Photos: California Breeder Exposed!

Thousands of rats suffered in bins like these in the facility’s warehouse. Dirty tubs strewn with feces and even rotting rat carcasses piled up and were not disinfected, risking disease. GCB’s water lines often malfunctioned, flooding rat enclosures and spilling water onto the facility floor. Rats were warehoused like shoes in rack after rack of tiny tubs.

All of GCB’s rats—regardless of age and varying nutritional needs—were fed dog kibble. This mold-covered food could have killed rats.

Many rats were kept in cramped bins. Some were forced to compete for and eat food off the bins’ urine- and feces-covered bedding, leading to fights, injuries, and death.

Rats were forced to eat and sleep on feces-covered, urine-soaked bedding, exposing them to disease. Many rats could not even sit up to groom themselves in these shallow prisons.

Broken valves left hundreds of rats struggling to protect their pups in the rising water. With no escape, an expert explained, rats felt terror watching their young suffer and die.

Rats were ignored on Sundays, so many were found dead on Monday. Rats signal stress by ultrasonic noises and pheromones—meaning many rats heard and sensed this family’s extreme fear.

PETA’s investigator saved countless exhausted and weakened rats from flooded tubs. They shivered as they battled hypothermia.

Many dead rats found in GCB’s warehouse showed no obvious injuries. Management didn’t bother trying to uncover the cause or to prevent and manage disease.

This rat’s tail was nearly cut in half, connected only by a thin string of tissue. She received no veterinary care or even pain relief.

This rat’s bloody eye deteriorated over the course of eight days, until a worker finally slammed her into a metal rack. She had a violent seizure then was thrown into the trash.

Rats at the facility were denied care for golf ball–sized growths. Some rats’ huge mammary tumors made it difficult for them even to walk—and yet they were bred again.

This mother rat was found lying dead, next to her dead pinkie. She appeared, as did other rats, to have died while giving birth.

The facility was full of snakes, such as this one, who struggled to breathe. PETA’s investigator never saw GCB bring a veterinarian in to see even a single animal.

While being hauled to and from a show and put up for sale, these snakes were kept in cramped deli-style cups and denied room to move around or even food and water for an entire week.

Management and workers left dead animals to rot for days. This enclosure, which contained a dead blue-tongue skink, was covered with thousands of maggots.

GCB’s manager shot this rat twice with a BB gun and threw the animal―who was convulsing―into a trashcan full of feces, urine, and dead rats. He finally killed the rat with a third shot.

This thin yellow biak snake was one of many found dead in enclosures at the facility.

GCB’s manager killed these rats and many others. He laughed as he grabbed these rats by the tail and slammed them against a hard plastic tub.

Many of the facility’s reptiles, including this emaciated snake, were neglected and left to starve. This snake, like others, was so thin that his or her ribs were visibly protruding

The facility’s reptiles were often left with filthy, undrinkable water if they had any at all. This putrid, contaminated water was left for a blue-tail monitor.

This rat was found in a severely crowded tub with at least 200 others, where he or she was being attacked by another rat. The stressful conditions left the rat with an injured and bloody eye.

This weak and lethargic rat was found in another severely crowded tub among at least 200 other juvenile rats, many of whom were severely dehydrated and dying.

Investigators entering GCB on December 12 found hundreds of animals for whom help came too late, such as of the many dead and decaying rats in this jumbled mass.