| Author | Subject: Rick Crew (Family Forever Breeding) - VERY BAD GUY |
| Nigel | Posted At 15:08:30 10/23/2000
This year, I have bought almost $40,000 worth of snakes from Rick Crew of Family Forever Breeding. I have dated receipts and checks to prove this. On July 23rd I bought home 16 baby boas that I bought for $14,850 from Rick Crew. 6 of these were albinos ($6,000), 10 were DH for Striped Snows ($8,850). To date, the 6 albinos are doing exceptionally well. They are growing rapidly and appear to be in excellent health. Of the 10 DH for Striped Snows, however, 6 are dead and only 4 are still alive. Here are the facts: The albinos were born on 6/19. The DHs were born on 6/22. All were bred by Rick Crew. We had the pick of both litters. When we were picking babies, 2 of the DHs appeared abnormal. They had jerky head-movements. One of them in particular appeared hyper-sensitive to touch and would recoil into a "wound rubber band" shape whenever put down. It had no control of it's head movements whatsoever. Rick stated that these 2 animals had "stuck sheds" and that he would keep them for observation. On 7/23 I bought the 16 baby boas home. On 8/30 we found a DH dead. I immediately called Rick to see if we could figure out what had happened. Rick basically responded by listing a litany of things that we must have done wrong. This included: We had not thawed the baby mice enough and they had frozen the DHs stomach. We had kept the babies in sunlight and they had become dehydrated. We had kept the babies too hot. We had kept the babies too cold. We had cleaned the cages incorrectly. Etc., etc. I listened to and considered everything Rick had to say, but none of his reasons seemed valid. If 6 albinos (weaker gene) and 9 of the DHs were still OK, I didn't think husbandry issues were the cause. I told Rick that my feeling was that this was just an animal that was going to die and that I did not feel we had been negligent. When we weighed the dead DH, we found that it weighed the exact same weight as when we brought it home - 55 grams. I was surprised about this as it had eaten every 3-4 days as Rick had told us it should. When I asked Rick about why it had gained no weight, he told me that he wouldn't expect it to gain weight until it was eating rats. I told him this didn't seem logical...in order to eat rats the babies had to grow. How could they grow without putting on weight? In addition, every one of the albinos was at least twice the size of the DHs. Why were the albinos thriving while the DHs were not? Rick never really gave me an answer. I wanted to get a necropsy done on the dead baby. Rick told me that a necropsy could not be performed unless it was done within 15 minutes of the animal dying. Nevertheless, I put the dead baby in the freezer and called a reptile specialist veterinarian the next morning. The reptile specialist informed me that he could not perform a necropsy because freezing affects the tissues adversely. He advised me to use the fridge not the freezer if this happened again. On 9/13, a second DH died. I called Rick to tell him that a second animal had died and that I now suspected more of the litter could be affected. My point in doing this was to alert him to the possibility of problems with his remaining DHs. Rick told me that no-one else who had bought the DHs had had any problems. I immediately placed this animal in the fridge. On 9/14 a necropsy was performed. I placed a posting in the Kingsnake Boa Forum looking for others who had purchased DHs from Rick. I received responses. When I contacted these people, I made a point of not stating what the problems were with my DHs. I found that there are, in fact, others experiencing the same problems. I talked with Rick about this. He told me that he had personally contacted everyone who had bought his DHs, and that no-one else had any problems. I told him that was wrong because the people I had talked with had not heard from him. The symptoms of the 2 that had died so far were diarrhea followed by extreme listlessness/lethargy followed by death. Each animal died within 24-48 hours of the diarrhea. On 9/27 we noticed another DH appeared sick. This animal had additional symptoms: Extreme listlessness/lethargy, diarrhea, failure to thrive, difficulty controlling head movements, the skin became extremely flaccid as though the animals body was wasting away inside the skin. At this point, 3 of the DHs could easily fit inside the body of the smallest albino, even though all animals were eating identically (1 rat pink every 4-5 days). On 9/27 we took the sick DH to the reptile specialist. On 