How did it all begin? (your stories)

[dragonspyrit]

Forgive me if such a thread exists-- didn't see any when I searched! I would appreciate a link if this has been one before

For some, keeping and breeding herps has been a lifelong journey that began in childhood. For others it is a passion that developed later in life. I would love to hear how it all began for you.

What was your first herp? When did you begin seriously collecting? What made you take the leap from humble pet-owner to collector/breeder/and beyond? Do you consider your operation business, pleasure, or both? Who has stood by your side/in your path along the way?Anything you can think of about your story, your 'ascent', your humble beginnings, I'd love to hear, and I'm sure others would too. I know there must be some cool stories from people around here.

Again please forgive if this already exists, as I'm sure something like it must have been posted SOMEWHERE. Thanks

 

[Jerry_c_62]

Great Question

I'll try to keep it short, Oh Sure, Right.

It all started for me about 4 years ago, I was 42. My son's scout troop was looking for merit badge counselors. My wife suggested I go with the Home Imrovement merit badge. I checked and found that there were over 300 of that type in our area. However, there were only 2 Reptile and Amphibian merit badge counselors, plus that was something I was interested in.

I reasoned with my wife that I had a fair amount of book knowleadge but no practicle experiance so we agreed that I would get a lizard. A female leopard gecko. As I looked into it it seemed to me a person could make a buck or two at raising reptiles, still waiting for that to happen. So I picked up a couple more, juviniles that turned out to both be girls. So I tried again and got three more, all girls. Determined to get a male I went to my first show and was going to leave with the boy I needed to get this whole thing started. That was 6 months after my first lizard. I bred and sold enough to cover costs and get the experiance I was looking for.

Three years ago I convinced my wife that the lizards were great but I really loved snakes. She was less than thrilled with that idea, but when I pointed out all of her little annoyances that I deal with she reluctantly agreed. In Feb of 06 I got my first snake, a male ball, het pied. In march I gat a het pied female. Early in 07 I got a great deal on another pair of het pieds and a pair of het albinos. So I met the seller at another show in WI. While I was there I picked up a male pastel, since I had made the trip. So I was up to 7 geckos and 7 snakes all in just over a year.

I slowed down after that and started looking for specific animals. Oct of 07 I got a female spider, Feb 08 I drove to Chicago and picked up a female pin-stripe.

In Nov of 07 I also stepped into the snake breeding realm. The het albinos I had gotten were ready to go so I got them a semi-private room and hoped for the best. after a few months nothing seemed to be happening so I seperated them for that season in Jan of 08 and figured I would try again this year. Well the little buggers had done what they were supposed to do and on the weekend of the 4th of July she laid a clutch of 3 eggs, two slugs and one good egg, a full 5 months after the last time they were together. Some of you know this part of the story as I have told it here before, but to complete this telling I will fill in the details. Het to het pairing and only one good egg, a 25% shot at a visual. Labor day weekend last year I hatched out my first snake, ALBINO.

That gets me to now. This year I have been pairing up one of my pair of het pieds. If I have any left over good fortune from the albino thing last year maybe I will get a pied out of this. I try to avoid power feeding so most of the others are not quite ready, maybe soon if they keep eating.

So that is how I came into this deal. Hope it didn't get to long. If so blame the OP, they asked for it.

 

[creatism123]

ok lets see for me it started when i was about 7 or so with a ribbon snake i got for my birthday or was it christmas, instead of the dog i wanted. well i was disapointed till i watched eat for the first time that was it i was hooked. after keeping several ribbon snakes i upgraded, kinda, to a fresh imported ball python, she took 9 months to eat her first meal and ate only 3 months of the yr till she passed on when i was 25 or so. well my first taste of ball pythons kinda left a sour taste and i got into corns and kings raised a couple of those than got back into pythons with an ij carpet male, got the idea to breed them, lets see i was 16 or 17 by then, bred them got a clutch of slugs, switched from carpets to bloods raised those up tryed to breed them my male came down with a ri and the female obsorbed the eggs. gave up on breeding, and settled on collecting.

