PETCO should only sell male guinea pigs, like the other United States pet store chain Petsmart has been doing for quite a while. Doing this will drastically cut the over-population of guinea pigs, because female guinea pigs will be much less available throughout the US.
Yes, people will still be able to acquire females through a breeder, but they will be much less available, especially to backyard-breeders who may not be familiar with breeders in their area.
Problems with backyard-breeders include:
-They usually have no idea of what they are doing and often end up harming their guinea pigs, instead.
-Some do not know how to tell the genders of their guinea pigs apart and end up with a mass-breeding problem that result in hoarding.
-Some do not care about their animals breeding and just let them go.
Only selling male guinea pigs will also hopefully decrease the problem of unintentional gender mixing, which is usually done by those who are inexperienced with guinea pigs.
Selling only male guinea pigs will be especially beneficial to PETCO, because females will be much less available to those who want to breed instead of buying another $30 guinea pig. Thus, PETCO will gain profit from doing such and will be helping to reduce the over-population of guinea pigs simultaneously. It will also help them, because when fewer backyard-breeders have to adopt the guinea pigs out, more people who wish to obtain a guinea pig will instead stop at PETCO.
Those who do wish to purchase females will have to go through a breeder, who may have much stricter purchasing procedures than PETCO, who just hands out guinea pigs to just about any man on the street with $30.
We urge you, PETCO, to stop selling female guinea pigs.
