Zany Zoo Pets

I ignored the filthy cages and poor living conditions of their animals at first just because I understand that animals will poop. Until I really that they probably either don’t care or don’t know better… We asked about the alligator in the back and I guess that was a big trigger for the lady that works there. She decided to roll her eyes and was very short with us, what did we do to aggravate her? Is it because we called it a caiman? Please do not purchase pets from this place until they learn about the proper care for the animals that are trapped there. It’s not hard to NOT cram 7 Russian tortoises into a small tank, it’s not hard to properly clean cages either. It is not hard to NOT overload the whole store with multiple cages of ferrets. Degus shouldn’t be kept in a 10-​gallon tank. Please stop carrying animals if you can’t care for them properly, YOU, owner of this establishment, try living in a telephone booth for a month, that’s essentially how your animals are living there.

Their tagline should say «Pet Hoarding» instead of «Pet Boarding.»
I am on a mission. I want to bring attention to this pet store and the people who run it. They call themselves Zany Zoo but there is nothing zany about them. Last night my daughter and I went in so that I could take photos of the horrible conditions in which these poor animals are living in. I tried to be as discreet as possible so nobody would see what I was doing and it was very hard not to say something to them about what we saw. I was pretty distressed when I saw parent rats with babies of all sizes in a pile; with dead and dying babies mixed in. They were so overcrowded that I can’t believe nothing has been done about the people Who are subjecting the animals to this. I did not get a picture of the rats because they were up close to the cash register where the employees were and I didn’t want to get kicked out. The place reeks horribly of ammonia and the stench was hard enough to take, but I wanted to make sure I paid each animal a visit before leaving.
They had some beautiful Australian sugar gliders in a cage and one of the employees dropped one from a great height, then reach down and grabbed it, squeezing it really hard. It was squealing. They were all peeing all over the place and it was very upsetting to me. I was trying not to cry.
The lizards, snakes, and geckos are all in the open with no greenery. They are living in their own filth. A lone snake, encased in a broken glass terrarium, has no cover – no shade from the bright fluorescent lights. There are guinea pigs with sores on their backs, ferrets in tiny cages with runny eyes, and tortoises with pyramiding problems. In an area where customers can’t go, you can see a lemur all by itself in a cage that isn’t big enough. All the birdcages are filthy-​it looks like they have never been cleaned. If you look in the water bowls of most of the animals you will see filth floating in them. There are tarantula terrariums that are so dusty that I don’t think they’ve been opened in a long time-​no fingerprints in the layers of dust. #Reptiles #Animals #Pets #Snakes #ExoticAnimals #AnimalAbuse #SPCA #PleaseHelp

I’ve been thinking about getting another pet, so I decided to go to Zany Zoo. I thought a local option would be better than a PetCo or PetSmart.
I was so wrong.
Walking into Zany Zoo reminds me of seeing the tv show animal hoarders. All the animals are cramped and usually sitting in a fair amount of their own filth. Many of the reptiles were missing toes and had uncared for tanks that were to small. A worker then proceeded to ask me why I was there, and so I said I was looking for a new pet– maybe reptiles, I already have two crested gecko. The information I was given was completely in accurate.
Both of my crested geckos are five years old, healthy and happy, so I’m pretty comfortable with their care. I was told you don’t need any heat lamps for them, just to leave them at room temperature. In California? Maybe. Oregon? Hell no.
I left right after that, it was obvious nothing good can come out of that place. Please don’t continue to support their abuse of animals for monetary gain. It’s a disgusting business that should be closed down.

I’ve always seen zany zoo as a nice place where they take care of and re-​home exotic animals. I was very wrong. I recently purchased a hedgehog from them. When I was asking about the care (I had done plenty of previous research), I was looking for some tips. I was told that hedgehogs are very easy low maintenance pets that do not require much. This couldn’t be more incorrect. They provided me with a tank that was about 5 sizes too small, didn’t mention that hedgehogs require a ceramic heating system or they will attempt to hibernate and die, and the general care information they gave me was just completely WRONG. If you are considering buying a pet from them, PLEASE do your research first, or you will end up with a very unhappy and possibly dead pet. Not to mention, the living conditions for all the animals in store are absolutely awful. Half the people that work there are under the age of 16 and are «volunteers» who don’t know how to take care of these poor animals. Today, I was rung up by a boy who NO JOKE was no older than 10. Horrible place. Would never ever recommend.

Went to Zany Zoo for the first time with my sister after she asked if I «wanted to be a kid again». Apparently a few years ago she used to take my niece here.
Good variety of animals. We saw sugar squirrels, chinchillas, snacks, hedgehogs, porcupines, and lots of other neat animals. Which we were allowed to pet and sometimes hold.
HOWEVER the place was filthy. The animals were in very small cages and almost looked depressed. At one point we noticed two cats in a 2×3 cage literally two feet from about ten parakeets in a 2×3 cage on the floor. All of the animals were crowded and the small place had about 50% more animals than it should.
Sadly I will not be going back nor recommending this place to others.

