Exotics-r-us/ Ray Hunter/ Ricky D

First off kevey, I just want to let you know. I live in Colorado. The ONLY venomous snakes i can keep,are venomoids. I have two. And am about to aquire a third. So don't include me in your little "anti-venomoider" speach.SECOND, YOU KEEP POSTING BUT STILL NO PICS. I think you are the liar. Prove me wrong. Come on, I have been waiting for 36 hours to see these pics. Make like Nike, and JUST DO IT. I have asked nicely a few times. Now come on. Either all this #$%# never happened and you are sitting on a bunch of very alive snakes, or they were "b" grade animals, and came in emanciated ,and died. If i was in your shoes I would be in a hurry to post them. PUT AN END TO ALL THIS. POST THE
!@#$%^& pics already.

Waiting to see pics,
Jesse Smith

"I reap intelligence to make up for my bad looks"
Nonphixion

That is fine, I understand where you are coming from. I have to go take pictures of them all and I will gladly post them here. Also the offer is up to anyone that wants to test these snake to see exactly what killed them. I would be curious and I think everyone that has gotten snakes from Ray would like to know what kind of virus(s) are floating around Ray's facility. I have been doing alot of reading on OPMV and I am leaning towards that at one of of killers of some of the snakes we have gotten from Ray, since they have all the symptoms of a severe respiratory in some cases and they don't respond to any treatment, just simply die, in other cases as several other people have experienced with animals from Ray, the animals just simply drop dead no matter how good condition they appear to be in. The smallest gabby was fat and appeared to be in very good condtion, yet it was holding its mouth open, weezing and died the next day?
Kevin smith

"I know this is awhile ago"

Kevin, You made my point. I NEVER said we did not EVER sell venomoids, I said we stopped, and we don't and we NEVER WILL. Got it yet. You seem to be real good at trying to shift the subject off yourself, and try to put it back on me. Now why don't you answer the questions everyone has been asking you. Yes Ricky was selling venomoids at the point that I came onboard, and we sold the last of them, and it is posted clearly on our website (go look for yourself) that we NO LONGER DEAL IN VENOMOIDS. Your little trick won't work, Kevin. We have learned a lot since then are men enough to correct something we felt was wrong. You on the other hand are not such a man, because you still are hacking up snakes. We stopped dealing in venomoids over a year ago (after selling maybe 10-15), but on you go. You, yourself even said that it was a while ago. Now why don't you grow up and leave such practices to qualified vets. You have already shown us that you are not qualified by not using antibiotics because you are too cheap to buy a scale. You learned how to do this from the same person that did the surgeries on the few we had, are you now saying that he is not qualified??? That is what you are implying in your above posts, so if you say he is not qualified, and you learned from him, what does that make you???

Everyone who knows me and ERJ knows that we no longer deal in venomoids. If you could read, you would have read that our web site says "We no longer deal in venomoids". So that in itself tells you that we used to at some point. That is no secret. We are not ashamed of that, so your little game won't work. Sorry.

Now then, when was it that you were going to stop replying??? You are proving over and over that you are a liar.

Can't wait for your next load (oh, yeah, that's right, you stopped posting some time ago)

Yep, God Bless you!! (sorry that offends you so much, but just because I know how you are, does not mean that I can't wish you well)
Ray Hunter

" I have to go take pictures of them all "

Kevin, send us the pics you e-mailed Ken last week.

You are a pretty funny guy. I like how now the issue isn't that you sold venomoids, or even that it is a VET that does the surgeries. Does anyone else see the pattern that Ray is displaying? First it was the hacker thing, which Ray himself sent animals to be fixed, so he obviously doesn't have that much of a problem if it makes them money. But they didn't make that much money like they planned because of their own business ethics, so therefore they couldn't do it. Then it was the VET thing, but yet he has no reciepts from a vet for the surgeries. He won't address his claims of ethics on that point, he will simply take something else that was said out of context and rant about that. Now, he is ranting about pictures, but everyone that has been paying attention to Ray can see that he will only make up more lies and excuses after I post them. As far as the dosage thing, different animals take different dosages. Or in more easier to understand terms, different species take different dosages. There is no single dosage for every animal of the same size, different species have different reactions. There is alot more to the whole thing than a straight scale of dosages per weight. Come on Ray, keep it going, take more things out of context. I simply went by what you said. OKAY, technically(very similar to the TOS of their company), you didn't say those exact words, but what exactly did you say? "You didn't say the car didn't run, you simply said that maybe, hypothetically, that because I "might" have thought about changing the sparkplugs, that it "might" have not sold a bad car. "*

