Prehistoric Pets (Fountain Valley Ca)

[SoCalKyle]

Positive

All i have to say is every petstore owner (especially ones that deal in Snakes) should go here and take a few notes. This place is 10,000sq feet of Reptiles. If i were to take a guess they prolly have 275-300 snakes (thats not counting the 100's they have in the back rooms that are still to small to sell, and or are breeding) and about 100-125 monitors/lizards. They have this huge pond located in the front (inside) of the store that has huge catfish, pirahna, and turtles that you can feed. You gotta pay to feed them meal worms. But its perfect for kids. There is an island in the middle where there was an adult Salvator Monitor about a 4 footer that was not caged or leashed he was just there chillin out. They have some of the largest snakes ive ever seen in real life. Im talking 12+ feet anaconda's, boas, and more!! As for inverts they had 2-3 rosies, 2 redknees's, king baboon, pinktoe,usumbra, cobalt. I wasnt happy with they way they were kept. They were all in undersized delicups which gave them no room to move, but i guess its been working for them so i wasnt going to say anything. I almost forgot there was 5ft alligator they the owner had out and was letting people touch and talking about her. I also wanna say that every species of snake and monitor had there own spacious tank that provided them plenty of room. On a grading scale i would give them an A- . Prehistoric Pets

 

[Bearskin10]

I don't know if this place has had an owner change or what because in the last 7 or 8 months it has really gone down hill, like the first poster said about this place it was awsome, but now just seems to be not quite as nicly kept as it was back then, and the prices at this place are just straight out a rip off, about the only good thing I can say about them is they do have good prices on there feeders but it seems like they run out of them way to often. Greg

 

[TroyMcClureOG82]

NEGATIVE

I've been going to this place for ten years and can't say much good about it. Prices are a rip off and customer service is subpar. The enclosures and housing aren't the greatest either. They have had the same owner (Jay) for many years and he's all about the cash and always has been. I've talked to people who worked there who have told me the place is overrun with mites and coccidia.

The alligator doesn't belong to the owner, it's another guy who brings it in. It's a tame gator and all, but something about a four foot + gator chilling out with screaming five year olds running around it poking it doesn't sit right with me. Oh, and the fish in the pond are Pacu not pirahna.

 

[JonDaAzn]

Neutral

I went to go buy feeders there for an alligator lizard I used to own, service seemed pretty good, but i remember one time a mouse was loose in the store and they ended up releasing a monitor to catch it (it was in a semi enclosed area), pretty interesting, I also called them a couple days ago about obtaining some desert hairy scorpions, but they said they werent allowed to carry them because the scorpions were native, is this true?

 

[CreepyCrawly]

Negative!!!

I had been looking at a sub-adult male columbian boa that they had advertised for sale on their site for a few months. As this past Christmas approached, my boyfriend snuck online and ordered it for me for Christmas. He told me he'd purchased it for me, as he wanted me to talk to them about when I would be able to pick it up from the Delta Dash office (as he was unable to with his work schedule).

So I talked to them and we setup a time the following day for me to be at the airport. I'd never had anything shipped through Delta Dash, and he told me to call them to find out where to pick it up, and what their hours were, and he gave me the tracking number and the flight numbers it was supposed to be on. So I called them, and they told me to pick it up at baggage claim and that the package wasn't in the system yet, but to check online with the number in a while and I should be able to see everything I needed to. A couple of hours later I checked online and everything was alright. I checked again a couple of hours after that as it was supposed to switch planes in Slat Lake City - and it was getting on the wrong flight! So I call Delta up, they say it was never scheduled to be on the flight that I was given by Prehistoric Pets over the phone. But they very nicely sent somebody to find my package and get it on the correct flight. The flight they were going to put it on wouldn't have reached here for another 20 hours. But Delta fixed it for me. So we went to the airport and waited... the plane was late, but that's okay. I got to tell the guys at the Delta cargo office about my snakes, and about how much I'd been wanting this snake for a while, and how he was going to make a fantastic mate to the female I already had... and the box finally got there!

So I tear open the box, and pull out the snake bag (which was FREEZING cold) which looked very tiny for a sub-adult boa... and opened the bag to pull out a very tiny, very dark, very NOT what I wanted snake. I didn't want to say anything in front of the Delta guys about it, and was afraid my boyfriend had ordered the wrong one (although I'd showed him the picture of it at least a million times). So we get into the car and he goes "That's not the snake I ordered..." But we get it home anyways, and get it warmed up... it was less than a third the girth of my female I'd hoped to pair him with in the coming couple of years. She is nearly five feet long, and has a pretty nice girth on her. He was SUPPOSED to be well over 4 feet long (I think the ad said 4 and a half?) and was just BARELY 3 feet. We got him warmed up, and while he did have some nice colors - he still wasn't the snake I wanted. So I wrote them an Email, and took some pictures.

