Hey Jim,
Here's my profile.
I'm 36 and have been keeping snakes for just over 20 years now. I started with garters and black ratsnakes when I was 14 and just thought herps were the coolest. For my graduation present from high school I got my first "real" snake, a female Burm named Vicki. I attended Ohio State for a short period of time and realized that although I was intelligent enough, I just wasn't ready for college. I kept Vicki for about three years, but had to sell her off due to financial problems. I actually plan to start school this fall and plan to major in a Vet Tech program.
In the past I've worked at a meat processing plant, managed a restaurant, worked for UPS for 4 years, did some night janitorial work, ran a shipping dock for a home textiles company, did landscaping, was a customer service rep for the same home textiles company which netted me trips to Chicago, NY,NY and also LA, and I am currently employed at a pet store.
I really started getting back into herps in the last 6 years or so and have been breeding snakes for the past 5 years now. I mainly concentrate on colubrids, corns, Cal, Brooksii, grey bandeds, yellow ratsnakes and a few others and have around thirty colubrids total. I really started to get into boas about 4 years ago when I rescued a femle BCI from a rescue center here in Ohio. Since then I have gotten up to 18 boas including, 1.2 Dumerils, a Hogg(a rescue if you can believe that), an Argentine, a Cay Caulker(thanks Gus!)two stripe tail BCI(thanks Hoppy), a nice paste het anery, a nice possible het albino that I adopted a few years ago(thanks Stuart!). The rest of my boas are for the most part Columbians with a few CA's thrown in. I currently have more kings than corns, but next year I will have more corns and most likely no kings. I've produced two litters of boas, my first last year and my second this year, or should I say they produced for me?
I also have 2 dogs, Spyder and Webb, lab/shepherd mix, and APBT respectively. Two cats, Danny and Vito. Vito was a rescue from a very shady pet store here where he was destined to be gator food. Danny was an adoption from the streets at the Ohio State campus. A snapping turtle, no name. A lutino ringneck parakeet, Louie, a normal little parakeet,Lefty(I rescued her from the store I work at because she hatched out with only one wing). Close to 25 pet rats, yes I feed frozen thawed but I used to breed my own feeders. Almost all of my rats were rescued from the rat room including one I litterally had to nurse back from a very bad eye infection that took her eyes as a baby, you have no idea how hard it is to give a baby rat Baytril three times a day! A lot of the others were rescues from the store I work at that were sickly when we got them, and I ended up keeping them. I also have a small aquarium with about 10 fish including my prized pair of Kribensis Cichlids.
I'm single and kind of figure at this point in my life that is the way it was meant to be. I'm always looking though! The funny thing is I had pretty serious girlfriends in the past, but since I've gotten back into snakes heavily, it's harder to get them to come into my house!
In the past few years I've made some pretty good friends in the snake world and owe a huge debt of gratitude to Don Soderberg of South Mountain Reptiles. He has really helped me with information, advice and also with breeding my corns. I also owe a huge debt to Jim Fracker here in Ohio. He has helped so much over the past 5 years I can't even tell you. I traded some snakes with Hoppy last year, he gave me an INCREDIBLE trade that I was extremely happy with. To be honest, I felt like he got the short end, we traded 6 of my Milksnake phase corn hatchlings for a pair of his stripe tail boas and he threw in 6 of his Genetic Milkshake corns, Thanks again Hoppy, they all should be producing next year and I can't wait to see the outcome. I've also gotten to meet and take a tour of Kathy Love's facilities in Fl. I'm really hoping to get back down to Ft. Myers soon and hopefully I can visit Hoppy!
Well, I guess that about wraps it up for me. Lets hear fom some more of you!
Rick S.