*Please keep in mind that this is a sample of Ray's approach to business, he doesn't admit anything was done wrong by him, he constantly makes up other scenarios in which to try and take the blame away from himself and place it on other people.

The fact is that alot of snakes that come from Ray do die and are not fit to be sold in the first place. Although Ray will not admit this, there are alot of people that have dealt with him and won't ever make that mistake again. You can not blaim them for not wanting to come on here and be crucified by a bunch of people that don't care about the truth and are simply here to start crap.
Kevin Smith

I had several specimens that had venomoid surgery done by Dr. Funk many years ago. It was made very clear that the specimens had to be clean, treated, healthy and feeding. These snakes do not feed for some time post surgery. That is why it is important that these specimens are healthy BEFORE they go under the knife.(Laser if qualified) That is why the question is brought up about the two going under the knife right away.(Cobras) If the shipment was a bunch of "B" grade dehydrated ,sick snakes that may of had a virus???, Why would you do this? At least some of them must have been good? Still haven't answered any of the qualified vet questions. Whether we agree with the venomoid issue or not are you doing anything to treat these animals and ensure survival. I guess not without a scale? Also, it is clear in regards to the TOS. Yes me and Ray H are friends but, I would be the first to tell him he's wrong. So don't go there either. How about this... I will go to Ray's shop tomorrow and take a pic of the specimens there. I will post them and see if anyone thinks there is a problem. Also, pics of the cages etc. Maybe a pic of Ray H. Uh...maybe not! LOL! Anyway, I can vouch that they have at least 100 specimens in stock. Many of these have been there for months. Some for over 8 months that I know of. Not all imports come in well but I know of only a couple that are doing badly. Many of us who sell "hots" know that it's hard to move large quantities of venomous reptiles. We're not talking iguanas here. You're going to sit on them. If there were a viral problem it would have shown up. I can vouch that there is not such a problem in that collection. Anyone up for the pics of ERJ's emaciated, virus infested, dehydrated hots? Another issue... if someone spent 15,000.00 with me I damn sure wouldn't cut my own throat by sending "junk" to them. Do you think Ray H. would? Wouldn't be good business stimpy! On the "venomoid issue".... They did have a few venomoids that Ricky D. purchased over a year ago. Ray H. was against it. One thing I know for sure is... If I had gotten a "bad" shipment I would have taken a pic immediately upon receipt of said shipment. I would have e-mailed the pics right then and there. I would have placed a claim. I would have advised on anything that was alive but, did not look good.
That's that!!!! Ray G. HBR

When I said that all of the animals were sick and died, I didn't mean it literally, if you read my first post I stated what died and what was still alive. Yes, there were some good animals in the bunch, but there were also alot of animals that were unfit to be sold. There was a mozambique that had its body half full of mucus from an extreme respiratory, now in 12 WEEKS, this could not have been noticed?? The largest Gabby was extremely thin and emaciated, what IN 12 WEEKS THAT WASN'T NOTICED??? How about the smallest gabby holding it's mouth open an weezing??? THAT WASN'T NOTICED? Maybe they all magically got this way in a box on the airplane???? As far as you being friends with Ray, that is great, but that also shows by your post that you are quite biased about you defending him. The reason the animals that died were not altered was because they were not in satisfactory conditions. If Ray was so against selling venomoids, then why did he sell them? surely a man of his faith would not let his morals down for any amount of money, right? Hmmm, very interesting. Oh yeah, and I like how Ricky is turned into the culprit once again, since he is the one that bought them and sold them, your right, let me change my blaim, OKAY, RICKY is the one that sold us crappy animals that weren't fit to be sold, RICKY is the one that put the animals in the bags and shipped them out in the condition that they were in, AND it is RICKY's fault if anyone has any problems with the company BECAUSE RAY HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH IT, right? My only question is, WHY DOES RAY MAKE THE PHONECALLS AND WORK THERE IF HE IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANYTHING THAT GOES WRONG THAT COULD HAVE BEEN AVOIDED BY HIM?? Answer that last part please, I would love to hear that one. Ray is the innocent one and would never do anything bad, right? So that should be really easy to answer right? Did Ricky hand pick the animals that were in bad condition and send them out, OR did Ray???? OR maybe it was another "employee" that did? Where does the blame fall? I know it is our fault for giving Ray the benefit of the doubt and to keep dealing with him and his excuses, but who else should the rest of the blaim fall on????
Kevin Smith