The next day they wrote me back and said that they apologized, that they COULDN'T FIND the snake he'd ordered, it wasn't in their store, and so they just picked out another snake that they thought was pretty and that we'd like. They never Emailed us, they never called us to ask if this was okay - they just did it. I even talked to him AFTER he shipped the snake and he asked me to let me know when it arrived. He never mentioned that they sent us a different snake than the one we ordered! So they encouraged us to keep it for a while, as we couldn't ship it back right away anyways - with the holidays, and to see if it "grew on us". He also said that "the snake in the picture really wasn't as big as the website said - the webmaster must have messed that up... it was about the size of this one," and when I told him that the snake in the picture looked much bigger and older just from viewing the picture he goes "Well, we take pictueres of the animals with a wide angle lense and put them on very tiny backgrounds... it makes their colors look better and it makes them look bigger than they actually are," so he admitted to tricking people into buying animals in pictures that aren't really how they look in the pictures! While I did feel intensely bad for the snake, having to go through all that, I never did want to keep the snake. We told them we'd send it back, and that we expected a full refund - including shipping to and from us. They said that if we kept the snake they'd refund the shipping (which they screwed up, and luckily I caught). I still didn't want the snake... so they said they'd give us a full refund of everything we asked for as soon as they got the snake back, and we shipped the snake back a week and a half later (after the Christmas rush - I didn't want it getting stuck somewhere because of Christmas mail traffic).

So we shipped the snake back overnight, and they recieved the snake. I Emailed them when the FedEx tracking site told me it got there, and they confirmed that the snake got there in perfect condition. They said nothing about the refund.

So I wrote them back, and the guy I'd been dealing with all along goes "Oh, I'm not authorized to give refunds. It's up to the owner to do refunds if he approves it, I'll tell him you'd like yours asap." Two days later, no refund yet. So I write again, and he goes "No reason to get upset... he's getting to it." Two days later I get an Email saying that the funds had been deposited back onto my boyfriend's credit card for the shipping to us, and the purchase price of the snake, but nothing about the money it cost us out of pocket to ship the snake back to them. So I write them AGAIN... and they apologize and say they couldn't put it on the card, as it wasn't charged to the card, but that they're sending me a check in the mail for the shipping. Two weeks later I actually received the check!

I couldn't believe it! This was such a giant waste of time, and sneaky swapping of animals, and just all around lies and bad customer service. If you go to the faunaclassifieds BOI you will find a HUGE awful thread about them... from Mites all over animals, to actual store conditions, bad customer service/practices... everything.

I wouldn't buy ANYTHING from them ever again.

 

[Randomhero148]

Bad people

I feel bad for most of the creatures there. When i was there, i saw an employee open up the door to the breeding room. He swung the door open and it hit a large snake that was on the ground, I wanted to punch the guy in the face. I feel bad for alot of the monitors they are soo big yet there housing is soo small. Everytime i go there the monitors are constantly scraching at the glass. I got the feeling that the owner doesnt care about animals. My freind cory who is in some kind of animal club said that he knows the owner and he was band from the club due to his animals living conditions.

 

[scdcasey]

I agree with most of the posts here. I bought my Rosehair there and she was too large to be in the deli cups.
The staff are generally uneducated about the reptiles and arachnids. The store in Chino was telling my husband to keep a humid set up for desert scorpion. The employee was wondering why we were buying sand. duh!:?
The staff is generally never friendly and they never ask if they can help you.
When I bought my spider, the employee rolled his eyes and made faces because he said he does not like spiders. Personally, I really do not care, I am the customer and that is what I wanted.
The emperors are not kept in the proper enviroment and they are displayed under constant black lights. Our emperor seems somewhat small in comparison to the emperors we saw at the Anaheim Reptile show today. I suspect that they underfeed their reptiles and arachnids. And yes, the T's' are kept in very small deli cups in comparison to their size.
I still think the best bet is to order from breeders and stay away from pet stores like this.
If you are in California, you can order wonderful creatures from Ken the Bug Guy. I got to meet Ken today and he is a down to earth guy and will answer any questions you have.

I feel bad for most of the creatures there. When i was there, i saw an employee open up the door to the breeding room. He swung the door open and it hit a large snake that was on the ground, I wanted to punch the guy in the face. I feel bad for alot of the monitors they are soo big yet there housing is soo small. Everytime i go there the monitors are constantly scraching at the glass. I got the feeling that the owner doesnt care about animals. My freind cory who is in some kind of animal club said that he knows the owner and he was band from the club due to his animals living conditions.

I suppose when you have 10,000 + critters to care for, the quality of care declines when you have people that do even know that a desert scorpion should not be in a tropical environment! :?

 

[H. laoticus]

I suppose when you have 10,000 + critters to care for, the quality of care declines when you have people that do even know that a desert scorpion should not be in a tropical environment! :?

sorry to bring this thread back up, but yes, it is hard to maintain that many animals, BUT it's no excuse to stuff them like that. If you can't handle the amount, don't get any more! Simple as that. The way i see it, they're simply greedy pet dealers who don't care about their livestock, just the money from them.

As far as Prehistoric Pets (fountain valley) goes, it's a horrible place. The snakes can't even move in their tanks (they had a 260lb python in one), not to mention the large monitors they have. That pond in the store is filthy also, the large fish in there can't even swim around, they're stuck in the same spot. There are WAY too many aquatic turtles as well. And yes, the prices are ridiculous (except for the forest scorpions, 13 bucks for one ^^). I have no idea what people are talking about when they say how amazing the store was. I had high expectations before entering, but when i did, it was a sad sight to see. You just don't stuff tarantulas and frogs in cups until they're sold.