme and is it something you would think about doing instead of breeding yourself for your shop?

It is still early days for you yet to see whether or not many of your animals will end up in rescue, do you have a plan if or when that day should come should rescues start to take in animals that originate from your shop?