Now starts the fun part of my life i was 19 had a friend/mentor and got into venomous. by the time i was 22 i had 7 cobras 4 arboreal vipers, and hand full of rattlers. 23 got married to some one who loved venomous as much as i did, though for differant reasons. 24 found out she was pregnant took till my son was 6 months old to get rid of my collection of venomous. took a couple of yrs off and am now getting back into it with the idea of breeding not collecting. so i have a real pretty pair of ij carpets that will go next season(if the male will get over his ri) and a pair of coastals. am working on a select few colubrids for the boy. at some point in the future i will own cobras again but not till he is much older and i have a room or shed i can devote to them.

i am almost thirty and have a son who loves reptile, so i do not see this aspect of my life going away any time soon.

 

[Mokele]

For me, it's been a lifelong obsession, since as early as I can remember. I was the kid who was way too obsessed with dinosaurs, and as a consequence, with reptiles and amphibians, and that fascination never waned. Because my parents restricted me to a single snake, I fed my obsession via reading everything I could on reptiles, alive and extinct.

When it came time for college, the lure of money induced a brief detour through aerospace engineering, but I eventually made my way back into biology and back to herps, doing my MS on arboreal snake locomotion. Now I've got a modest collection (5 animals) and I'm doing my PhD in frog jumping.

 

[Mooing Tricycle]

I was always outside catching critters when i was a kid.... my summers were spent building tree forts in the forest, and hiking and exploring the forest till it was just dark enough that i should probably head back home.

There were frogs and salamanders, and lots of garter snakes and ringnecks in my area. i'd catch them and keep them for a time, and eventually let them go.

eventually i found an interest in ball pythons, and one by one my collection grew. and now im into all sorts of other species.... pretty much, it was inevitable! I just didnt know it until it was too late

 

[Tiger Lilly]

My first real experience with snakes came after moving from the city to the country at about the age of 12. My step-dad did a poor job of trying to kill a snake. I watched and was not happy. When he left the foot-long snake with its head bashed in, I saw that it was still moving and carefully picked it up. I didn't know what it was, but I knew that it could possibly still bite, so I was careful to keep an eye on its head/mouth. Long story (kinda) short, I held the snake until it took its last breath and buried it. I know, now, that the humane thing to do would've been to finish off the job, but I was so intrigued by the beauty and strength the snake still had in its body that I couldn't do it. After that, I was hooked. I went field herping, just to see what I could find. The hills of West Virginia were alive with all sorts of reptiles that I was content to just watch from a distance as they went about their travels.
I eventually got my first snake, a boa, and have had them ever since. Some I've kept, some I've sold due to time restraints and the introduction of children into the family. Some, unfortunately, have died.
I've had quite a collection of critters while I was growing up: snakes, cats, dogs, rabbits, guinea pigs, ferrets, birds, monitors, and dragons. I'm sure I've left out something--oh yeah, pot bellied pigs--but you get the idea.
The children have been grown for a few years and now I'm going all out to do for ME. Somewhere along the way I got interested in ball pythons and will eventually get rid of my boas, to concentrate strictly on balls. I started my newest collection of reptiles in 2004, with babies. I grew them up slow and now have almost everything I need to breed to get the snakes I can't afford to buy. I have 2 more snakes to get (at this time) and my breeding collection will be complete--yeah, right...I currently have 29 balls, 5 boas, 1 red rat, 1 beardie, 1 savanna monitor and 1 large dog.
I will retire from my job around 2020, and I want to already be a recognized name in this community by that time. I love my job (seriously), and I want to love my retirement just as much.
It's my turn now to totally immerse myself into a hobby that I've waited to have time for!

 

[DAND]

I've been flippin' rocks and logs since I was a little kid. Now I'm a big kid flippin' rocks and logs. If there were woods or a stream around that was where I was to be found with critters in tow.

My Mom hated doing my laundry both because I would get so dirty and she would never know what she would find in my pockets (I had to keep my new found critters somewhere didn't I? ). Mom didn't like snakes at all and tried to sway my liking of them. Fortunately she failed especially when someone had to save her from the big bad garter snake in the garden.

From catching tadpoles to garter snakes I would catch them all.

