Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Done this on other forums and always seems popular. Take a couple of minutes to tell everyone about yourself, include a pic if you have it.

I'm Dave Colling, living in San Jose California. I'm sure like most of us, been catching things ever since I figured out how to. My mom was NOT OK with keeping anything so didn't get to have anything long term until I was on my own. I'm now 46 and been keeping herps for 20 plus years. Major thanks to my wife who while not exactly thrilled with them and not her hobby, has no problem with me keeping them. (Just don't let anything escape)

I've been breeding Brazilian Rainbow boas for the last decade and now adding many boa constrictors to the breeding plan/collection.

Have also taken up woodworking and that has fit in well with keeping snakes, have made many cages for myself and friends over the years.

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Thanks,

Dave Colling

www.rainbows-r-us-reptiles.com

0.1 Wife (WC and still very fiesty)
0.2 kids (CBB, a big part of our selective breeding program)

LOL, to many snakes to list, last count:
21.29 BRB
19.19 BCI
And those are only the breeders

lots.lots.lots feeder mice and rats

>>Done this on other forums and always seems popular. Take a couple of minutes to tell everyone about yourself, include a pic if you have it.

My post about the reflection didn't spark this thread, did it? Anyways I'll play along, hard finding a pic it took nearly all night, LOL.

I'm Jeremy Payne, I live in Minot North Dakota, origionally I come from southern California but the Air Force has a habit of moving people to were they need them not visa versa. My mom wasn't Ok with reptiles in the home either, I kept a few specimen's in outdoor cages as a child most escaped wich was probably a good thing.

I myself am 26 going on 40, and have been active in the reptile community for 15 yrs but the last few have been the most visable. I still own one of the first reptiles I ever purchased, a Green Iguana that is now about 14 or so. I was also thankful enough, that I had Reptiles when I met my wife so she was able to flee along time ago, not that she did.

I began breeding Red tailed Boa's 3 years ago and recieved my first litter this past week. I also dabbled in breeding bearded dragons and have recieved 2 successful clutches first time around.

I agree with Dave, woodworking and Herp's go hand in hand so I am steadily building my tool collection and have enjoyed that aspect of the hobby as well. It was my only enjoyment till a week ago!

I love the hobby because it exposes me to a variety of enviroments and challenges and gives you the oppurtunity to meet some awesome people. This forum play's a huge part in the hobby despite some controversial topics and opinions.

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Jeremy

"I am become death, the destroyer of worlds" July 16, 1945 Robert Oppenheimer

1.1 Double Het "Sharp" Snow RTB's
1.1 Hypomelenistic RTB's
0.0.16 Hypomelenistic RTB's
0.2 Pastel Hypo RTB's
1.0 Double Het Stripe Albino RTB's
0.1 Suriname RTB
0.0.15 Normal Suriname Hybrid's
0.1 Anerthrystic RTB
3.6.17 Red Bearded Dragons
1.1 Rhinoceros Iguana's
1.0 Green Iguana
1.0 Ball Python
1.1 Cream Golden Retrieviers
1.0 Pomeriaian
0.3 Catus Terribilis
0.1 Spouse
1.0 Child

Ahh, why not.

My name is Michael Sanders and I'm an addict. Oh, wait, wrong meeting, or is it? Ha!

I'm 45yrs old. Spent my first 30 yrs in Apopka, FL (central FL) and the last 15 in Murphy, NC. My mom wasn't too fond of snakes but my parents let me keep 'em. After several years of mostly corns, yellow rats, and hognoses I got my first venomous when I was 15. It was a 5-ft EDB.

I've just ventured into lizards (monitors & beardies) within the last year and like them as well as snakes, even though they require more care time.

My wife doesn't mind the reptiles, in fact, she likes most of 'em. After a few years of not having kept anything I was pulled back in by my 8-yr old son's passion for them. He's a chip of the ol' block. He can take a tag and still continue to work the snake, earning its trust.

I have to say that during my young heydays, William "Bill" Haast was pretty much my idol, and I'll always admire him the most.

Here's a photo taken of me during cage cleaning duties. (Sorry for the dirty clothes)

Here's a blast from the past. This was taken around the mid-70s. Can you spot a no-no or two, three,...? LOL! There weren't any Internet forums back then and good husbandry literature was hard to find.

Ya'll take care!
HH
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It is said that 1 out of every 4 people are mentally unbalanced. Think of your 3 closest friends, if they're normal, then it's you.

My name is Rich and I’m 40. Up until 6months ago I was from Campbell, CA (next door to San Jose) and I now live in Palo Alto, CA. As a kid living in newly developed San Jose and Half Moon Bay, I caught lots of lizards and snakes. They all got loose one day (damn little sisters) and I came home to Tupperware containers stacked with book and mom sitting on the kitchen table. No more reptiles until I turned 18 and moved out!

I got my first set of the pinkest boas you have ever seen from East Bay Vivarium, way before they moved after the Big earthquake. Unfortunately my future X wife made me get rid of them before we got married. My female gave birth two weeks later!

