Info BHB Reptiles

[Amelanistic Orca]

Why is that ? Especially since this is related to a thread you have been VERY outspoken on. What;s so hard to believe, that a HET x HET breeding ddin't throw visuals ? Happens ALL THE TIME. Now back to THIS thread, they need to do a better job of checking their animals befoer they leave the shop, no doubt. Screaming mite infestation is ridiculous, have YOU been to their shop and looked at the animals. " Their bedding screams mites" Cypress can have WOOD MITES which are HARMLESS to reptiles. Not sure what they have their babies on, so I can't comment.

Ahhhhhh yes. I had a vested interest in that last thread; I did.

A few more weeks dealin' with snakes Bob and you'll get it, I promise. FYI, and only FYI: there's a secret society with noses turned to anything other than paper products for a very simple reason.

 

[~Just Curious~]

If i were an employee of BHB, I would most CERTAINLY tell my bosses " Hey, you guys know this animal we are about to ship out has a GLARINGLY LARGE kink in it right?" Why the heck didnt this happen?? I have a feeling, and maybe i am wrong, that someone working FOR them packaged and shipped this animal. ( I say it this way, because i do not personally know)

*devil's advocate* I don't know either of course, but if the employee was just told to "package and ship snake # ___" without ever being a part of the actual deal, then I can see them doing it without question because it's not so impossible. Some people will sell kinked snakes, usually just with full disclosure and a big discount. If the business part isn't their place, then maybe the employee assumed the "kinks" in the deal had already been worked out (har har)

I'm just assuming myself here... In either case you know what they say assuming does to you and me. ;p

As a small breeder if I sold a snake that had mites or similar problem and someone came on here and posted about it I don't doubt that I would have a hard time selling even though I would have made the same mistake as BHB. So why is it okay that they make mistakes like this? Does being a big breeder really make it okay to make mistakes like this?

I fully agree that they messed up and I don't think anyone is doubting that. It couldn't be clearer.

Just a possible idea on this scenario though, I see it to mean that the reason a thread like this might damage a small breeder more is because that would likely be the only thing out there on them. Less customers = less reviews = less info for potential buyers. I know it may be wrong, but offhand (without getting into specifics) if there were just two reviews on a person - a good and a bad, I would feel almost like dealing with them is 50/50. Like there's less security. =\ On the other hand if they have a bunch of good reviews and just a handful of bad ones, then it's easier to excuse it as an 'occasional mistake' because it's going to have to happen to everyone sometimes, but at least you know it's not that likely.
It doesn't have to be a big breeder either, it can happen with small breeders who have been in it for a while. But several huge companies with a ton of reviews have a higher percentage of negative posts and people aren't forgiving after the pattern becomes apparent. I personally think it has less to do with how "big" they are and more on how well they handle. Their history I suppose - just my long two cents on the concept. ^^;

I still feel that BHB made a bunch of mistakes here of course. Surprisingly big ones at that and I think it'll make everyone think twice about buying from them at the moment. (I know I certainly wouldn't right now) You got burned and that really does suck. I hope that your money is quickly refunded and that you don't develop a mite problem from this ordeal. =( I'm just... not as quick to write them off completely because I've seen them do good before and I'm hoping they can pick themselves back up. That's it.

 

[WebSlave]

If i were an employee of BHB, I would most CERTAINLY tell my bosses " Hey, you guys know this animal we are about to ship out has a GLARINGLY LARGE kink in it right?" Why the heck didnt this happen?? I have a feeling, and maybe i am wrong, that someone working FOR them packaged and shipped this animal. ( I say it this way, because i do not personally know)

Is this simply communication break down between bosses/employees? Rather than intentional/shifty. I really dont feel that a game was played here, i think it is the former. by my logic of being human and knowing it can happen.

If so, That is an issue that needs looking into then, certainly.... and needs immediate action to be taken to prevent this sort of thing in the future. Very very easily solved.


Glad to see that the issue is being resolved, THAT is good at least.

The mites though, get it fixed, and get it fixed pronto.

Heck, if any of you have ever been to the point where your snake breeding business requires employees, you would probably know that once you have other people handling ANY aspect of your business, you lose personal control of that aspect of the business. If you have to watch your employees 24/7 then you might as well be doing the work yourself, so you HAVE to allow that loss of control or else spread yourself so thin, that ALL of the work cannot possibly get done. The larger the collection and the larger the hired work force, the larger and more widespread the personal loss of control becomes. You have to TRUST your workers to do the work as you would do yourself, and quite often that falls WAY short of that goal.

I've had people work for me that SERIOUSLY scared me to think of leaving them unattended for any length of time. If you wrote out a detailed list of instructions for them to follow, and you neglected to detail what they should do if the building caught on fire, they would glance down the list looking for a line about "fire", and not finding it would figure they might as well just go home. This is absolutely NO exaggeration!

