# exotic mammals at hamm



## hellfireie (Aug 31, 2007)

hi guys, 
could someone please tell me what exotic mammals are on sale at hamm 

few im on the look out are skunks , hedgehogs etc any idea of price please.


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## stuartdouglas (Mar 5, 2008)

bear in mind quarantine laws for mammals entering the UK from Europe


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## hellfireie (Aug 31, 2007)

im in ireland wonder if it applys over here


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## SiUK (Feb 15, 2007)

I would imagine it does, but do you go directly from Germany to Ireland or you have to come through the UK?


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## Fixx (May 6, 2006)

hellfireie said:


> hi guys,
> could someone please tell me what exotic mammals are on sale at hamm
> 
> few im on the look out are skunks , hedgehogs etc any idea of price please.


As far as I know the only things you'll find on open sale at Hamm will be rodents, specifically feeder rodents, mice, rats, hamsters, multi-mammates.


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## cooltom28 (Mar 9, 2006)

some will need self certs and other ministry paperwork, i know a lot of the pah stock come from czech via belgium then it was ''bred in the uk'':lol2: sold the same week


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## hellfireie (Aug 31, 2007)

i could go straight though from ireland to france then to germany then the same way home .


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## TSKA Rory Matier (May 27, 2007)

Are you Northern or Republic Ireland?


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## hellfireie (Aug 31, 2007)

south of ireland


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## TSKA Rory Matier (May 27, 2007)

Well then you would need to apply for an import direct from DAFF [Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food].

There are certain livestock species that you can import, but there are many that you simply can not.

If you however touch base with them directly, they will assist you where they can.

Either way if you were thinking of anything other then a rodent species, you would very likely have to undergo a quarantine procedure anyway, despite being part of Europe, they still are very keen to not just import anything willy nilly without paperwork being present to support it.

R


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## neep_neep (Oct 18, 2007)

cooltom28 said:


> some will need self certs and other ministry paperwork, i know a lot of the pah stock come from czech via belgium then it was ''bred in the uk'':lol2: sold the same week


What's pah stock?


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## Ally (Mar 8, 2006)

Pets at home I think.


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## neep_neep (Oct 18, 2007)

Ally said:


> Pets at home I think.


:lol2::lol2::lol2:

If that is what he means, that's definitely one of the funniest things i've heard in a long time.

How many years ago was this? Sounds more or less along the same lines of "Pets at Home used to sell reptiles" :whistling2:


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## cooltom28 (Mar 9, 2006)

its happened for a few years i mean they cost like £5 for baby rabbits he used to give my sister £8.50each!

funnily he was also their bird breeder lots of old birds had to keep renewing the breeding stock with a full transit each week:2thumb:

its rubbish it all comes from europe, hamsters are like 42p eachcheaper to import than to breed


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## neep_neep (Oct 18, 2007)

cooltom28 said:


> its happened for a few years i mean they cost like £5 for baby rabbits he used to give my sister £8.50each!
> 
> funnily he was also their bird breeder lots of old birds had to keep renewing the breeding stock with a full transit each week:2thumb:
> 
> its rubbish it all comes from europe, hamsters are like 42p eachcheaper to import than to breed



How many years ago though? Because nowadays they _ALL_ are UK bred. 100% fact : victory:


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## cooltom28 (Mar 9, 2006)

a couple years ago, but the breeders can still import and sell as their own, to pah

havent been to the places i knew were doing it for a while

there is no way they could garuntee that unless they were breeding them all themselves


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## TSKA Rory Matier (May 27, 2007)

*'How many years ago though? Because nowadays they ALL are UK bred. 100% fact' *

I would have to dispute this l am afraid.

An awful amount of rodent livestock is bought in Europe and sold direct into the UK.

Up to 8,000 units - yes units, are brought in every week by one very large and known commercial seller. In fact most of the exotics they bring in, also come from Europe.

Irrelevant to the size of the retailer they purchase the livestock at the 'right' price to their budget and sell out at their own mark up.

Some of the bigger wholesale suppliers hardly breed their own livestock to the quantities they once did, because over here it is more expensive to do so.

Thousands of rodents are brought into the UK every week by large scale operations and sold into any number of retail outlets, be they Pets at Home or smaller units.

Once the livestock is here, how would any buyer know whether they were UK or Euro bred?

Northern Ireland in fact used to have an indirect supply of commercial livestocks supplied direct from a mainland UK supplier.