Almost 15 years later with the good wife and now kids I have a few snakes. It started five years ago with my 4 year old asking me if she could keep lizards she caught, she got 7 blue bellies and 2 alligator lizards….that’s my girl! We soon got a Corn, then a Ball Python. I ordered an Irian Jaya Carpet Python and got a Jungle Carpet from Doug Price. Bought my brother a JCP (for breeding purposes). I found another ball that someone threw in a duster near Pets & More; you think they could have taken the time to give it to the pet shop! I got a Blood Python at the last SJ reptile show and got an Argentine/ Columbian cross from Citrus Heights, CA. I think I have an addiction! My next snake will probably something special, probably a high end Boa, we’ll see.

I’m at work so I don’t have any pictures with me and snakes, just this mug shot.

I'm Joe Adams, 24 soon to be 25. Currently live in New Oxford PA (South Central, near Gettysburg), but grew up in Westminster MD. Sorry no pics, I'll try to look for some later. I have been keeping herps for around 10 years or so, but inverts are what got me into reptiles. Inverts, mainly T's and scorps have been a pasion since I was 13 when I got my first rose hair, after about a few hundred inverts I got into snakes. Luckily parents didn't mind at all, neither does the wife, if anything she is a bad influence, buying more then I do.

I currently work as a swing keeper at Cotoctin Wildlife Preserve and Zoo in Thurmont, MD. Swing keeper means I do mulitable departments. 3 days a week I work in the herp department, with a collection of over 450, 85% hot. Other days a week I run different routines from primates to ungulates. But am working to do herps full time.

My current collection is medium size, around 50 or so. Mainly colubrids and smaller boids and pythons with a few amphibs, turtles and torts and a few geckos and lizards.

now the invert collection on the other hand....300

Hello there Im Tanya of Nrthn Calif here near NV. This picture was just taken outside with Flicka, my 3yr old hogg island/ghost X. She is one of 6 total snakes i have all being boas. I enjoy these types of snakes and am now addicted. I live the single life with no human kids, so animals are all i have.
Anyway here is Flicka and I:

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1.4 various boas(Flicka,Felony,Nova,Alias,Alibi)
0.1 BRB Abalone; ABBI
1.0 Rott X (OSO)
2.0 cats (Simba, Morris)
fish & feeders
~:~~~~~~~ ~:~~~~~~~~

My name is Matt Campbell. I'll be 38 next month and I've been keeping herps off an on for probably about the last 28 years or so. My dad always caught fence lizards on our family trips to Pere Marquette State Park in Illinois so I got exposure to herps early on - even before I started catching my own. I officially caught my first herp [a gravid female Eastern Garter Snake], on school grounds when I was in the 5th grade.

Since then it's just grown, and grown, and grown. I now work full time for Lincoln Park Zoo [Chicago, IL], in the Small Mammal and Reptile House. I also work occasionally as an exhibit consultant for The Wildlife Discovery Center in Lake Forest, IL, run by Rob Carmichael who some of you may know from other forums here.

My collection consists of a smattering of colubrids - African Brown House Snakes, Florida King {Brooksi], Mole King [Georgia], Trans-Pecos Rat, Taiwan Beauties, Corns [all normals - no morphs!], some boids - Ball Pythons [normals too], and a JCP, Sheltopusiks [Russian Legless Lizards], Three-toed Box Turtles, Dart frogs [auratus and tincs], Red-eyed Tree Frogs, Tiger-leg Waxy Monkey Tree Frogs, Greenhouse Frogs, and Danube Crested Newts. All told 58 animals - sheesh!

And lastly, my mug...

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Matt Campbell

"I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in." John Muir

Hey everybody! I’m Norman. I’ve been herpin’ since I was a kid. Here’s a picture of a gator wrestler. The little kid on the right in the audience is me! Ha! I guess I was thinking, “I could do that!” One of the highlights of my hobby was catching diamondbacks and moccasins and selling them to the great Bill Haast at the Miami Serpentarium (as soon as I got my drivers license!) I grew up in Ft. Lauderdale back in the sixties, where my parents managed a trailer park/ campground in what we called the “boondocks” and I use to give “nature tours” to the spring break college kids and show them gators and stuff when I was only about seven years old. They thought I was the coolest little kid- and they were right! Ha!

Here’s me in high school. Actually, I think this was illegal at the time...

And a little pygmy rattler

Here’s one of the most recent pictures of me, my wife and two kids, taken at Universal Studios just last month. All my recent pictures it looks like I’m much older than I really am, I don’t know what it is...

Just thought I’d share in the fun. If you recognize me someday, come up and say “Hi”.

I'll see if my wife took any pictures of me when I wasn't looking this past weekend when we were in Yellowstone...

I'm Chris Harper, 38 years old and I live in the beautiful Black Hills of South Dakota. Married to a wonderful woman who is very supportive of my hobby. In fact she paid for my to build a snake room in the back of her garage before we were even married.