Well I’m glad to see I’m not the only one who doesn’t have anything nice to say about this place. Back about 20 years ago this was the place to buy a pet. It had exotic fish, puppies, kittens, reptiles. Almost anything rare and unusual, specially for eugene. Today, it isn’t the same.
I called looking for a Sulcata tortoise for my sister this morning for a Christmas present, I am well versed in tortoise raising and know how to keep them. She proceeded to tell me that I would have a problem finding a baby because they have to be 4 inch in diameter to sell. She then proceeded to explain how many shops sell them illegally around town and that she doesn’t recommend buying one. I said well, I’m not trying to do anything illegal obviously, but I want a baby, do you know when you will have them in or if you will have them before Christmas? Again she went on about the shell diameter and the legality of the situation. I said ok, then can you direct me to someone who might have one for me? She said she wouldn’t and couldn’t direct me to anyone because she doesn’t promote selling illegal tortoises.
OK lady. GOT IT. I wasn’t looking to purchase and illegally sold animal. I just want one for a gift for my sister, it CAN be legal and still be a baby sulcata. That was ALL I was looking for.
She then hung up on me after I said thanks.
Customer service here is poor, and it isn’t becoming of a small local business owner to trash talk other pet stores in the local area that are also locally owned small businesses. Shame on you. These animals need and want homes. Trash talking won’t sell animals, or provide them homes, or contribute to your business in a positive way. Again, shame on you. I will never call or return to this place and provide them with business. How embarrassing for them. And I really feel bad for their animals.

Seriously, with this place? It’s a shock to me how they have 3.5 stars. Oh wait, they pay to filter out all their negative reviews.
Scroll down, you will find them all.
Bought my bun from here 4 weeks ago. I’ve read previous reviews about their pets often dying on owners, but Beijing was so cute i just had to have him.
I have never seen such a traumatized animal, and I spend hours next to my buns cage. He hasn’t warmed up to me in the slightest.
I walk in today to discuss this with the woman who owns this establishment. She told me I need to pick up my bunny and play with him so he gets used to me. After I tried to explain to her that bunnies are prey animals and any interaction should never be forced, she proceeded to grab a poor little bun from the sad bin next to her, and shoved him onto her chest as he scurried in fear– «see? They want to be cuddled».
At least be a little knowledgeable if you are going to own a pet store.
Oh, and when I first approached this woman, she pulled out her cellphone mid conversation, called over an employee to read a text message, engaged in a side conversation with her, and then looked back up at me and said «okay now you have my full attention».
The only reason I liked this place was because you can get bunny food in bulk for cheaper than Petsmart. Except today, the lovely owner charged me $ 2.95 a pound instead of $ 1.95.
Thank you dearly, Zany Zoo Pets.
***for anyone who does not know this, zany zoo had a fire in 2009 which killed half of all the pets living there. Please stop giving this place a reason to stay in business.

We live just up the street from this place and after passing it every now and then decided to go in and see just what was so Zany.
If you wanted to design a pet store with the intent of tormenting your living inventory you could not do much better than Zany Zoo. The place is like a torture chamber for animals. Unlike a proper petting zoo where animals are cycled through to minimize stress and some amount of ownership is taken by parents over their children, here the animals are miserable and the parents are absent. It is what hell would look like if the devil hated small furry animals.
Kids unsupervised EVERYWHERE, pushing at and around you, with rushed and harried staff not acting much better. Oldies blasting over the radio. For a moment I thought I was at a classic car show, held in a barn.
As we entered the store the first thing we saw aside from the crushing mass of people was a galvanized trough (bin??) with bunnies and guinea pigs in it. They seemed fairly happy if rather exposed. Right next to it and quite close to the door however was a pen on the ground, more of a fence really as I don’t believe it had a bottom, containing a small black juvenile male cat. This cat was clearly traumatized, had no where to hide, and was being kept at ground level so every kid running by was right in his face. One did not have to be a animal expert to see this cat was freaking the hell out. It looked like they were just selling it for a $ 40 rehoming fee which is admirable but the cat should have been up, against a wall, with a safe place in its pen.
A short walk further in revealed a cat pen that was VERY overcrowded. It had three siamese and one bengal (ish) looking cat, all appeared to be juvenile and CLEARLY stressed. This cage was in a «employee only» penned off area that was stuffed with rats, cats, rabbits, and mice.
I’m not sure what they really do here. Is it an animal rescue? An animal pawn shop? A place to torment anything small and fluffy? I’m not sure…
WAY too many animals are exposed at ground level. The store is VERY cluttered with little thought given to how to flow people through it let alone make the animals feel safe and secure.
I’ve never, in 37 years seen a «store» ran like this. Basically take a «box» store like a Petco, put it in a paint shaker for 20 minutes (the entire store) and once it stops just put an «open» sign on the store and basically that’s Zany Zoo. Everything is Everywhere for No Rational Reason.
If Grandma was an animal hoarder who decided to throw a garage sale, that would be Zany Zoo.
I don’t care what their mission is, how nobel their intentions may or may not be, they are doing it wrong… Unless I showed up at their «Going out of business sale» and the very first thing they decided to sell was the shelves. If you have animals your responsibility is to make sure they are secure and cared for, Zany Zoo fails.
To say that I will never go in here again is a lie. I may go back to get video and photos. To say I will never go in here to purchase anything is without a doubt the truth. At this moment I’m not sure what the governing body is in Eugene for this sort of thing but trust me, I’m looking in to it and really have nothing better to do.
What has to be done:
–Arrange the store so the animal’s comfort and safety comes first.
–Clean the place, seriously.
–Demand that parents take control of their children.
–Turn the bloody music down. The combination of Kids screaming, cats yowling and bloody Dion singing «I’m the wanderer» is shocking.