Still doing it too. Look what I found in the creek in my backyard:

 

[dragonspyrit]

WOW look at that pack of babies shes got! Nice find!

I'll stick my own in here, even though I'm technically not immersed in the hobby

I grew up in Queens NY; not the best place to rummage around for critters, but oh how I tried. Summer camping trips to upstate new york were like field days for me in every possible way. When I was 5, already an animal lover, my parents decided it was about time I got to have a pet of my own. They took me to the the pet store and told me I could pick out anything I wanted... except a dog...or cat.. or rabbit.. or ferret...or... well you get the idea. I guess they expected to come out of the deal with a hamster or a goldfish. I still remember my mother asking in dismay if we couldn't Just feed my baby ball ham instead of mice as we walked out with him!!

Over the years, I've had many animals; anoles, RES (younger sister still has them), guinea pigs, budgies, rats (snuck into the house..mom was appalled... 'till she got to know them!), goldfish, bettas, mice, dwarf hamsters (my current hobby)... But I always loved having the idea of snakes. When I was 14, with my parents begrudging permission, I made a disasterous attempt to get two more normal balls. An internet-savy kid (or so I thought), I decided to buy online. Clearly it was better to get snakes from a breeder instead of a petstore, right?? How I wish I'd thought to look for a BOI of some sort.

When the two balls came, I was in shock at what I saw in the box. The snakes were emmaciated, cold, and covered in thick, ugly mites. After only a few days, it was clear they were full of internal parasites, and their stool was almost liquid. I dont think I need to mention that they wouldn't eat. The vendor never told me the animals were WC (I'd done my research; I knew I had no experience, and would never have willingly purchased them), and when I emailed him, all I got was a nasty response that I got what I paid for and that no return or refund would be possible. I was so horrified by "my" mistake I guess I didn't think to protest. Even after several vet trips, rounds of medication, and attempts at feeding, they died a horrible death, wracked in convulsions, an image which burned into my mind and prevented me from making any further attempts at more reptiles. Though they were in quarentine, my CB ball had somehow contracted the mites, and had to go through the same treatment. Thankfully, he pulled through no worse the wear and is currently coming up on his 19th year with me.

Ironically after keeping the snake for so long, I developed an interest in mice, and spent a few years breeding and showing on a small scale when I was in high school. It was the promise of some tail-less mice to add to my collection that lured me to the Northern Berks Reptile Show. I never found the mice.. but what I did find had me in awe. I became especially enarmored with the deli cups full of baby hogs, but was unprepared to purchase or house anything beyond the mice I'd come for. Disappointed and excited all at once, I vowed that I'd be back.

Skip forward to the present day; recently graduated and settling into a new job, that time may be swift approaching. I'm considering heading up to Hamburg this August if I can Until then, I'll be here, lurking, learning, and pining!

 

[Helenthereef]

Started even before I got my hands on live animals: had a huge collection of rubber snakes as a 10 year old. Once I got to garter snakes and rat snakes I knew I was in the grip of an obsession.

Maybe this would be a good topic for a quiz? You know:
How did you get into herps:
1. Obsessed since birth, could hardly wait to be old enough to get real ones
all the way through to
6. Married to a snake nut, have just learned to handle them after 6 years....
etc

 

[Mooing Tricycle]

I've been flippin' rocks and logs since I was a little kid. Now I'm a big kid flippin' rocks and logs. If there were woods or a stream around that was where I was to be found with critters in tow.

My Mom hated doing my laundry both because I would get so dirty and she would never know what she would find in my pockets (I had to keep my new found critters somewhere didn't I? ). Mom didn't like snakes at all and tried to sway my liking of them. Fortunately she failed especially when someone had to save her from the big bad garter snake in the garden.

From catching tadpoles to garter snakes I would catch them all.

Still doing it too. Look what I found in the creek in my backyard:

Are you on the Bluecrayfish.com forums?! Do you know alot about them?

I love crayfish... only have one right now... but man, they are so much fun!