10/2 this animal died while under veterinary care. The vet requested that we immediately bring the remaining DHs to him. He was concerned that there was something seriously wrong that was affecting all of them. On 10/2 we took the remaining 7 DHs to the reptile specialist veterinarian. We told him that we were starting to notice listlessness/lethargy with 2 of them. On 10/10 2 of the 7 remaining DHs died under vet care. At this point, the vet recommended that we sacrifice one of the remaining 5 (of the original 10) in order to obtain the freshest tissue samples possible. So...to date, 6 of the 10 DHs are dead. All 6 of the albinos are alive. We are faced with mounting veterinary and lab bills. The vet has told us what he believes the problem is, it just remains to find the evidence. We will be filing a lawsuit against Rick Crew and Family Forever Breeding as soon as we have collected every fact we can. At this point we do not expect the remaining 4 DHs to live. Even if they do, we would not under any circumstances consider breeding or selling them. We are only thankful that we found this problem during the quarantine period we imposed on these animals. I can not believe that Rick has not only washed his hands of us, but that he has continued selling his remaining DHs. Rick's latest excuse for our animals dying is that he says we used No-Pest Strips with them. This is not the case. The only animals that I have ever used No-Pest Strips with are 4 adult boas that I bought from Rick on 6/11. Shortly after getting them home, we found snake mites on 3 of the 4. At the time when I talked with Rick about it, he told me they had got the snake mites from other animals in our collection, and had not been infested when we purchased them. When I told Rick that we did not have any animals other than animals we had purchased from him, he then changed his excuse to "they must have got them from your dogs". Anyone that knows anything about mites will tell you that they are species-specific. They can use other animals to travel, but will only feed on their species of host. There is no way we got snake mites other than from animals purched from Rick Crew. The No-Pest Strips were used on the adult boas one full month prior to the 16 baby boas being brought home. Even then, the baby boas were kept in a separate room for quarantine purposes. Rick does not quarantine animals he purchases for resale. Myself, my wife, my brother-in-law and his son have all seen Rick place recently purchased animals directly in the same rack systems that his main collection is housed in. Rick maintains that he has never sold animals with snake mites. My brother-in-law purchased several ball pythons and boas from Rick Crew. Rick purchased most of these and resold them to my brother-in-law. My brother-in-law saw one baby ball python when it arrived at Family Forever Breeding. The animal appeared healthy and mite-free. Since my brother-in-law needed a week or two before he had caging for the animal, Rick said he would keep it for him. When my brother-in-law went to collect the animal, it was not only covered with mites, it had skin blisters. Rick told my brother-in-law that he would keep the animal until the mites and skin blisters were fixed. He did this. At this time, we have received some lab results on the problem with the litter of DHs, but not all of them. Once all of the results are in, we will - as I stated above - be filing a lawsuit against both Rick Crew and Family Forever Breeding. I will be happy to provide details of the lawsuit to anyone interested, once it is filed. I spent nearly $40,000 with Rick Crew since March of this year. At the first sign of problems with the DH litter, Rick "took the money and ran". Not only did he refuse to honor his commitment to stand behind animals he breeds, he is now trying to malign my wife and I in every way that he can. I have no doubt that Rick will soon reply to this post and continue to try and put the blame on us instead of being a man and accepting responsibility. In all likelihood, Rick will adopt his usual attack method in situations like this, which is to make numerous postings using blind e-mail addresses. The most Rick ever offered to do for us was to give us $2,000 credit towards new purchases from him. Even that offer has now been withdrawn. My brother-in-law and I will never purchase another animal from Rick Crew and Family Forever Breeding. I will instead, now pursue purchases from other breeders/dealers that Rick previously warned us to stay away from. If anyone is interested in the breeders that Rick warned me to never buy from, I would be happy to let you know via e-mail. |