It is simply not viable for a lot of the large scale commercial operations to breed their own in serious numbers anymore, they will have a holding stock, but we are looking at chinchillas, chipmonks, rabbits and guinea pigs not forgetting hamsters, gerbils, dwarf hamsters, rats and mice and a host of other little critters work their way into UK soil.

It is far cheaper and economical for them to buy direct fromEurope where the livestock is cheaper, this has been ongoing for many years, going back to when it seriously built up in 2000 - 2002. 

It has become the spurge and death to many large UK commercial operations, who lost a lot of their breeders because those very same breeders could not compete with European prices.

If you breed rabbits and guinea pigs and you know that in order to break even then you need to receive [at the cheapest] £8 for a gunea pig and £12 for a rabbit to cover your overall costs, how on earth are you going to compete with Euro prices such as £3 guinea pig boar, £5 guinea pig sow, £5 - £7 for a rabbit?

You can not as a British breeder cope with that kind of drop.

I know this, there were many reasons l stopped commercial supply into the likes of retail, and that is only going back a few years ago. I could not compete with the Euro commercial prices.

Yet if you are competing with an operation that has inadequate conditions to begin with, is on cheap labour and therefore not restricted by legislation and animal welfare acts - also to boot, you may be doing everything correctly, and as such it is costing you an arm and a leg to do so - your counterparts are not doing everything and therefore are able to produce mass quantities at a fraction of the cost and sell to the highest bidder buyer who in turn sells to UK buyers, who snap them up in the hundreds to thousands.

I have seen the rabbits and the guinea pigs that travel over in the hundreds, and they are too young.

With the demand that UK retail is currently placing on suppliers that they want young cuddly animals, then Europe is the right market to purchase from. 

It is the same consumer demand that encourages poor conditions of Chickens in the UK at present, it is price orienteered.

R


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## neep_neep (Oct 18, 2007)

Fair post - just for the particular company under discussion, I know that all their suppliers are UK based who breed their own stock. From the previous posts I thought they specifically meant the company directly dealt with suppliers on the continent. I have to admit, I didn't even consider the UK suppliers would import, considering the number of times that stores get shortages on specific animals! If the UK suppliers were importing in such numbers from the EU, I can't imagine they would have such trouble sending the requested number of animals into store sometimes... Doesn't make much business sense to be sending smaller orders than requested if they are supplementing their own breeding with imports?


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## Nerys (Apr 18, 2005)

i do know that at one point.. some of the uk suppliers to places like PAH, were themselves being supplied by someone.. who was boosting his own stock by importing..

on the issue of what is supplied and orders being short.. the quality from the EU is not always high on the import side.. hence there is a large amount of "wastage" so to speak

N


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## TSKA Rory Matier (May 27, 2007)

Pets at Home, l used to supply Pet City UK, before it turned into Pets Mart. Back then it was down to UK breeders. When Pet City went bust, a lot of us also went down the same path.

Pets At Home are supplied by those that they can regulate, but there is still livestock trickling into their zones that is not UK bred.

Some Uk suppliers are in fact not permitted to supply PAH, but still do in covert positions indirectly through other suppliers, and as such PAH would be none the wiser where the livestock came from if it had come through their legitimate source.

Soif PAH shop for their stores from UK supplier/breeder, but Uk supplier/breeder to PAH is short because of consumer demand, then that same supplier will buy from those not permitted to supply PAH.


The commercial market is a tough egg to properly crack, but as said the demand from some of the stores is critically high, some suppliers can not cope without the aid of the indirect suppliers.

R


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## Vase (Jul 14, 2007)

neep_neep said:


> Fair post - just for the particular company under discussion, I know that all their suppliers are UK based who breed their own stock. From the previous posts I thought they specifically meant the company directly dealt with suppliers on the continent. I have to admit, I didn't even consider the UK suppliers would import, considering the number of times that stores get shortages on specific animals! If the UK suppliers were importing in such numbers from the EU, I can't imagine they would have such trouble sending the requested number of animals into store sometimes... Doesn't make much business sense to be sending smaller orders than requested if they are supplementing their own breeding with imports?


Do you work for/at Pets At Home?


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## neep_neep (Oct 18, 2007)

Vase said:


> Do you work for/at Pets At Home?


Used to : victory:

Not that it's obvious of course :lol2:


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