So I've made a stance to try and buy only my animal products (dog, bird, hamster, mouse etc.) from online suppliers. However here's the catch - I don't want to resort to suppliers like Petco or Petsmart (or Pet Supermarket or Petland!).
I know these 'chains' are horrible behind closed doors, so I'm boycotting them completely, buying from online retailers and eventually going to start supporting my local rescues if I find a hamster that needs my help.
Or, if I get lucky on Craigslist or even Petfinder give a hamster, Gerbil, Ferret, rabbit, etc. a chance there. Plus, there are dozens of rabbits at my local shelter so if I ever wanted a rabbit again I could always go there and adopt instead of buying a tiny baby bunny that's skittish from my local pet store.
So, without further ado! My introduction guide on online-shopping!
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* Pet Mountain.
While this doesn't have a very large selection of small animal toys, it does offer the food that I wan't to eventually transition Mortimer and Puffin onto. As such, I'm not a big fan of Hazel Hamster anymore so I'm looking into Carefresh Complete Menu for Puffin - and for Mortimer I'm looking into Kaytee Max. Though the only problem with Kaytee Max is that it's got banana bits.
I'll just remove the banana bits from the Kaytee mix and it shouldn't be a problem. I like the protein levels in Kaytee Max's mix, as it's not too high or not too low for mice. Plus, it's not got tones of colorful chips in it that' are high in sugars either, so that makes me happy. (It's the most natural-looking one out there.)
So, I find Pet Mountain a good choice for the food that I'm considering.
* Pet Solutions
They offer a better variety of toys than Pet Mountain, so if I needed to get something for my hamster/mouse/gerbil I'd go here. Though it's still not '100% better,' yet it's decent. I haven't looked at the bird section yet.
* Viovet
Viovet is one of my favorites as it's a UK-based pet supplier and it ships WORLDWIDE. So, I'm going to buy something from there one of these days as they offer a large variety of small animal toys and fun stuff! Hopefully I can get a huge haul!
* Dr Foster & Smith
This is a good supplier of Harrison Bird Pellets, and they have the smaller size for my Cockatiel and he loves these. The pet store I got him from mixes Harrison with his store-mix and I'm going to eventually mix him onto 100% pellets sooner or later. If I'm not able to get up to the store I got him from all the time, I'll just order it from the site.
* Chewyyyyyyy dot coommmm
This place has my dog's food, which I need to order from here because it's got the cheapest prices and plus I need to order this specific brand because my dog eats this kibble the easiest way - due their sensitive & tiny mouths.
* BBB
Last time I checked they ship to the US areas and have a good variety of stuff for small animals like hamsters, gerbils and mice. (Mainly hamsters & gerbils but I'l double check on mice to see if any of their products are safe for them, because of the nutrition differences between species and such, I do get concerned.)
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I do hope you consider the method of boycotting chain pet stores for at least a month, or longer. I will certainly take this into consideration as my mouse was poorly dealt with when I got him, and now he's thriving and I can't imagine that if he hadn't gotten out of there... what would have happened to him?
So please, just consider this. Three, no - six months boycott? Give it a chance. Save animals lives.