Chicago Reptile House - Orland Park, Illinois

[Craig]

Positive

Chicago Reptile House is one of the best exotic animal stores in illinois. Their animals are very healthy, they take good care of their animals, and they definately know whay they are doing. Their inverts are a little pricey but are in overall excellent condition. The owners are very friendly. Whenever I enter the store they make me feel like i'm one of their friends. Awesome store!!

 

[Nick Pastwa]

Positive

The reptile house is the greatest. I buyall of my reptiles there. Reptile house in Orland is the greatest reptile store ever.

 

[Mister Internet]

Positive

Well, my wife hosted a baby shower this past Saturday, so it was the perfect excuse to jet and check out this pet store... it's about an hour from my house, so I hadn't gotten around to checking it out yet.

First of all, the store was pretty clean, considering the state of most pet stores. HIGH marks for HIGH quality supplies, including dozens of slide/locking screen top glass cages (not aquariums, these were made specifically for herp/inverst... NO SILICONE in the corners! Yay!) of ALL shapes and sizes. They are a brand name, can't remember the brand, though... Also, high-end snake supplies like HEAVY-DUTY adjustable snake hooks, etc etc that looked like you could've used to hoist a full-grown Burm. VERY good selection of feeder animals: live/frozen mice of all sizes, live/frozen rats and rabbits for large snakes, mealworms, superworms/zoophobas, crickets, and the kitchen sink. I was going to check about alternative snake foods like the link sausages, but forgot... c'est la vie.

Well, about selection... first of all, I must say that the store HEAVILY favors the lizard/amphibian crowd. They were ALL in nice display cages and looked very impressive. The snakes, however (what I really went to see), were all stored in some kind of breeding rack type thing... there were a couple of Columbian Red-tails out on display, but the entire remainder of their snake stock were either very young snakelings, or yearling at the oldest. I really didn't like only being able to see snakes in shoeboxes, but I guess they have their reasons... maybe the move a lot of high-quality animals, and can't keep large animals in stock, who knows. Just know that if you go there, you will have to have assistance to see anything beside a blurry, translucent view through a shoebox at any of their snake.

I don't have a good handle on their inverts... the pickings were a little slim, and evidently they had just switched invert/arachnid suppliers and didn't know what new stuff they would be getting from this new guy. They had some pretty millis, a decent selection of T slings (although fairly common species, as is to be expected), but were OUT of centipedes, which was the second main reason I went. We'll see if they get anything else in when I call back later.

They also had a whole section of the store devoted to aviary... including a couple of absolutely beautiful Blue & Gold Macaws that were just stunning to look at. Again, all supplies were top-shelf, and the store was very clean (anyone who's had birds knows how hard this can be ).

Finally, they had a section devoted to fish/aquatics. VERY impressive anemones and other salt inverts for those of you who are into reef tanks, et. al. I'm not teribbly knowledgeable about aquaristry, but based on my personal experience, their specimens and tanks were in GREAT shape. NO dead specimens, and the water was very clean in all tanks.

Well, that's about it. Like I said, when they say "reptile", they really mean everything but snakes. They have the snakes, but their display animals are almost exclusively lizards, toads/amphibs, geckoes, and even some cute little dart frogs which I had never seen in person before. Be prepared to ask to see any snakes you want to see and observe clearly. Their reptile supplies are the best selection I've ever seen... great store overall.

 

[oogieboogie]

I live a few blocks away from Chicago Rep. I buy most everything from them.

4 - Emp Scorps.
1 - Sand Boa
1 - Ferrit
1 - Mexican Black Kingsnake
5 - Ball Pythons
3 - Cranwelli Horned Frogs
1 - Indian Ornamental Tarantula
2 - Bearded Dragons
1 - Uromastix
1 - Rosy Boa
2 - Columbian Redtail boas

Countless Feeder Mice
Countless Crickets
Countless supplies
Many Many Tanks


Out of all that I have bought I have had two things die. 1 emp. Scorpion and 1 Redtail boa (due to dehydration and impaction).

Jeff has hooked me up great prices time after time. As mentioned by another user their store is exceptionaly clean and they have a wonderful selection of lizards, frogs and even snakes. Cornsnakes, Milksnakes, All sorts of boas and pythons. Granted they are all in a rack system but they have no problems yanking them out to show ya. I wish they would get some more T's in though. If your listening guys get on the ball with the spiders!!!!

I have seen only a small few dead animals in their cages. A few frogs and a lizard or two. But that has been in the 1yr plus I have been going there.

I would do some reaserch about whatever animal that you are going to buy before you go in there. The information they give is pretty close to being right but sometimes they have been off on a few things. I tend to do research before I go in there then ask them about the care to cross reference what they say. But it goes with out saying that you should know what your getting into before you buy something, so you should search anyway.

Prices are a bit high on some animals (some snakes) but for the most part they are very competative. Their T's were extremely high at one point but they have been brought down dramatically and are now very very competitive. They make it very hard for me to buy something off the net. They also have a wonderful bird selection and a nice selection of fish.

All in all - I dont go anywhere else for my reptile needs if I can find it there.

Thanks alot Jeff!
Daniel Kelly

 

[Mina]

Negative

I didn't like the place. We were ignored the entire time we were there. Not one employee spoke to us, and the one that I approached with a question (who was chatting with a group of friends) acted very upset that I was wasting his time.
Most of their animals looked well cared for, except for a couple of snake habitats that had way to many snakes in it. I have not been treated so badly by employees of any place as I was there in a very long time. I WILL NOT be going back, and will tell any one who asks me why.

 

[common spider]

Don't like.

I did not like the inverts they had there or the cage set-ups they are in.The substrate was way to dry and the animals they had there were way to high in price.


I don't go to them anymore.

 

[JungleGuts]

the staff wasnt the most helpful but the store itself is really good. I was mostly impressed with their snake selection

-dan

 

[JungleGuts]

Well I was in the area so i stoped by again. Well it was alot different this time around. We were greeted when we walked in and the staff was helpful. I ended up buying a glass tank, and it had a fancy foam insert in it for display. Well when I went to pay I "acted like" the foam thing came with it(comeone who cares petstores rip people off everyday). Anyway he said the foam was really expensive but he could give it to me for 10$ since it was kinda false advertising. Well i didnt really believe him about it being expensive but when i got home i looked up the piece and its 40$ on the internet, i got it for 10 so that was nice.

Although their scorps and T's were amazingly overprices which i didnt care for, i dont know much about the other reptiles so i couldnt tell if the prices were good or bad.

 

[Drathian]

Hmm

Well i really like this place,very helpful people,i bought a savannah monitor for only $60 cause it was a juvenille already so i paid a lil more but its worth every buck,very healthy animals and it was just a good thing to see such healthy captive animals 10/10,i recommend this place to anyone. Ill defiantely be going back there soon.