Our friendship doesn't matter in this case. I'm simply stating facts. I will and have told Ray H. if I think he's wrong. I would vouch for the same with any other dealers...Striclty, Extreme, Underground, Ben Seigel, Burgundy, etc. etc. These are people I see on a weekly basis. I have first hand knowledge. I even have other dealers and customers ask me to look at certain animals at other business's before they buy them. They trust me and know that I know what i'm looking at. I cannot say I saw the specific specimens that were shipped to you. However, I can say that i'm in Ray H's hot room on a regular basis. Sometimes to help, sometimes to purchase... sometimes to sell. I would be simply amazed that Ray H. would blow a good account by shipping garbage. I know I haven't seen any sick or thin Gabby's there recently. Unless he has a secret hiding place?? The main concern so far is ..1) Did you notify within 24 hours? 2)Did you take pics 3)Did you advise that any of the specimens were alive but obviously sick, thin or not acceptable? 4)Were you aware of these terms? I wasn't saying that the venomoid issue was Ricky's fault. It was a decision made by Ricky and both Ricky and Ray H. decided that they would not continue to offer them in the future.
Again, I wasn't there for your shipment to go out or when it got to you. Only you and Ray H. know the truth? Who do we believe?
I think at least you can directly answer these questions as well as the others addressed to you. It will certainly help. Friend or no friend, if I think someone is wrong I will tell them. Everyone knows where they stand with me. Thanks Ray G. HBR

I understand your point of view and I understand where you are coming from. I posted exactly what has happened on the first post. I have no problem with you, you are stating your point of view. I will post more in a little bit to address the other questions you raised. I simply don't have the time right this second.
Kevin Smith

Actually my impression from Ray is that he never cared for venomoids, but never really felt too strongly one way or the other. After a verky heated debate on venomoids on another site in which Ray was the target as a seller who was in the limelite at the moment, we contacted each other by phone to discuss it. I am VERY vocally anti-venomoid (and proud of it). We talked for over an hour. Well, I mainly talked. Good thing I keep a soapbox at the house We discussed the physiological and ethical aspects of them and the mentallity and motivations of the average void buyer. He was completely honest about snakes that had been sent out, mortallity rate, etc. By the end of the conversation, he had adopted a new outlook. He also said that they still had a few venomoids in stock, and that they had to be sold. But once those were sold, he would no onger deal in them. That was over a year ago. I followed his site to see them disapear, saw him at Columbia (he had them behing the table if memory serves). And since those last were sold, he has not sold them since. He kept his word. That speaks a book to me on his integrity.

Kevin, you made one statement that as far as I am concerned negates you as a responsible dealer (particularly if you are getting imports). You don't own a freaking scale? For one, you can't even give a shot of Baytril without a scale. So how do you treat RI's? Estimate the weight, crank up the heat and hope for the best, or are they magic beans? I am also curious how you weighed the Gaboon without a scale.

I will be the first to cenceide that you take a risk anytime you deal with imports. Many times they are underweight and carry parasites. It comes with imports. But you don't even have a scale, so I guess you cannot Panacur or Flagyl them either. Venomoid prices are so overinflated anyway, spend the bucks and get CB. Luckily the void market is on a steep decline, so hopefully you will be back to doing whatever it is that you did before. Who knows, the animals that were sent may have been crap. At this point, whether you "prove it" or not, I think that you have lost all credibility.