| Ken Harbart |
Re: Rick Crew (Family Forever Breeding) - VERY BAD GUY (Currently 0 replies)
Posted At 19:56:50 10/23/2000 Hi Nigel, I'd be interested in just a bit more information. What exactly what does the vet suspect? What evidence supports this suspicion? I'm not trying to discredit your argument; I just require concrete evidence before I make a judgement one way or the other on this matter. If it can be proven that the problem was biological, and not environmental, you have a strong argument. As for your post on kingsnake.com, the only thing that it's removal is evidence of is that Joe Forks is enforcing the Terms of Service. Titling a post "Buyer beware" is a guaranteed way to get it deleted, even if there is only a link contained inside. Had you chosen a more subtle title, it would've remained up. Two forums have already been closed due to improper posts, so Joe and Jeff are taking anything that appears to be a violation of the TOS very seriously. |
| NIgel |
Re: Rick Crew (Family Forever Breeding) - VERY BAD GUY (Currently 0 replies)
Posted At 20:40:42 10/23/2000 Hi Ken... No problem. As soon as the completed vet report is in my hands I will e-mail you a copy. |
| Corey Woods |
Re: Rick Crew (Family Forever Breeding) - VERY BAD GUY (Currently 0 replies)
Posted At 20:14:02 10/25/2000 Dear Ken and Nigel, Joe Forks no longer works at Kingsnake.com. The only person monitoring the forums is Jeff B. Corey Woods |
| Ritchie |
Re: Rick Crew (Family Forever Breeding) - VERY BAD GUY (Currently 0 replies)
Posted At 07:57:00 12/03/2000 I was reading posts below. I read Ken say that he was not a friend of Rick's. Funny Ken was the first one to defend his honor. And Ken is always there to defend his honor on each and every single post. Still not friends huh ken? |
| Ken Harbart |
Re: Rick Crew (Family Forever Breeding) - VERY BAD GUY (Currently 0 replies)
Posted At 12:20:21 12/06/2000 No Ritchie, I'm not. I have never met Rick Crew, and know him from only one purchase that I have made from him. Using that same logic then, I must be real good buddies with Dave Barker. After all, several months ago people were trashing him on the Python Forum in a thread about pictures and copyrights. I seem to recall that no one else stood by Dave's assertion that his pics represented his hard work and that people who used them without permission would be subject to legal action. Yet another "friend" of mine wou;d be Rich Zuchowski then, since I took up for him in a couple threads, including the one in which you so eloquently put "mike" in his place. Other pals of mine would include Skip Nelson (I said something positive about him) and Greg Power (said I got good animals from him). And who can forget Tom Crutchfield? Since I take up for him so much, he must be my best friend. See where this is going? 'Nuff said |
| Ritchie |
Re: Rick Crew (Family Forever Breeding) - VERY BAD GUY (Currently 0 replies)
Posted At 19:00:47 01/21/2001 Hey Ken I have no Idea where I was going. I couldnot even follow my own train of thought. I was getting off a long overnight 12 hour shift. I was not thinking clearly. Why I was on the attack is beyond me. Why was I attacking you is even further beyond me. I have always read and enjoy your posts. Can someone get my big size 12 out of my mouth. |
| Jeremy Stone |
Re: VERY SAD (Currently 0 replies)
Posted At 22:14:45 02/26/2001 Nigel, This is very sad. I have seen Rick post in the forum nasty things and use an alias. I am glad I didn't pick one of those snakes up after hearing this. I have talked to Rick, and he seemed like a very nice person, but this really hurts the boa market. I know he talked Very negative about Alex Barreiro without even knowing him, and those who know Alex know he is very honest, and has Top quality snakes. Rick told the person Not to deal with Alex becuase you never know what you might get just so he could get the sale. I then heard someone say he was really bashing the Motley project which is unfortunate and his right to say, but this somewhat saddens me to see him not take care of you. Integrity is always best measured when something goes wrong. Many times you will have good dealings with some people, and that is great. However, you can really test the integrity of someone by how they handle situations where something does go wrong. This is a help tip for all of those. It would be great to see posts in this forum where someone really took care of them when something went wrong. That would really be a good test. My 2 cents. Jeremy |
| Nigel |
