Reptile & Amphibian Forums

After all this mess this past week on the forum and the name calling, bickering and bantering on the subject; being called Greedy, Selfish, A Mafia, a monopoly,a disease spreader,a man with no ethics....and on and on. I have decided that I will be happy to relinquish my colony for someone else to be "THE BAD GUY".
I have been figuring that I have about 60K in my colony including aquisition, Food time building caging research, paperwork, etc.....
Am I being greedy when we did all the work to get these to market??? You decide.
If you want the responsibility. You take over the colony.
I will buy all the males I need back for 3.00 ea . I have no problem paying 3.00 and not maintaining the work load, the paperwork, the headaches and so on... Otherwise just please stop this rediculous thread going farther and farther out of control and try to be happy that someone took the time patience and financial risk to bring them to the market at a higher price than normal rodents but not an unreasonable price. If you need them just get them and be happy they are available...
Or Just do the tried and true method of acclimation of wild caught Balls. It has been working for years. I have NEVER lost an import ball from Starvation even before the AR's because I know to leave them alone, Make them comfortable and above allbe patient....
For those of you that like the AR's being offered for sale, Thanks for your comments. For those of you that dont. I am sorry, Please look the other way. and let those that feel they need them have a happy feeding day.
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Michael Cole
Ballroom Pythons South
863-439-3015
WWW.BallroomPythonsSouth.com

This is my post to Justin and it can goto you too!

"Ill tell you right now, I owe you more than you can imagine right now. Because of YOU 7 of the 12 non-eating imports I have are eating after 7months. I have spent hours force feeding, medicating, sending out fecal samples, spending hours watching them with gerbils, mice, rats......all to no avail. My time is worth money and yes they are worth every penny and more.

I get back from the show and in one day my whole world has changed. I slept better saturday night than i have in months because of you! Dont think for one minute I dont respect the time and effort you have put in as well. I have put post after post telling my story with them and telling people where I got them. Ive had post deleted here too giving props to you and your business. You deserve it and everyone that emails me I let them know what I think about em and where to get them.

Ill just be glad when they are more abundent in the trade. People need these animals and thats the bottom line.

Good luck to you and your business and thank you!"

I think most people are just used to being able to go to petco and purchase a couple of rats and would like to breed their own feeders, and are stressing over the fact that no one is willing to sell a female. Can't really blame you at this time. They are just frustrated with the lack of choice. I am sure everyone that has a need is most happy that you are out there, and honestly, the prices aren't much higher than the general public would get a a pet store. Thank you and feedersplus for letting us know you are out there, and don't take a couple of people's comments personally - business is business, and people sometimes have a problem remembering that.

also, what happened to the african rats on your site? I didn't see them the last time I went! Did you actually sell them?

Thanks, and best wishes

thanks for posting that ... i didnt take the time to consider all the paper work it must take to aquire them and im sure the majority here didnt either. i'm sure you saw what i posted on the forum about them which i felt was fairly nuetral but any ways good luck with them, and controlling the market does seem logical because if they become as readily available as standard mice and rats what would happen? would we have an epidemic of picky corns kings chondros etc? lol
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we're here because a hobby became an obsession... if only every one had this much fun

some days your the dog, some days your the hydrant...don't know who started this saying but it's the truth

Hey Michael...don't ya just love how the people you try to help can turn you on in such a way? Holy crap, god forbid somebody does something positive for the industry and the snakes. Keep the afrats, just learn a lesson here and never share news or ideas with the general public...just have a few close friends in on it...let the a-holes be ignorant.

btw, the biak I got at the tampa show is doing great
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Female Ball possibly gravid from 66% poss het clown
Trio black rat snakes placed together 12/14/05

Chris LaViola
CMLReptiles
Website under construction
CMLReptiles@aol.com

Yeah, OK!

Personally I dont' see a problem with an adult rat or young adult rat costing $3. The prices up where I am are actually about that or more for a normal rat. Heck, the local petstores charge $2.99 CDN for a single pinky mouse and $5.99 for a small adult rat. Even bulk is not always great (either poor quality rodents, looking half starved, filthy, mashed together so its almost impossible to separate without loosing limbs and tails and alot of cursing and chizelling)

I can deffinitely understand how frustrating it is for you to go to all this trouble to make available a rodent from areas where ball pythons occur natually and is a common food source for them. I did a bit of research online over the last couple days to see just what these African rats are all about. Now I can see why you are keeping the females. It's not so others can start breeding and selling them and cut into your customer base, but because these rats don't have very large litters, averaging about 3-4 babies. When compared to the average of 8-10 for domestic rats, you need two female African rats to put out the equivalant yield of one domestic rat. Also the gestation is longer, up to 30 days with average about 27 days. domestic rats gestation is 19-22 days. African rats also are not very social, pretty much limited to mating pairs.

So knowing the care requirements, it makes perfect sense to keep all the females and sell excess males. You don't need as many males to breed alot of females, just a matter of moving male from cage to cage.
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PHLdyPayne