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looking for info on 05 ch baby balls from tony hurt

R

RhinoViper1

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I was just wanting to know if any one bought any ch female ball pythons from TONY HURT @ SNAKE EVOLUTIONS. If so what kind of shape where they in? So if you bought a large lot from him please let me know how they looked. I bought a 160 animals from him and i have 90 of them now. I know that they are captive hatched but that seems to be a lot to die. I got a bunch of dehydrated and regurgitating animals.
Just wanted to know if any one else has had same problem.

Wayne Alford
 
Wayne,

A while ago I bought a few babies from Tony. Great animals and in top notch health.

Regards.
 
Have you contacted him about this?

If not, I would highly suggest you do so.
 
yes,he told me that he couldnt be responable for them because i have had them since 6/6/05. but they are dying any where from 2-5 at a time since i have had them,even had my buddy to send him some meds because he was having the same problems.

Wayne Alford
 
Wayne,

I am sorry to hear you have lost some babies. It is always a tragedy when any animal perishes. One thing I know Tony and he sells great animals. As for Tony being responsible for the animals that have perished in your care, depending on what his TOS are he really should not be held responsible. After this long of a period it is really out of his control. Purchasing c.h. babies late in the season sometimes yields a higher mortality rate rather than earlier in the season. Tony gets babies in from importers much as most of the other re-sellers of c.h. babies do. They get the animals in, check them over for any obvious signs of problems, offer then water, some will offer food depending on how long they have the animals and then ship them off to the end owners. I personally feel that in this situation it is more than likely just bad luck on having the animals perish. It sometimes happens. One year we imported direct from Togo over 1000 babies. We had a really high mortality rate in some of the shipments. Hell, one of the shipments we got in was a 400 animal shipment and we ended up losing all but a handful of the babies. This was a shipment late in the season and more than likely the exporter had the babies all housed together with no water or proper care. There was no way to know as they all arrived looking great and it was suspected that the animals perished due to their kidneys failing from dehydration prior to arriving into the US for me. Again I am sorry that the animals perished but it just appears to be bad luck.
 
Hey Wayne, sorry to hear about your loss. I purchased 150 females from Tony this year and when i recieved them they were all very plump and healthy and i could tell they were hydrated prior to shipping. I had 7 regurgers, but when i downsized the meals to mouse fuzzies they held it down and are doing fine now. I did lose a few, but i think that comes with the territory with those guys, overall i was very pleased with the animals. Most fed the first 3 days, i still have a couple picky ones, but that is just par for the course with them. I felt like i was treated more than fair on my babies, i would do business with Tony again, he always kept me informed on the status of my shipments. Good luck on the rest of your little ones.

George
 
Wayne

I'm having the same prob myself. I picked up a 25 lot from Tony and I'm down to 9 now. It hasn't mattered how much water has been offered they just shrivel up and die. I've been attempting to run meds thru them but so far only 4-5 have kept the meds down. The ones that have are lookin good so far but in my case as well as yours I have to suck up the loss .

I know he took in 2 seperate shipments and I'm thinking the 2nd shipment probably had the worst of the bunch. Othr than that not much else I could add to help you out. The animals dying isn't any fault of Tony for sure , its almost always a gamble when dealing with ch.
 
I have bought several snakes from Tony, ch baby females and high dollar snakes. They have all come to me in very good health. I will continue to do business with him.Thanks Tony
David
 
Budgeting time for cleaning babies.

The only secret to maintain healthy, baby ball pythons is first of all keep them in separate containers. Second, maintain the right temperature and moisture. Too little or too much temperature and regurgitations are likely. Too little moisture = shedding trouble, too much moisture = increased risk of blister disease. But most important of all immaculate cleanliness, both of the substrate, and of the drinking water (if not: blister disease and/or mouth rot). It takes time to accomplish all this. If everything is at hand (disposable towels for substrate, and clean water at hand) it takes me approximately 1.5 minutes per animal every other day. That is roughly 3 in 5 minutes, 36 per hour or close to 3 hours non stop for 150 babies.

Regards.
 