 

[Heart and Soul Reptiles]

I would say it all started for me when I was about 8 years old. A few friends and I were riding our bikes through our neighborhood and we came across the carcass of a mother snake who had been run over by a car. Most of her unborn babies were dead as well, but there were a few trying desperately to get off of the burning hot summer sun baked asphalt, up the curb and into the shelter of the grass. All my friends "ewwed" and gagged at the site, but I got off my bike and one by one tried to salvage the few little babies that weren't so far to the brink of death, maybe 6 or so, and placed them in the grass. I hated all bugs and creepy crawly things, and my parents always told me the story of my father chopping off the head of a pregnant snake at our old house when I was a baby and all of the babies coming out, you think I would have been scared, I was never sure what came over me that day to help those little guys, I never did find out what kind of snakes they were either, for all I know I helped baby water moccasin's
I bugged my grandmother for the next 8 years to get me a snake, she's much more persuasive (my logic was she already had a fish tank, just get rid of the fish and put the snake in there!) She caved when I was 16 and got me a leopard gecko instead, which my mother actually liked, she loves little lizards.
I didn't get my first snake until I met my fiancé. His name was (is) Rhezy and he's a normal ball python male. We got him for my fiancé's birthday. On my birthday, he got me Lestat, my Columbian/central American cross. I never thought I could love an animal soo much. About a year later we came across an albino Burmese python owned by a friend of a friend. He was very skinny, covered in mites and had a terrible respiratory infection. He was very weary of people handling him. We told him we would gladly take him, but the guy said he'd rather sell him. Well I've never felt like more of an idiot coughing up $150 bucks for an animal that looked like it would die if you blew on it. Somehow, he recovered though, he got over his fear of people, and now he's our best snake for little kids to handle A year later, Lestat and my Leopard Gecko passed away a month apart from unrelated causes. About 2 months later I went to my first Reptile show in Havre De Grace Maryland and met my good friend Keith Redmon of Snoops Snakes. He sold me what would become my last animal bought as "pet" status, Valentine. He said something to me when I bought him, he said "He is het for Anery." I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about, he told me, "go to Kingsnake.com, you'll figure it out." That was how it all began. I remember the first time I saw a snow boa, was when I finally changed my mind about breeding. I felt like I had to have one and here we are now! Sorry that was so long. Enjoy!

 

[Mooing Tricycle]

I would say it all started for me when I was about 8 years old. A few friends and I were riding our bikes through our neighborhood and we came across the carcass of a mother snake who had been run over by a car. Most of her unborn babies were dead as well, but there were a few trying desperately to get off of the burning hot summer sun baked asphalt, up the curb and into the shelter of the grass. All my friends "ewwed" and gagged at the site, but I got off my bike and one by one tried to salvage the few little babies that weren't so far to the brink of death, maybe 6 or so, and placed them in the grass. I hated all bugs and creepy crawly things, and my parents always told me the story of my father chopping off the head of a pregnant snake at our old house when I was a baby and all of the babies coming out, you think I would have been scared, I was never sure what came over me that day to help those little guys, I never did find out what kind of snakes they were either, for all I know I helped baby water moccasin's
I bugged my grandmother for the next 8 years to get me a snake, she's much more persuasive (my logic was she already had a fish tank, just get rid of the fish and put the snake in there!) She caved when I was 16 and got me a leopard gecko instead, which my mother actually liked, she loves little lizards.
I didn't get my first snake until I met my fiancé. His name was (is) Rhezy and he's a normal ball python male. We got him for my fiancé's birthday. On my birthday, he got me Lestat, my Columbian/central American cross. I never thought I could love an animal soo much. About a year later we came across an albino Burmese python owned by a friend of a friend. He was very skinny, covered in mites and had a terrible respiratory infection. He was very weary of people handling him. We told him we would gladly take him, but the guy said he'd rather sell him. Well I've never felt like more of an idiot coughing up $150 bucks for an animal that looked like it would die if you blew on it. Somehow, he recovered though, he got over his fear of people, and now he's our best snake for little kids to handle A year later, Lestat and my Leopard Gecko passed away a month apart from unrelated causes. About 2 months later I went to my first Reptile show in Havre De Grace Maryland and met my good friend Keith Redmon of Snoops Snakes. He sold me what would become my last animal bought as "pet" status, Valentine. He said something to me when I bought him, he said "He is het for Anery." I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about, he told me, "go to Kingsnake.com, you'll figure it out." That was how it all began. I remember the first time I saw a snow boa, was when I finally changed my mind about breeding. I felt like I had to have one and here we are now! Sorry that was so long. Enjoy!

