Blue Ridge Reef & Pet
102 WNC Shopping Center Drive
Black Mountain, NC 28711
(828) 669 - 0032
102 WNC Shopping Center Drive
Black Mountain, NC 28711
(828) 669 - 0032
Hours:
Mon-Sat 10 to 6
Closed Sunday
© 2009 Blue Ridge Reef and Pet
Welcome!
Blue Ridge Reef and Pet was established in 2007 to serve the pet community in Western NC.
Our goal is for aquarium keepers to have success with their hobby, and other pet owners to have healthy, happy animals.
We have researched foods, treats, supplies, and training techniques exhaustively to provide the best products, resources, and sound advice. Learning and gathering information is a never-ending process and very little is written in stone, but we constantly update our inventory and this website as needed.
About us:
Owner Chip Bridges has kept aquariums, reptiles, and small animals for over thirty years.
He has bred over fifty species of fishes and produced over a thousand captive-bred reptiles since 1990, including a number of the animals for sale in the shop at any given time.
Jeanne Price is his mother and was nearly saint-like for allowing his bedroom to resemble a zoo during his youth. She is also a renowned bee-keeper with hives all throughout Buncombe and neighboring counties.
Come on by and try her local honey, pollen, and homemade candles!
A few things about our store:
We only carry dog and cat foods that we have evidence are healthy. The markup on dog and cat food is one of the lowest in the industry. It does not even pay it’s “rent” for shelf space; so why carry garbage? We believe that what you feed your dog or cat is probably the most important health choice you can make for them, please see my article on this. There are a number of websites that we will point people to that cover nutrition, training, and most aspects of sharing your life with a healthy dog or cat.
We encourage anyone interested in a fish, small animal or reptile to educate themselves on that species’ care and keeping before making an impulse purchase, and offer care sheets on most that we have for sale.
We do not carry giant snakes, Pacu fish, green iguanas and many other species because we believe they do not good pets for the vast majority of the buying public. There are plenty of fish, reptiles and other animals that do make fascinating and manageable captive animals, and we have a large selection of those on hand at any time.
We do not allow customers to hold baby snakes, for a number of reasons. Baby snakes are fragile and easily stressed. If they were pulled out and handed to everyone who wanted to hold one, they would suffer greatly, and some would surely regurgitate and die from the stress. Also there is a heightened chance of a harmless snake biting or refusing food when handled too frequently.
We do not allow customers to tap on glass, etc. for the same reason. It isn’t going to hurt much to happen once, but over the course of a single business day, this stress would take a heavy toll. We hope to create a store culture where the animals are appreciated as living beings, and not subjected to undue pestering. While it is true that they are “inventory” from a retail perspective; they are animals, first and foremost. We try to give them the best life possible while they are here and place them into caring, appropriate homes when dealing with a buyer.
We have refused animal sales too many times to recall them all and are unapologetic about this. Not only does the animal suffer and often eventually die, but the person who bought it gets discouraged and is no longer part of the hobby and everyone loses.