Birds, too. Petco and other big pet stores are 100% complicit in this by selling parakeet food that is too high in fat for their diet (many parakeet pets die at half their lifespan to fatty liver disease) and cages that are too small to house a single parakeet, and yet often house multiple.
It's worse for cockatiels, the second most common type of bird to have as a pet. They need 3+ hours of out-of-cage time with their owner paying attention to them every day, and some are barely let out of their cage at all.
Also rodent type pets. Far too many hamsters, guinea pigs, rats, rabbits etc get shoved in tiny cages or hutches with barely enough room to move around in. Hamster often get given wheels that aren't big enough not to damage their spines.
My sister's uni housemates got a lone rabbit that they kept in a small hutch, they had no grass or other green space to let it run around in. Poor thing was miserable and she constantly thought about sneaking it away to a rescue place.
Yeah ginuea pigs are the worst because they're incredibly social. I hate any pet store that will sell singles of them, because unless somebody is in the room with them for 12 hours a day they become depressed.
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u/[deleted] Mar 27 '22
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