^_^ i enjoyed this!!!

 

[DAND]

Are you on the Bluecrayfish.com forums?! Do you know alot about them?

I love crayfish... only have one right now... but man, they are so much fun!

No, I'm not on Bluecrayfish.com forums but I'll have to check it out. I know a little about them. I've been catching them little buggers for quite a few years now. Just recently saw and snapped a few pics of this little girl from my back yard:

 

[DAND]

Oops, forgot I had posted that here already.

 

[Heart and Soul Reptiles]

Thanks Alicia!

 

[Miss Tuniwha]

For me.. I have always liked them.. When I was in middle school, I would always go in about half an hour early, to handle the boa constrictor. I did that over the coarse of about 3 years, almost every day.

I was offered the snake when I moved, because I was the only one that could handle it. (I learned it even bit its owner, the class teacher, right between the eyes.. luckily he wore glasses)

sadly my family could not afford the snake food, so had to decline.


ANYwho.. a friend bought me my first ball python for my 18th birthday. She (Dameon) was VERY jumpy and chewed up. Found out he bought it because the pet store left rats in there for weeks, (live) and said if she didn't eat it she deserved to get bit etc. etc.

So that was my first snake.. then I learned that someone I knew had a baby bp. It belonged to their kid, and he went off to college, left the snake at home. Said he would feed it on weekends when he came home.. he didn't. I had visited once and saw the snakes cage.. 55 gal, newspaper, no water dish, no heat, dead pinkies scattered. Snake on its side and not shaped right.

When I said to give it to me, they said he didn't want it and was just going to let it go. This is in Wisconsin mind you, so I explained to them the basic care/needs and why that would be instant death to her..

They gave me the snake. I took her to the closest pet store, and learned the owner of the pet store actually was the breeder.. he.. was.. PIIIISSSEEEDDD

The snake (Prometheus, look it up and you will get why I named her that) was so dehydrated she was heart shaped, with how sunken in her stomach was. I had to force feed her 4 times before she took on her own..

Now she is my little garbage disposal.

I still have both of these snakes, I will be 28 in June.. so both of them have been "my Babies" for nearly 10 years.

That's how I got started ^_^ Sorry for the book LOL

 

[artist]

i have always loved anything that moved!!!-literally anything!!!
it started when i was 6 and my brother and i would go to louisiana and catch anoles, garter snakes, rabbits, frogs and skinks, (and we would go next door where there was a deer farm and chickens and dogs all over the place!!) we would sit for hours as still as we could and wait for the anoles to shoot past us, and we were pretty good at catching them too! we, of course would keep them for that night and then let them go the next day. since then, i have had RES, box turtles, bull frogs, red eyed tree frogs, newts, salamanders, rabbits, ducks, leapord geckos, fish, and i have hatched a lot of frog eggs!!
from then on, i have become more and more interested about reptiles, (mainly snakes) and i have been reading many books and learning more and more about them, and i am trying to get my parents to let me get a pair of hogg island boas to try to start a breeding (conservation) program with our zoo. the only problem is, my parents hate snakes, been trying to convince them for awhile now and they wont budge. they think that it will come and eat me in the night, or eat our dogs (which are pretty big) and they keep saying that they are evil!!! oh, and my dad was about to kill a western terrestial garter snake in our backyard because he thought that it was venemous-(i think he said a rattle snake??)-i was laughing so hard when i went outside and saw my dad with an ax standing over a tiny garter snake!! BTW he didnt kill it once i convinced him it was a garter!
well, that was about 8 years ago, and i still love reptiles, hiking trails, and being outdoors, but no one else that i know like reptiles, and there are never any expos where i live-(but there is one coming in september!!!!!) but i am happy with reading books and expanding my knowledge of these great creatures!
hope that wasnt too long!

