Brian,
I'm sorry, but I doubt there are many five year old children who could ever adequately serve as the primary care giver of ANY reptile. Let me explain, in part, why I see it that way.
Most five-year-olds have no real concept of the passage of time. Oh, they know about the basic ideas, but to a kindergardener, two days may as well be two months! They have no real sense of responsibility for anyone, not even themselves. They are usually incapable of (or at the very least, extremely hindered in) doing anything of an abstract nature, which would make taking appropriate meal size for a growing snake into account nearly impossible. There are countless other aspects of herping that primary care givers MUST be able to do, which five-year-olds are incapable of doing, but those alone show how silly the assertion is for one to say he has experience as a herper from age 5!
Quite frankly, just having herps in the house while one is growing up IS NOT having experience with them. No one really believes it is, except those trying to pad their reptile resume. So, I have to disagree with you on your assertion that a 16 yr. old who has had herps since age 5 has eleven years experience. You're entitled to your opinion, but let me ask you this:
A 16 year old gets his drivers license and drives the car home. Now, he's been in the car with mom and dad his whole life. He's watched how they do things for as long as he can remember, and he's played at driving for practice for several years. Every once in a while, Dad even let him steer the car up the driveway from his lap when the kid was five. So . . .how much experience driving does this kid actually have?
If you can answer that one "Eleven years," you'll be consistant, but I don't think you will answer it that way. Obviously, the kid in the example has only a few hours experience as an actual driver. The rest was just playing around . . .just like the five year old herper is just playing around with the animals in his parents' house, not gaining real experience.
