• Responding to email notices you receive.
    **************************************************
    In short, DON'T! Email notices are to ONLY alert you of a reply to your private message or your ad on this site. Replying to the email just wastes your time as it goes NOWHERE, and probably pisses off the person you thought you replied to when they think you just ignored them. So instead of complaining to me about your messages not being replied to from this site via email, please READ that email notice that plainly states what you need to do in order to reply to who you are trying to converse with.

  • IMPORTANT! PLEASE READ!! About the Google Adsense ads being displayed

    =====================
    Posted 08/15/2025
    =====================


    Yeah, I know. They are a pain in the butt. But they pay the bills to keep my server running. Just a fact of life, I am afraid.

    Want to get rid of them? Simple. Just become a Contributor level member or above and they will be gone. -> Please click HERE."

    Is that too much for me to ask of you to keep this site running? Well, sorry about that. I too wish I could get everything for free. But alas.....

    =====================
    Addendum: 01/10/2026
    =====================


    Google Adsense ad revenue for December, 2025 was just $30 over the cost of the lease for the server running this site. So, in effect, the money providing the incentive for me to continue running this site is coming SOLELY from the paid memberships and sponsorships here. Which honestly ain't much....

Good Guy Ben Siegel Reptiles

A

ApexPredator

New member
Joined
Feb 5, 2008
Messages
9
Reaction score
3
Points
0
Age
44
Location
Miami,FL
I wanted to take the time to let you guys know how happy I am with the treatment I received from the great people at Ben Siegle Reptiles. I have purchased several reptiles from this gentleman and have never had a hint of trouble. After doing massive amounts of research and reading everything I could find online and in books, I purchased a caiman lizard from Ben a little over a month ago. This lizard started giving me trouble eating soon after i set it up at home. I called the store up and Brook was EXTREMELY helpful answering all of my questions and my many phone calls. After some time of this stubborn caiman lizard not eating for me, Billie stepped in and had me bring it in to see if they could get it feeding again. The guys at the shop quickly got the caiman lizard eating again for me. Billie went as far as swapping the animal out for me with a well tempered caiman lizard to make sure my family and I would be happy. I can not say enough good things about the treatment I received. Most customers only write about the bad experiences they have with vendors and never mention the good experiences they have. Billie and Brook treated me like one of the family and I will continue doing business with them. Thanks for all the help guys.

Jimmy
 
Glad to hear you got a good one!

I have also done tons of business with Ben and Stacey, for many years (starting back when male spider BP's were $2000, remember those days!). Ben, his wife Stacey, Renee, Billy and Brian have always been great! I also purchased a Caiman Lizard (a pet) for my son for his Birthday over a month ago. I also had a very hard time attempting to get him to eat. I called the shop for the first two weeks asking about other food options to try: Several flavors of cat food, salmon flavored dog food, Can of snails, Ground turkey, day old pinky's, crawfish. We tried everything without any luck! His set-up is not the issue, it has everything.

About three weeks after not eating I started to get a bit concerned. Billy said bring him back and they would try to work with him. Not wanting to bother the store, I started looking for more info on the net and even asked an out of state caiman lizard breeder. I was told to try live snails, since that was their natural diet in the wild. As soon as we offered a small live apple snail, he consumed it overnight. I was excited to tell Ben that he had finally ate. Apparatenly, live snails harbor a parasite that kills caiman lizards, atleast that is what ben informed us about. He also said that because we fed it a snail, he could not guarantee the animals health.

I listened to Ben and stopped the feeding of live snails. It's been two weeks since the animal consumed the single small snail and I still can not get him to eat anything previously mentioned above. Unfortunatly, he is losing weight but I don't want to feed him something again the carries parasites that will kill him. At this point, I'm not sure what to do :shrug01:. Any recommendations what be greatly appreciated!!:thumbsup:

I am not stating anything Bad about Ben or his shop, I think they are all great people. This is a simple "Heads Up" to those that have a caiman lizard that may be a little picky on feeding: "DON'T FEED IT LIVE SNAILS" or you will be on your own without a health guarantee regardless if it had ever taken food after leaving the store or not.

Jason Weinrich
Morph Jungle
 
Jason, Zoo Med has a product called can-o-snails. It has worked before and i personally know people who it has worked for.