Re: Rick Crew (Family Forever Breeding) - VERY BAD GUY (Currently 0 replies)
Posted At 00:30:43 02/27/2001 Jeremy, Thank you for your comments...you raise some very valid points. Here is an update on our situation... The DHs were diagnosed with IBD. The 5 DHs under veterinary care were all euthanised. All 5 were determined to be males, which was a shock to us since Rick had sold the DHs to us as 2.8 (knowing that we did not know how to sex snakes). 2 of the albinos began to show similar symptoms. The reptile specialist advised us to bring all of the albinos to him for evaluation. These animals were determined to be 3 males and 3 females, which again was a shock to us since Rick had sold the albinos to us as 0.6. The albinos were subsequently euthanised. I'm sure Rick will claim (either openly or via his usual blind/anonymous e-mail postings) that the 16 baby boas all contracted IBD as a result of our care. We have many other baby boas and ball pythons. The only animals that have died came from Rick Crew and Family Forever Breeding. |
| Reader |
Re: Rick Crew (Family Forever Breeding) - VERY BAD GUY
9113.html Posted At 20:55:09 09/16/2001 I'm just curious: the initial post said " I told Rick that we did not have any animals other than animals we had purchased from him" and the most recent post says "we have many other baby boas and ball pythons. The only animals that have died came from Rick Crew..." so did a bunch of animals that came from Rick Crew not die? Or are we just being loose with facts, or have new animals come into the collection since the initial post? Please understand: I've never even heard of Rick Crew. It sounds like the writer really got screwed. But especially if legal action is to be taken, the facts have got to be nailed down with precision. For newcomers reading these posts, too, there has to be a huge, huge lesson: It would appear the poster spent $40,000 or more on snakes and did not yet even know how to sex them. It also sounds like the person had snakes only from Rick Crew, leading to the possibility that they spent $40k or more on snakes when they had no prior snakes in their collection. I breed and sell rare snakes, and I always try to sound out potential buyers' experience, and discourage them from buying the rare stuff until they've shown from experience with the common morphs of the same species that they can keep them successfully and breed them sucessfully. I think a good breeder/seller owes that to his customers. |
| Nigel |
Re: Rick Crew (Family Forever Breeding) - VERY BAD GUY
9178.html Posted At 18:19:22 09/18/2001 "Reader"... It would be nice if I knew to whom I was replying, but I will continue anyway... Some of the animals purchased from Rick Crew did not die...hence the difference between $40,000 and the values given for the animals that did die. I do not believe "we" are being loose with facts; additional animals were purchased from other breeders subsequent to the initial posting. I take your point about not knowing how to sex snakes. I think, however, that this point is without merit. How many of us purchase a house without knowing how to appraise it or inspect it? That is why we deal with professional house appraisers and professional house inspectors. In the same way, we believed we were dealing with a professional breeder and relied on his knowledge and advice. You are absolutely correct...we spent $40,000 on snakes with no prior snakes in our collection. I would take issue with one statement that you made. You say that you "try to sound out potential buyers' experience, and discourage them from buying the rare stuff until they've shown from experience with the common morphs of the same species that they can keep them successfully and breed them successfully". I agree wholeheartedly with what you say. However, our lack of experience with these animals actually had nothing to do with the animals that died. I would agree that if we knew how to sex the animals then we would have realized sooner that Rick had sold us incorrectly sexed animals. We have noticed, incidently, that a large percentage of people purchasing animals at herp shows actually have no idea how to sex the animals themselves...usually relying upon the skill, expertise and integrity of the seller...as we did. Since the Rick Crew (or Rick Screw as we call him) disaster, we have found several breeders who are honest and trustworthy; we continue to deal with these breeders. Thank you for your comments and advice to other newcomers. It is our sincere hope that between our postings and the replies such as yours that we will prevent others from being victimized as we were. |