 

[waltah!]

I'll try to keep this short.....For as long as I can remember I have always had a soft spot for reptiles. My Mother would have NO part in me keeping any. She has a big time fear of all things snakey. I grew up in a small town in Delaware and somehow when someone found a snake in their house our phone would ring. I would then ride my bike to their house and remove the snake and place it in a more suitable environment. I volunteered at a local nature center and took care of their reptiles as well as handled them throughout the school presentations and visits that we did. It was my way of having them in my life without being able to keep any of my own.
I moved out when I was 18 and one of the first things I did was get an Iguana. I later donated that Iguana to the same nature center when my new (ex) wife did not want him because he was large and kind of aggressive. Next I got a pair of Beardies which she loved and I could keep. Long story short after ditching the wife I got my first bp. That was it for me! I've kept boas, pythons and assorted lizards since. I currently keep a bunch of bp's, an ATB, a few corns and my newest is a Black Milk...along with some leos and a Crested...oh, and my BTS This is my first year breeding and I am expecting my first eggs in about 3 weeks or so.
Yeah, that was longer than intended.

 

[MDC_Ophiuchus]

I had always loved animals, but reptiles are what really fascinated me as a kid. We had always come across lizards and turtles around our home and neighborhood, but nothing was ever kept.

For years, my parents refused to get me a snake and claimed I wouldn't be able to own one until I had moved out of their house.
------------------
When I was 9, my parents bought me a baby green iguana for Christmas, stating this was as close to a snake as I would ever get in their home. I didn't really care at that point; any exotic reptile was welcome! [to my parent's credit as well as that of the staff at our LPS where I ended up working years later, my green iguana was fairly well-equipped with all the necessary equipment, including a 29-gal tank and all required lighting/heating.]

Anyway, I had "Slickster" the iguana for about a year and a half, until regrettably, a friend of my sister's inadvertently let him go outside. Of course, it was impossible to retrieve him from the forest behind our house. Oh well...good-bye Slickster.
--------------

In February of '93 (I was 11), I spent the night over at a friend's house. This friend, coincidentally had a pet ball python, whom held my interest almost the entire time I was there. He and his parents informed me all about owning a ball python, and how big they get, etc etc. I was hooked and determined more than ever to convince my parents to get me one.

A week later, we had a family meeting to discuss keeping one of our dog's puppies, which she gave birth to weeks earlier. The plan was to write my dad a letter explaining why we should do this. While all my other siblings wrote a few sentences on why we should have another dog in the house, I wrote a full-page essay (front and back) discussing all the finer points of owning a snake.

The next day, my father, keeping my letter in mind, decided to visit the rat-shack pet store next to his office. There happened to be a large adult BP for sale. Long story short, we ended up buying the snake the next day! I finally had a pet snake, whom I called Jasmine. [It was later discovered that "Jasmine" was a "Jasper."]
---------------

I still have Jasper today. Given his size and estimated age when I acquired him, I'm guessing he is in the vincinity of 20 yrs old. I don't plan to get rid of him ever.
--------

But yeah....that's my story. I later got a job at the big LPS in our town, and have been working there off and on ever since. Needless to say, working at a petstore can help or hurt your addiction to this hobby, depending on which perspective you take. I had very many different pets over the past decade.

 

[AvandisFifth187]

I've always been catching critters in the woods by my neighborhood for years. Tadpoles, american toads, spring peepers, different types of treefrogs and garter snakes, minnows, crawfish, etc... Eventually my brother got some anoles from the pet store, so I got a leopard gecko (sibling rivalry). He was unhealthy when I first got him but soon nursed him back to health.


Later on, my brothers friend, Steve, brought me a savanah monitor that had had both legs broken and its tailed broken in 3 places because it was in a tank with another male at the pet store. I managed to take care of it until it walked on its own and could eat on its own, but it died soon after. From there I started doing as much research as is humanly possible on care of and keeping of herps.

Now I'm keeping and breeding leos, plan on getting many other herps when I get the room situated, and plan on become a veterinarian (specialized in herpotological veterinary, of course).