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Why did you choose reptiles?

Lucille

Lucille

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I am curious as to why y'all like reptiles? There are many other hobbies and pets, and most are more 'mainstream' and thus easier sometimes.
Certainly there is no chance of being bitten if one chooses philately, and keeping parakeets will never land you in as much trouble as some of the hots.
Reptile keeping is many times demanding, expensive and time consuming. So why did you do it?
 
Here's my story, a little over 11 years ago, probably closer to 12 or so. I was scared of big snakes, and wasnt really into the small one's either. Lizards where cool to me back then, but thats about it. Also i didnt even own my OWN lizard back then, my brother had 2 iggy's and i just held them when he had them out. Well right around that 11 yr mark my GF at the time was with me at the local pet store, and they had a 6' albino burm. She was holding it around her neck and i basically stayed away from her for the first 10 minutes or so. Then she asked me to come over, reluctantly i walked over near her but would be damned if i was holding that snake. Eventually, she got me to hold her. I've been hooked ever since.
 
Why did you choose reptiles?
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I didn't - they chose me.

Many years ago, a small corn snake became stuck in a glue trap at the place that I worked. Although I had never been afraid of snakes, I was never overly interested in them either.

Well, I took in this trapped corn and proceeded to nurse it back to health. In the course of learning it's needs and restoring it's health - I became hooked.

There have been hundreds more since then, but you always remember your first.
 
I was one of the kids who knew most of the dinosaurs by name so it was natural for me to go from extinct reptiles to living ones. I first had a few lizards because my mom refused to allow me to have mice in the freezer, but eventually, I managed to persuade her about a year ago and I got my first corn. Since that first corn, I got garters, kings, more corns, and milks. When I get my own house, I plan on doing research with snake venom, so I'll have loads of hots, and a burmese or two on the side.
 
what can i say.....they lured me in...theyre so fascinating...all the different colors and patterns....and call me crazy...but the ones I handle are so affectionate...
 
Clay Davenport said:
I did it for the money, and the women.
Love all the snake groupies who help me spend the cash.
:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
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:iagree: :iagree: :iagree:


Too funny Clay :rofl:


Thought it would be cool to tell people I am a gun dealer and a snake breeder. :bolt01:
Imagine the reactions I get from that. :rofl:

No really i love them, have had them for about 20 years now.
Have had snakes, lizards, spiders and lots of pet rodents.
 
Welll. . .

It all got started about 9 months ago when my hubby (who hated snakes at that point) begrudingly held the snake of a friend of ours. By the end of that weekend we owned our first ball purchased from Alan Bosch.
It moved on from there, picking up two red-tails, being giving an adult 1.0 ball and my kids getting bearded dragons for Christmas (my mom owns beardies).
We went to our first reptile show and saw a paradox albino, which my hubby was in AWE of. When I saw that a 1.0 het sired by the paradox was available, I figured that would be the only way to get one for my hubby would be to breed one (PLEASE let it be genetic!), so I snagged him and we made the decision to get into breeding.
We are now working on our "reptile room" and building our breeding base, along with coming up with our company name - TGX (The Grand Experiment)Reptiles. Alan has been awesome in teaching us a lot, so hopefully next spring we'll be watching hatching eggs and seeing how our first efforts come out! :thumbsup:

Helen Breen
TGX Reptiles
Charleston, SC
www.tgxreptiles.com (under construction)
 
The why as some others and more

I didn't pick them , they picked me. As a young fella and my dad being a traveling salesman, in the summer months I and one of my brothers had to go with him on the road. To save money we would camp out on the return trip at either state parks or state camp grounds and I would take hikes and yikes, there was snakes and lizard encounters all the time. I also I had this inane fascination with dinosaurs. I grew up with all of those somewhat grade B dinosaur movies of the 50ties and 60ties. I was always " woodsy " so being in the right place at the right time made me come into contact with herps and then it became where I never had to try very hard to find them. This next note would of maybe turn some young reptile enthusiast off but, at the tender age of 16 I wanted to seek venomous so the easiest found hot in my area was the broad banded copperhead. I found a den of them and literately grabbed several using what I thought was a safe way of me not getting tagged. I was wrong ! While I didn't need the anti-serum. the hospital stay was no fun. This whole single episode propelled me deeper into respect of reptiles and figuring my life from there on would constitute me having reptiles my whole life. That was 41 years ago on the bite and I'm still keeping hots as other species of herps.
 
Allergies.

I'm deathly allergic to cats, and when my fiance and I moved in together, we had no choice but to find a new home for his two beautiful pudders. We both wanted another pet to spoil, and hey, geckos are good and hypoallergenic! Our first African fat tail gecko, Jaxey (combination of the cats' names, Jaxon and Smokey, in tribute :)) started off the snowball effect.

Our critter list now consists of:
40+ geckos (I've officially lost count with all the hatchlings); three cornsnakes (about to get two more); one RES turtle; a colony of feeder-breeder mice; two gerbils (supposed to be feeder-breeders, didn't work out); my mini Rex velveteen rabbit; and of course, to top it all off, our 2 1/2 year old son LOL!

"Hi, my name is Dee, and I'm addicted to reptiles..." :crazy03:
 
Well, for me it was also a combination of a dino obsession (I wanted to be a paleontologist when I was 5) and severe allergies to anything with fur. My mom ran a wildlife rehab out of our house while I was growing up, and the only critters I could go near were the herps and the birds. The fur allergies eventually tapered off, but I still kept the herps.
 
Why do I have herps?..........

I have so many scaled friends today because I am so enthusiastically allergic to animals with fur. So it seems I am not alone. That is my cop out answer to the truth of it all. I was so impelled to the whole herp thing when I was about 5 years old. I used to catch milk and garter snakes in the woods behind my house. Yeah garters were cool but the milksnake put me over the edge.... all the rings of black, white and RED! I could not imagine what other colors these beautiful serpents came in. Then the day I caught my first neon green garter snake, ooh man watch out. That summer was very memorable. My dad and I field herped those three snakes and kept the two garters. Very interesting to watch them all day in their lil 10 gallon tank. My dad taught me about the husbandry and feeding needs. He let me help in the care of them. Then at the end of the summer when school started up again, we let them go back into the woods behind the house. I was very impressionable at that age and it stayed with me for over 20 years now. I have always had a snake within arms reach since.
 
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