I also got into woodworking through reptiles, although I'm not as experienced with it as Jeremy and Dave. Trying to find the time to learn, however. I was a reptile keeper at a zoo and we had a community service guy doing hours with us and who was a cabinet builder by trade. He taught me the basics and I ran with it.

I have a biology degree and have made my living doing research but gave that up to move to the Black Hills. Now working as a full-time swim coach which has been an unexpected surprise.
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Current snakes:

0.0.1 Gonyosoma oxycephala - Java locale (green)

0.2 Gonyosoma oxycephala - Malaysian locale (green)

1.2 Gonyosoma oxycephala - Java local (green)

2.2 Gonyosoma janseni - Seleyar locale (all black)

1.2 Gonyosoma janseni - Celebes locale (Black & Tan)

>although I'm not as experienced with it as Jeremy and Dave.

Chris, I've seen some of your projects and I would say your about as experianced as I, remember knowledge is experiance IMO. While your hands on work may be minimal, your knowledge base and ability to put in to use what you have learned far exceeds many. I would catagorize you as experianced.

Jeremy
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Jeremy

"I am become death, the destroyer of worlds" July 16, 1945 Robert Oppenheimer

1.1 Double Het "Sharp" Snow RTB's
1.1 Hypomelenistic RTB's
0.0.16 Hypomelenistic RTB's
0.2 Pastel Hypo RTB's
1.0 Double Het Stripe Albino RTB's
0.1 Suriname RTB
0.0.15 Normal Suriname Hybrid's
0.1 Anerthrystic RTB
3.6.17 Red Bearded Dragons
1.1 Rhinoceros Iguana's
1.0 Green Iguana
1.0 Ball Python
1.1 Cream Golden Retrieviers
1.0 Pomeriaian
0.3 Catus Terribilis
0.1 Spouse
1.0 Child

I'd agree with Jeremy, Chris always has an answer, and sometimes (OK, usually) it's a good one

Experience is twofold, having the knowledge and basic knack to figure out how to make it work and real life experience/practice. Some folks need the hands on experience to figure out how to do things, others can see it in their minds eye first, then use their to hands make it happen. Most of us are a blend of the two.
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Thanks,

Dave Colling

www.rainbows-r-us-reptiles.com

0.1 Wife (WC and still very fiesty)
0.2 kids (CBB, a big part of our selective breeding program)

LOL, to many snakes to list, last count:
21.29 BRB
19.19 BCI
And those are only the breeders

lots.lots.lots feeder mice and rats

Well, to start with, I've loved snakes and reptiles in general all my life - still remember when I was 4, and my favorite toy was a very large stuffed animal snake that I'd drag around the house. I've lived in several very herp-y places - Pensacola, Florida, San Diego, CA, and outside of Charleston, SC, so I was always finding lizards.

My first reptile pet was a green iguana late in high school, and that sparked my interest in cage building. I built a homemade cage for him out of painted mdf, plexiglass, and screening, though it was difficult to keep humid. I also built a tunnel for him connecting to a different tank, kind of hamster-tube-like. However, as I got swamped with workload in college, I found him a new home so he'd get all the time he deserved.

Later, after getting married and settled in my own home, I got the reptile bug again and my husband gave me my first snake, Ermy the ball python, for my birthday in 2003. He's such a great little snake - to this day he is my Ambassador of Snakedom. I bring him (or another of my snakes now) to work once a week, and he's so friendly that some people who were nervous around snakes now stop by and pull him out of his little travel cage themselves when they walk past my cubicle to give him a hug.

In 2004, I caught the boa bug after seeing an article in Reptiles about bci island subspecies, and purchased an adult hog island boa that spring. From there my collection has grown, and I've continued to try and find inexpensive ways to house snakes in a manner that meets their heat and humidity needs, and my needs for convenience. I just love finding everyday products that can be used with reptiles. My husband often shakes his head as I pick up strange items at the hardware store with a thoughtful look on my face.... "What are you going to use THAT for?".... heh.

So anyway, this past winter was my first attempted breeding season for two pairs of my boas. One of my boas, the hog island female I raised up to be my first boa's mate died near her due date of a non-breeding-related intestinal problem, so that was disappointing and sad to me, but my surinam female's due date is coming up very soon, so hopefully that will be a little more positive! It would give me more reasons to build more cages without my husband yelling at me too much for bringing home new additions... Though he can be just as bad as I am, he bought our GTP at a PIJAC benefit auction when we attended NARBC in '05, I had no idea he was interested in green trees until he bid! Pleasant surprise, though.

Here's a squinty picture of myself from last fall.

I love that the reptile community can be so informative and caring, and there are so many people with good ideas that they are willing to share freely with everyone else. Thanks for listening...
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Lauren Madar - OphidiaGems.com | CageMakers
1.0 BP, 1.0 Hog Is., 1.1 Hypo BCI, 1.1 Surinam BCC, 0.1 GTP