If Brian has people packing and shipping animals, he is pretty much at the mercy of THEIR attention to detail and THEIR work ethic. Heck, you have someone more interested in his cell phone conversation with his girlfriend while packing up shipments than what the heck he is doing with his JOB, and this is exactly the kind of results you can easily get. And quite honestly, depending on the local talent available, finding a decently size work crew capable of doing the job adequately for a very large snake breeding/importing/exporting business is a pretty darn tall order.

Seriously, if you yourself ever get to the size of an operation where you NEED to hire on help, you will quickly find that you are getting into a whole new level of headaches you never dreamed of before.

I have known Brian for a very long time. I SERIOUSLY doubt he ever laid his own eyes on that animal or it would NOT have been sold retail.

 

[Tom C]

I would hope that any successful business would have a competent supervisor on site at all times, not all employees need to be fully knowledgeable, but some one better be.

I doubt anyone here thinks Brian sent that snake out, but if the person knew enough to pull the right morph/sex out of the bin, one would like to think he would have enough experience to notice the kink also.

 

[RobNJ]

I still feel that BHB made a bunch of mistakes here of course. Surprisingly big ones at that and I think it'll make everyone think twice about buying from them at the moment. (I know I certainly wouldn't right now) You got burned and that really does suck. I hope that your money is quickly refunded and that you don't develop a mite problem from this ordeal. =( I'm just... not as quick to write them off completely because I've seen them do good before and I'm hoping they can pick themselves back up. That's it.

A bunch of mistakes seems to be a bit of an overstatement. And where exactly did the OP get burned? The snake was received, problem was noted, resolution offered, snake sent back... Plenty of people here have gotten burned, and I've not seen one that was handled so quickly or professionally.

I've never bought from BHB, never have particularly wanted to, but never have seen them as a business to avoid. There seems to be a lot of assumptions being tossed around here. As Rich pointed out, as ANY business grows, there is more room for error due to the human factor as more people are involved in the daily workings of the business. I won't touch on the other thread about them, but in this case, I don't see how they could have handled things any better. Of course it's easy to say to not let these things happen to begin with, but that's much easier said than done. Who here can run a business with multiple employees dealing with tens of thousands of live animals, have your hands full with other things as well, and then personally oversee that every single transaction goes flawlessly?

I'm not sticking up for BHB, but there was not really a disservice done here. People on this site tend to stick by the mantra, "it doesn't matter how many good tranactions one has had, but what matter is how they handle the bad ones", and in this case, Brian/BHB has handled it as well as anyone else could have. Just my opinion.

 

[drjrose]

During the Black Friday sale at BHB I picked up 17 animals. There was one order error (a female sent when I ordered a male). I reported the error and they said no problem to keep her (inexpensive BMK) and they would send me a male at no charge.

Mistakes happen. The kink was a sloppy mistake. The mites are easy to miss. With 35,000 snakes per year going out there would be lots of complaints if their service was consistenly substandard. If there was a plague of mites I bet at least some of mine would have mites as well.

Give them another shot and the odds are that you will have a good experience. If not, then they will make it right.

 

[~Just Curious~]

A bunch of mistakes seems to be a bit of an overstatement. And where exactly did the OP get burned? The snake was received, problem was noted, resolution offered, snake sent back... Plenty of people here have gotten burned, and I've not seen one that was handled so quickly or professionally.

Sorry, to clarify -

Saying "a bunch of mistakes" may is a bit much I admit, but personally I was including having an animal shipped on a Thursday and saying that deformed female can still breed in with the others. I understand some may not see those as mistakes, I know everyone does things different and there's no clear right or wrong, but that just rubs me the wrong way I guess. To be 100% honest, those practices actually bug me a tad more than the original errors because at least those are an accident and unlikely to happen in most cases...
By "burned" I simply meant that the OP got a bad deal here, it's never fun for anybody, I didn't mean to imply that she was scammed. If I did then I really do apologize because BHB seems to have superb customer service and I know they'll make thing's right. It just seemed to me that lately they've been having to do that a lot more than usual.

Don't get me wrong - I still consider them a "Good Guy" obviously and I'm actually really impressed by all that they've done, but recently I'm just wondering if maybe there's too much on their plate. Nothing extremely major, but maybe they can crack down on some things is all I'm saying.

 

[Focal]

I agree with the fact that it was a good move they fixed it so quickly.

I agree with the fact that an employee may have packed it.

I do ask, who took the picture? Who posted the ad? Who took the sale? Who didn't notice at that point? Who cut the egg? Who offered the first, second, third .... meals? Who cleaned the bin everyday? All though possible, I wonder if the same person did all of these procedures or not. While I don't put the burden on the buyer to notice, more than one person should have seen this snake from start to finish IMO.

 

[WebSlave]

I would also like to point out that even the biggest of breeders will buy animals from other breeders to fill holes in their inventory of available animals. Trades take place all of the time, and there is always an influx of animals from other breeders that might be turned around into an outgoing sale pretty quickly. I know I have sold quite a few animals to Brian over the years, and have to assume that many others do as well. Of course, I don't know for a fact what the situation was in this exact case, but it's often best to not jump to conclusions that just because you bought an animal from a breeder that it was actually PRODUCED by that breeder.