I cannot agree with the Boidsmith more!. Back in 1999 I started single housing Ch babies as soon as I got them and I immediately cut my losses by 99%. I have tried a few dealers animals and I will admit that quality vaires with the dealer, when the animals came in, april vs may vs june, and how long they sit at the dealers. I have dealt with the same person since moving to Florida and I always get the same time of year shipment and out of 1000+ balls I have lost less than 40 in 4 years!

In my opinion the most important steps are:
1. make sure you are getting fresh balls, and rehydrate them immediately
2. individual housing
3. paper towel, newspaper or some substrate that can be thrown out a couple of times a week.
4. give them 3-4 days minimum to settled down before you maul them by sexing, photographing, and looking for that black backed-clear belly- blushing-spot lipped-majestic headed-ringer-granite banded that you so sorely needed for your het clear project. Just let them sit there unbothered for 3-4 days to calm down.
5. Do not "shotgun" treat them for parasites until then are well hydrated and you have an idea of what your group is harboring.


Balls are small but they are still pythons, give them a chance to settle in and they will be as tough, durable, and feed as readily as burms or any other "big"python, you just have to baby them that first week or so.


As far as Tony's quality I have heard a lot of people that have had good transactions and I have known a few people that have had some bad experiences. I think that anyone who sells enough animals will eventually have something problematic happen. Most people are starting to realize that-but nowadays most of us are judged on how we handle a problem situation. I would base your judgement of tony on his after the sale care of his customer becuase if you are moving a few thousand balls I am sure he cannot remember every little one innately.

Thanks
ben cole
 
they have been in separated since day one.the temp is 87 in the day 80 at night in the hot spot. i have etb and gtp's all 150 of my snakes are separated.tony knew about it i stayed in touch with, I'm not on here to put him down i just wanted to know if any one else has had the same problem. yes it was the way he handled the problem he said it was mine.
Wayne Alford
 
Wayne,

It can be frustrating when you know you do things right and the animals die on you anyways. The fact that you have even a temperature gradient speaks volumes about how well you maintain them. Do you have a picture of your whole set-up? Who knows, maybe I can “borrow” some ideas from you if you don't mind ;) .

Regards,
 
bad balls

I got 100 lot after a long wait and I have lost at least half if not more he even said he sent 25 hand pick that he was saving for himself just to make me happy I personally wont buy from him again. Maybe his c/b stuff is better I cant say as these were the farmed balls good luck and yes I had to flaygel everyone of them. Tyrone Young [email protected]
 
he told me the same thing i sent him my check in April and i got my first shippment on 6/6/05. he kept telling me that he had a few small orders to fill. he ask me if he could get some of the small orders out so he could get them off of his back.in return he would send me all hand picked nice healthy animals.i might would say that half of them are healthy.he sent me a e-mail that said he lost 20 out of 700.i find that hard to believe. imy self will not buy from him again.
Wayne Alford
 
I purchased a lot of 15 females and 40 males from him last month. All of my females are doing great. I do have one picky eater but nothing horrible. However, out of my males, I have lost 15 now. They have died randomly since the 2nd day we had them. We had ones that were fine one day, then the next they were shriveled up and dead. We've had a couple regurgate and one died later that day. We've had to assist feed many of them and for the most part all of our males are a pain in the butt. The females are a dream compared to these guys. We've had them all separated out since the night we unpacked them and we still haven't figured out why they are dying.

We haven't contacted Tony since shortly after we got the shipment. I didn't feel the need because I knew there was nothing he could do about them dying.

It's good to know that I'm not the only person having trouble with them.
 
RhinoViper1 said:
he told me the same thing i sent him my check in April and i got my first shippment on 6/6/05. he kept telling me that he had a few small orders to fill. he ask me if he could get some of the small orders out so he could get them off of his back.
Click to expand...

Believe it or not the shippments that did come in this year were extremly late in arriving. That is not Tony's fault, just a little thing over in Africa called a Civil War that's going on.
 
