Colorado Petco stores had numerous record-keeping violations between January and July of this year, and one store experienced two animal deaths, according to documents from the state Department of Agriculture.

On Jan. 18, a department inspector visited the Northglenn store, where she listed five pages of violations. Those included a failure to record animals’ dates of birth; feces buildup in a birdcage; and a lack of heat lamps for geckos, iguanas, and chameleons, who require ultraviolet light to survive.

More seriously, the inspector discovered that the store kept a leopard gecko in isolation for nine days without a veterinary visit, including for two days where the gecko did not move at all, ultimately dying. She described the treatment as “neglect.”

The inspector also noted a violation for the death of a ferret, one of two that the store manager rushed to a veterinarian after she “came in from vacation.” Both ferrets had signs of an upper respiratory infection, including the surviving ferret on the date of the inspection. Young ferrets especially, she wrote, “should be seen by a veterinarian at the first signs” of a problem, as they have fragile immune systems.

Under Colorado’s Pet Animal Care Facilities Program, facilities must meet minimum standards on a range of animal care metrics, and the Colorado Department of Agriculture (CDA) is empowered to inspect, fine, and ultimately shut down non-compliant licensees.

The animal rights organization People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals released the documents on Tuesday.

“Petco’s jaw-dropping litany of violations reveals a culture of callousness, indifference, and inaction in which the animals pay the ultimate price,” said PETA senior vice president Daphna Nachminovitch, calling for a boycott of stores until the company ends the sale of live animals.

A Petco representative responded that the company investigates and resolves all reported concerns, including those raised in CDA inspections.

“While most of the violations the department brought to our attention were related to animal care documentation and animal habitat improvements, we were also made aware of some serious animal care concerns in our Northglenn store,” the spokesperson wrote. “We conducted an immediate and thorough investigation and found issues that were unacceptable and not aligned with our standards, all of which have since been addressed and corrected. We have an almost entirely new store team in that location today.”

One month later, the Northglenn store noted that it had corrected its violations, including replacing heat lamps and clearing the birdcages of feces.

Elsewhere in the state, a July 2 inspection of the Colorado Springs store on East Cheyenne Mountain Boulevard found that management could not locate its written agreement with a licensed veterinarian, nor did it carry certificates of veterinary inspection for ferrets, which must be obtained within 30 days of an animal’s arrival in Colorado.

That facility also failed to record vet visits for animals that it had sold, and the inspector appeared to find that purchasers of ferrets were not receiving educational materials about rabies as the law requires.

At the North Nevada Avenue location in Colorado Springs, an inspector found that the store had allowed kitten adoptions without noting their weight, in contravention of a rule that prohibits adoptions under a minimum weight. At a store in Lakeside, employees were allegedly not medicating animals in a timely manner.

Stores in Dillon, Arvada, Englewood, Golden, Highlands Ranch, Fort Collins and Lakewood were found non-compliant, although several subsequently became compliant after addressing their violations. A store in Grand Junction was noted as compliant.