If you want to get an eye opening experience, actually visit some facilities that these REALLY big outfits run. I haven't been to Brian's facility, but I have been to Mark and Kim Bell's place, which should likely be pretty similar in scope, and to say it is a humbling experience is being quite conservative, at best.

 

[Tiki108]

One thing I'd like to point out is a couple people have referenced the thread that recently popped up again from over a year ago. Now there may be other threads that I am not aware of, but I do agree they messed up, but the important thing in my mind is they fixed their mistake.
From my understanding BHB got 2 new employees within the last few months and maybe one of the newbies made a mistake, it happens. I also remember Brian used to have an employee named Kel that he let go. When people asked on youtube and facebook what happened to Kel he informed everyone he did not want to speak ill of a previous employee and bad mouth him, but just said he felt it was the best for the animals. What Kel did I do not know, but Brian wants only the best for his animals from what I can see and fixes any mistakes that may happen.
I think a full refund or a discount were fair offers to resolve the situation. And you even said you missed the kink in the picture and didn't notice the mites yourself until someone else was with you. Maybe Brian would have noticed the mites, but a new employee may have missed them just as you did.

I think it's important to remember, accidents happen, what matters is did they fix their mistake? Yes.

 

[Tom C]

It seems that in the end, there was great communication (which most times isn't) on solving the issue, so that's a huge bonus. I hate Mites and find that
is something that I will never share the same opinion on "mites are part of the hobby/business" (that's not a quote from bhb) but It seems to be a lot of others opinions these days and I find that ridiculous.Make sure your animals are parasite free before shipping or don't ship it.

I don't work w/ ball pythons, but I am curious on other BP breeders opinions if they think that snake could successfully/safely push eggs past that kink?...I don't think I would risk it regardless of what species the defect appeared upon.

 

[Kinra]

This is not a bad guy thread, this is me coming out publicly to speak about my experience purchasing from BHB. Lori did a great job working with me to get the issue of the snake being kinked resolved. The fact that I was sold a snake that had a major kink and mites makes me leery of buying from them in the future.

I don't care if this is a snake they produced or not. I don't care how many new people they have working for them. I don't care how hands on Brian and Lori are with their collection. I don't care how large their collection is. I what I do care about is that they sold me the snake with multiple issues, one of which I still have to deal with even though the snake is no longer in my possession.

This is not the first time I've made a purchase from a breeder online but it is the first time I have had issues like this. If I can get a snake of similar quality from a different breeder that I feel confident won't send me problems like this why would I buy from BHB, a company I have already had a bad experience with?

There has also been a lot of hear say on some forums lately about BHB selling snakes with mites on them. I wish I had taken a picture of the mites on the snake but four other people saw the mites on this snake one of which as already publicly come forward saying they saw it. This is not a rumor, this is a case that someone can look to and say okay at least one person has come forward saying they received a snake with mites from BHB. This is not a story of a friend of a friend of my second cousin saying they got mites from BHB.

 

[Amelanistic Orca]

"Many very experienced breeders keep their snakes on mulch. It's much better for breeding than these "paper products" ~~~~ Author unknown at this point... But, classical!

 

[Mike Schultz]

"Many very experienced breeders keep their snakes on mulch. It's much better for breeding than these "paper products" ~~~~ Author unknown at this point... But, classical!

That was me, and it's true

 

[Amelanistic Orca]

That was me, and it's true

Git 'er dunn Son!

 

[Kinra]

Update: My money was refunded to me as of 30 minutes ago. I commend BHB on their fast resolution of this, but they should work towards preventing this from happening in the future.

Again, this is not a bad guy thread, this is just an info thread. BHB took ownership of the kink issue and refunded me my money. I'm sill going to be on high alert for mites in both my quarantine rack and the rest of my collection for the next month or two, but I consider my primary issue with BHB closed.

 

[KelliH]

"Many very experienced breeders keep their snakes on mulch. It's much better for breeding than these "paper products" ~~~~ Author unknown at this point... But, classical!

Almost every person I know that breeds ball pythons keeps adult females on cypress mulch. I think BHB is a business, and people that are in business make errors occasionally. It's hard for the small hobbiest to understand, but mistakes happen and what matters (to me anyway) is that any errors are dealt with fairly and promptly, with the least aggravation possible being caused to the customer.

 

[tarawr]

Glad you got your refund~ Seems like the matter is resolved, then.
Hopefully you don't have mites in any of your racks and that everything has worked out for the best.

I do agree that they should work towards preventing cases like this in the future... I know its easier said than done, too.

 

[Jewelfan74]

Snake mites

Always spray your nrw snakes enclosure down with provent a mite before snake arrives. Also buy from Garrick Demeyer Royalconstrictordesigns.com

 

[InfiniteVoid]

Get provent a mite and you'll nevr have to worry again...and kinks arent a big deal at all..i mean.if your dog had a kinked tail would you make a big deal to the breeder?? You couldve kept the snake..seems like the boi is fillin up with things that couldve.been resolved without any need for being posted