Steven Patterson
 
Thanks for the info Steven, I had bought (2) cans of "can of snails" when we purchased the animal. I offered him that first with a small amount of ground turkey. two days later, tried salmon flavored cat food and a few snails... no luck. Two days later tried: 9 lives super supper and a seperate plate with can o snails... still no dice. Tried feeding during the day/ at night. with water tub in his enclosure and with it removed, I am not trying to feed him in a seperate container with nothing in it to distract him. Thank you again for your post.
 
Jason,

I tried everything I could think of as well with my caiman. In the end I had to contact Ben Siegel reptiles and have them get the animal started again for me. What I did notice was that although the enclosure I originally used was larger and had more amenities which I thought the lizard would appreciate , all that the caiman wanted was a smaller enclosure and to be left alone. Billy and the great people at Ben Siegel's set her up in a 10 gallon with cypress bedding, a hide and a water bowl in the back room and she was eating again within two days time. As far as the live snails go I have read that live snails can carry loads of parasites which can infest your caiman lizard. You can try to feed the frozen snails from the Asian food markets which are steamed, and frozen so no chances of getting parasites from them. HTH
 
One more thing. Apparently my caiman lizard would come out at night after lights out and have mid night snacks while at Ben's according to the guys. It appears that I was being too hasty with my removal and cleaning of the food bowl at lights out. Maybe you can try leaving the food in overnight anand see if that helps.
 
I have dealt with Ben Siegel Reptiles several times over the last few years, and it has always been a pleasure. Very good member of the herp community IMO>:thumbsup:
 
I normally only purchase reptiles from small breeders, but I broke down and ordered a super snow leopard gecko from Ben Siegel. All of my emails were responded to quickly and they made sure to talk to me in person before shipping. They seem to care about the animals. Everything was very professional and the gecko arrived healthy and friendly. Not jumpy like most leopard geckos are. I'm very happy with my purchase.
On a side note, I do prefer dealing with a smaller breeder for the following reason. This business is very busy. I felt like I was bothering them with all my questions. I did not get the personal attention I normally get from a small, in home, private breeder who has more time. Other than that I am very happy with my purchase.
 
Rather than start a new thread, I figured I'd just add to this one. Just completed my first purchase from BSR. Unboxed my new het albino BP and I am very pleased with him. He is a beautiful little guy and looks, sounds and acts perfectly healthy. If anything he is better looking than Ben's pictures indicated.
 
I just recently bought a Pink Toe Tarantula from them, and it was one of the best experiences I've ever had with buying online!! They answered a few questions I had, as well as joking about names for it with me. I will DEFINITELY buy from them again!
 
I bought a juvenile monkeytail skink from Ben a few months ago. Animal was in great condition on arrival and is doing very well; quality animal at a reasonable price! Kudos to Ben.
 
BSR is awesome and Ben is one of the coolest people to deal with. I had called his store recently asking about some leos for my kid; instead of trying to convince me to buy big, they actually first pointed out there would be some nice auctions going on that evening with some really cool leos. I won myself a nice leo at a pretty good price.
 
I just received my order from Ben Siegel Reptiles and I'm very pleased with everything I received. I was very impressed with the professionalism of Ben and his staff during both my online and phone communication with them. I picked up a few animals from Ben and my daughter got her first pet reptile (a leopard gecko). I wouldn't hesitate to do business with Ben Siegel Reptiles again in the future.
 

Attachments

  • bens1.jpg
    bens1.jpg
    108.9 KB · Views: 515
  • bens2.jpg
    bens2.jpg
    107.3 KB · Views: 508
  • bens3.jpg
    bens3.jpg
    105.6 KB · Views: 513
I do not think that Leah read the link that April provided, there is some insightful (and not) discussion in that thread.
 
Posting on this BSR thread as it is the most recent good guy i found
Have just received a stunning albino northern pine from BSR and everything was/is perfect.
Great communication by fb messenger, my questions were answered in about 10 minutes each time.
Great packaging with a 40 hour heat pack taped under the top insulating board so could not fall down and fry the lil girl!
Great animal, actually looks nicer than their pix showed and larger than I expected!
All round great transaction.
Now my second trouble free transaction with BSR in the last couple of years ( won a ball python on one of their auctions as well which all went as smoothly as this one did)
If they have something I want I will have no hesitation dealing with them again!
 
Back
Top