Night10gail
Member
My experience with Ray was great! Walking by his stand at the crowed reptile show I spotted nestled in the corner in cups something I'd been searching for for awhile. Vendors had told me before they hadn't seen them at any show in years and others didn't know what I was talking about so I was speechless when I seen those dozen or so baby Rhino Rat Snakes stacked up in their cups at Ray's stand. Ray let me handle them and inspect them carefully. They were not the least bit nippy (all but the one really spooked one) for something that has earned a reputation for being so on Youtube. Ray was very knowledgeable about which were unrelated, which ones were eating what and though he didn't recall the exact hatch date he knew their age. He even had a photo of the parents on his phone, which he gladly showed me when I asked about his stock! Most breeders do not have photos of the parents with them at shows and it can be hard to get parental photos emailed to you when doing business online, especially if it's a large scale breeder. Ray is a small scale hobbyist breeder with quite a bit of variety (skinks, lizards, rare snakes, boas, pythons, oh my). All his animals were active and alert in their containers and looked about the correct weight. They were all priced at about the average market rate. Ray has since answered my additional questions about my snakes since I've gotten him home, which shows he cares about the customers and animals and not just making some cash. My boy is doing great! He's active, not nippy, eating regularly, growing and while a little shy/skittish he is a tame pet. Looks like he may color up better than imagined too. I will be stopping by Ray's stand at future reptile shows to see what he's got, as I would gladly do business with him again and he's currently a favorite breeder of mine with his variety and all.
I was surprised by Ray's variety, I mean finding something you don't see every show at anyone's table gives them automatic kudos points. His animals all looked pretty good and they were use to human interaction. Like I said Rhino Rat Snakes are known for usually being nippy and any baby snake is usually nippy for a time to begin with, but despite all the commotion they had had that day with being removed from their comfy cage, to being packaged, moved, and slide around in their cups while being looked at they were all pretty calm. All were nervous and cautions and quite a few flighty but not prone to biting. I was amazed! I was expecting to get tagged by more than a few of them, especially after having just been munched on by some very mean Rosy Boas 5min before at another stand. This shows that Ray takes some time with each individual animal that they seem so use to human interaction, thus I'd expect Ray would notice any growing health issues with any of his animals very quickly and be able to correct it.