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

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    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....

Buying from Strictly Reptiles in 2003?

Re: i agree

jefjen said:
i do agree with you on this.. The point i was making about them being no worse than c.b.b. animals again falls on the way they are treated once they hit this country..
Click to expand...

A WC import animal that has had plenty of time to recover from the stress of importation and has been properly diagnosed and treated by an experiened person for any problems is a pretty good candidate for somebody's collection, yep. The determining factor is whether or not they are cleared as "good to go" with appropriate diagnostics before being sold. I like to see a couple of clean fecals before sending anything off.

One of our finished projects (trauma injured import after thorough veterinary exam and treatment and months of support care) is actually a better health risk than a CB animal that has never had a vet exam or a fecal. However were I to attempt sell these animals for anything even approaching the cost of their care, I am sure there would be much kicking and shrieking, especially since some are scarred or imperfect after what they've been through.

One of our latest projects is a $200 cottonmouth that some asshat shot through the neck with a pellet gun BEFORE calling our snake removal service. Fortunately the injury was soft tissue only and the little girl has recovered beautifully from surgery; her last check-up was yesterday and she has been officially pronounced healthy with very little scarring and no loss of function.

I don't imagine anyone will want to buy this pretty little girl, despite an absolutely guaranteed clean bill of health. She'd be slated for release except that she'd just run into the same problem again where she came from. So what to do with a $200 cottonmouth? LOL Keep her, I guess. She's a cutie.
 
Tanith,,
The best thing would be to keep her, or at least take her somewhere and release her where she has a less likelyhood to come into a human's path... Take her deep into the everglades, that may work...:D
 
jefjen said:
Tanith,,
The best thing would be to keep her, or at least take her somewhere and release her where she has a less likelyhood to come into a human's path... Take her deep into the everglades, that may work...:D
Click to expand...

Eeek, no. Telemetry studies suggest that the mortality rate on snakes that are moved too far from their capture site is unacceptably high. I can guarantee this little girl a very long and well fed life in captivity. If I put her back within the acceptable distance range, she is at high risk of encountering humans, their pets or their vehicles. If I dump her off in the Everglades, she is at high risk of not surviving the translocation and adapting successfully to the new environment according to the best statistics I have on the subject.

While I strongly suspect that the North American Agkistrodon are less sensitive to long distance translocation than other species that have been formally studied, I don't have enough data to verify. So my translocation policy remains the same on cottonmouths as it is on other species, which is to say "500 feet or forget it".

In any case, there are also issues of potential disease transmission into the wild - she's been months in recovery, and exposed to other snakes during this period. So no, this little girl is not a great release candidate. If her original habitat had looked better she'd have been kept in strict quarantine before a planned release.
 
I did not know that about the relocation thing...wow...
I am sure you will give her a good life...
Good Luck:eek:
 
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