I recently saw the Zany Zoo booth at a local farmer’s market, and was very impressed with their care for the animals. I told the owner a cautionary tale about a health problem that my guinea pig had experienced from eating «yogurt drops» that the previous owner fed him — this is a story I was a little wary of sharing because I wasn’t sure if the owner of Zany Zoo would believe me. To my surprise, he told me that they no longer carried those sugary yogurt drops after his wife learned about the health problems they cause! He explained that unfortunately, many pet owners want to feed the unhealthy stuff to their creatures anyways, and often complain at his store about it.
I was so impressed that they would refuse to carry a harmful product, even knowing that their customers want it and are going elsewhere for it. That takes a lot of integrity.

All in all the animals here are well cared for. Zany Zoo hasn’t ever horrified me and is probably my favorite pet shop in the area (though there’s not much competition).
I’m a little torn with the whole pet store industry. I’ve worked as an animal specialist for pet stores for several years & it’s tough sometimes going into stores for me. I can spot a sick critter from a mile away. so needless to say Petco & Petsmart kill my soul… (I’ve worked at both and it’s as bad as you’d imagine.)
please don’t buy live animals from big chain pet stores– if you can’t adopt go to Zany Zoo

I thoroughly enjoyed my visit @ Zany Zoo, employees were very helpful and knew a lot about the care and nature of each animal. I didn’t get any pets but if I lived in Oregon I probably would have.

I’m generally pretty skeptical of exotic pet stores (and pet stores in general for that matter). Zany Zoo, however, seems to do a very good job at keeping their animals comfortable and only selling exotic pets to those who are going to be prepared for the time and effort necessary to care for them. The employees are all very knowledgeable, and when asked about caring for animals like alligators or a Burmese python, they are honest that it is a significant investment. They seem to do very good background checks on their buyers as well.
Also, it is nice to be able to go pet some animals on a Saturday afternoon if you’ve had a long week.

This place should be shut down! So nice some people are amused by exotic animals that have no place in cages or as pets! When will people learn not to support cruelty? DO NOT shop her for anything unless you just don’t give a darn about animal welfare! Pet stores who sell puppies and kitten are almost always (the exceptions are very rare! Ask for documentation about where your pet comes from! They should be happy to provide it!). Pet stores that are not «Zoo“s! Zany or otherwise and wild animals are not PETS! They die in captivity more often than not, or they bite unless they have their teeth extracted (very nice way to treat an animal!). They carry diseases or are susceptible to the ones we carry. They have been taken from the wild after hunters kill their parents more often that not. Any who things an alligator r is a pet, or belongs in a tank small enough to fit in a pet store??? A lemur? They are becoming an endangered species in the wild! Hello, Heather and the rest of you, WAKE UP PLEASE!

Wow, this place has really expanded lately. Going there on a very cold afternoon with my 5-​year old was like a trip to a real zoo. We saw a baby lemur, hairless guinea pigs, maras, flying squirrels, a pig, turtles, alligators, snakes, newborn and various nursing infant mice and rats, so soft bunnies, a skunk, prehensile porcupines and a coati. I really appreciate having this resource in our town.

Not much to look at. mostly rabbits, birds, hamsters, and guine pigs. They did have a boa constrictor, alligator and tarantula which my boyfriend loved. Overall its a pretty small place with a few creepy crawlers. Fun to check out since its free!