We ended up here by mistake. My daughter had looked at a nearby pet shop and desperately wanted to visit. She then forgot the name so googled again and thought that this was where she wanted to go. An hour and a half of driving took us to The Purple Pet Centre.
You walk into one large room, it’s fairly dark and there looks like there is a lot to look at. We turned left that took us into the animal section.
There were hamsters, gerbils and rats in eco terras which are normally used to house reptiles and amphibians. They also had some less common degus and get tailed gerbils. They had rabbits and guinea pigs too before you moved on to the next area that had reptiles on one side and fish on the other.
There is a decent range of reptiles but most of them weren’t visible which is why them having photos of the animals in the terrarium was useful, although not all of them had that. I’m general the area felt quite dark and not well kept. The fish tanks were ok, but nothing special and it was definitely not the world of fishes claimed by the sign on the front of the shop.
One thing that was quite odd was that hognose snakes were kept high up and there was a big sign saying ‘venomous’. Now technically they are venomous but they are perfectly legal to own without any permits and it is actually fairly hard to get a hognose to invenomate someone. So I was surprised to see hognose snakes being treated like that.
If you are after wood or cork for your reptile then there is plenty of choice, all sold by weight. It’s a real shame that there weren’t scales nearby to check the weights as I would have been far more likely to buy if I could have checked and compared a few pieces.
There is a decent range of reptile supplies but less so for other animals. The small animal section is very small and limited, similar for birds, dogs and cats. A slightly larger fish section but very few actual tanks available. There is a fair amount of space given to plants, but many looked less than happy.
They also have some chickens outside too.
Overall, the place feels quite neglected, it’s dirty in places and feels like it needs a good clean and refresh. There is a lot of wasted space too and many of the prices were higher than I see them elsewhere.
The photos on Google makes this pet shop look much better than it is. Most seem To be from two or more years ago so perhaps there was a change of management. My daughter was obviously very confused as it looked nothing like the photos she’d looked at but it took her a few hours to realise that she had meant a totally different pet shop. It’s a shame as I’m sure that shop would have been better than this one.
Shop: **
Staff: ***
Supplies: **** for reptiles * for all other pets
Animal range: ***
Cleanliness: **
Website: www.purplepets.co.uk
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