After all the testimonials it is obvious that something’s going on with those animals. Whatever it is it seems to be happening after they have been in the possession of the buyer for some time. In my opinion there is no way Tony could know this was going to happen, unless of course they are massively dying on him too. It seems it might be what Rob stated early as a “bad shipment”. It could have happened to Tony or to anyone. Had it happened to me when buying from Tony or anyone else I would also doubt if I wanted to buy again. What could Tony do if anything at this point though? Maybe it's the first time he was buying from that exporter. If that is the case maybe it's time for him to try a different one. It's hard for me to believe (I'm not saying it's not possible) that some years shipments suffer great casualties whereas other years there are no problems. There is something that has to explain it. In my opinion though Tony should determine if this was one of those odd things happen to a shipper or if it has happened in the past. It would be sad to continue to support an exporter that's not doing things right on his end. Some wholesalers even state in their ads that people should buy the "early" shipments because there are less casualties than later in the season. But they continue to bring them in anyways, taking the risk and increasing the overall death toll of the ball pythons that are imported yearly. It's maybe easy for me to say this as I don't live of importing baby balls, but if they know those late shipments are more prone to die, isn't it about time to stop bringing them in? After all ball pythons are not "disposable" items just because they are cheap. :(

Regards.
 
The later shipments are usually ones that have either been held without water or given water in africa. If not given water then its usually a long painful death from renal failure , if given water then its generally parasites , amoebic infestation etc. , Generally , depending on the size of the baby , it can go fairly quick or over a period of weeks. If Tony is sending them out fairly quickly after he gets them in then they can look healthy but slowly take a turn for the worst . Its pretty much a gamble depending on when they come in and how they were treated in africa to start. Having them get shipped around after landing in the states don't help any. Unfortunately some folks buy them by the hundreds and don't keep them long enough to get them feeding and watch for bad ones , they go right back out on preorders.
 
The later shipments are usually ones that have either been held without water or given water in africa. If not given water then its usually a long painful death from renal failure , if given water then its generally parasites , amoebic infestation etc. , Generally , depending on the size of the baby , it can go fairly quick or over a period of weeks. If Tony is sending them out fairly quickly after he gets them in then they can look healthy but slowly take a turn for the worst . Its pretty much a gamble depending on when they come in and how they were treated in africa to start. Having them get shipped around after landing in the states don't help any. Unfortunately some folks buy them by the hundreds and don't keep them long enough to get them feeding and watch for bad ones , they go right back out on preorders.
Click to expand...

Bryon,

Thanks for your explanation. It makes sense, almost a "damned if you do damned if you don't" type of thing. You don't give water: dehydration and renal failure. On the other giving water in certain parts of Africa can be almost a death sentence for those baby balls.

Regards.
 
Time in interject

Wayne bought 160 females. One month later he said a friend came over and sexes his animals and 30 were males. I agreed to send him 30 more established females. At this point the only females I had were NICE females that I was holding back for myself.

I sent Wayne 9 CB females and 18 ch well established females [he agreed to take a few less because I was sending 9 cb pastel siblings females].
A few days later I received the 30 males from Wayne that just happened to be Females in VERY poor shape. I lost about 6 of those animals the rest are close to 200 grams now and doing great.

I was upset about being mislead but I didn't say anything. I don't think Wayne is a dishonest man. I thought he just made a Mistake.

One month later I get a email saying he had lost a substantial amount of animals. At this point I was not willing to provide any more compensation towards Wayne after he had already sent me 30 female by mistake.

I really wish Wayne had better success with his CH animals but I cant be responsible for the babies after two months.


All my CH came from either Jeff Doth, BHB, Amir on Jon at Next World. If I lose a few animals Im not calling them to ask for a refund. That is why CH female are 10.00 and CB females are up to 100.00 for babies.


As far as CH animals go. I can not offer the same guarantee as my captive born animals. Especially two months after shipment. If you loss more than 10 percent in the first week thats one thing but I don't know anyone that guarantees ch for more a week much less two months.



Snake Evolutions has been fortunate in our breeding efforts and we work very hard to provide only the best quality animals and great customer service. I have not or will not miss lead or sell anyone an animal I would not buy myself. I should not have to defend myself on this situation but here I am.

A final note to everyone. As important as it is to find a good breeder to buy your animals from it is equally as important as a seller to have good buyers. As a buyer, if I have a problem with an animal I notify the seller right away and keep them up to date on the animals progress. "Bad Buyers" can make anyones business a headache.

I would like to thank everyone for their support and knowledge of the business. Like many of you I love breeding reptiles and the market place we have created is a blessing. We have to protect it at all cost.

Tony Hurt
Snake Evolutions
 
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