I have just began a reptile business. I am currently selling reptiles from my farm. I am disgusted by the local pet stores and I am trying to offer both healthy and unusual reptiles. I don't crowd my animals, they are fed appropriate food with vitamins and calcium, and they are cleaned as needed even if it is every day (messy tortoises!). I think it is difficult for large stores to do things right and make a good profit. It is also hard to compete with the people at reptile shows who sell sick imports at wholesale prices. SOmeone was selling sich baby ball pythons for $12.50, so of course no one would even look at my healthy, well-fed ones. Sadly I have to buy fish from petsmart because they have the best warrenty (14 days to die!). The Aquarium center in Maryland is one of the few places that shows that you can be large and still keep animals properly.

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