Reptile & Amphibian Forums

write some stupid story or make some ridiculous comment.As I have stated before,basically the only thing that bothers me is when little Billy comes on with a pic of his new animal and is blasted for it.That has basically stopped in the last year,so that is good.

I happened to scroll down and see an inference made about Dave's ability or inability to produce a pure Hog Island and it prompted me to say something that I have wanted to say for a long time: It doesn't take some sort of superhuman to be a snake breeder.Saying that Hogs,Surinames,blah,blah are harder to breed than Columbians,ect. is just another way to put down breeders x and put breeders Y and Z on some kind of pedestal.It is bullsh-t.

Buy a young imported Suriname,Hog,or whatever,or a captive born Suri,Hog or whatever,feed it well and give it proper conditions and husbandry,and it will breed.For Pete sakes all any animal in captivity has to do is eat and breed..that's about it.That is all there is to do if you are sitting around in a cage forever.

Have some basic knowledge of husbandry,cycling(if there really is such a thing)keep your animals healthy and they will reproduce...Suriname,grayband,hognose,hog island,Dumerils,Brazilian rainbow,gartersnake,watersnake,ratsnake,Burmese,ect.ect.it is all the same.

Now,jerk some 10 year old tick-infested Blood Python out of Malaysia and get that animal to breed the first few years and that is a different story.Same thing with a mean assed older Suriname import,Retic,you name it.Import a bunch of adult animals of any snake and expect them to breed right away(maybe ever) and you are going to be disappointed.

One of my friends bred several Hogs for years.It was the only Boa he ever tried to breed.He had litter after litter of the darned things.

Another friend of mine(one of the biggest Colubrid breeders in the country) breeds Peruvians,and a line of striped Columbians that he got from me as captive babies years ago.The Peruvians he got as young imports several years ago.He doesn't cool them,cycle them,kiss them,pray to a Peruvian pagan god..he just leaves the damned things alone,cleans the cages,feeds them and they produce for him year after year.

I have seen CE's animals that he posts on the forum and I fully expect him to regularly produce beautiful Surinames year after year.He is a smart guy and obviously takes great care of his animals.

In no way am I downplaying the time and effort that it takes breeders to get the snakes in breeding condition.I am just somewhat tired of the implication that if you breed boa X it is because it is so easy and if you breed Boa Y you are some breeding genius.The truth is,if you have acclimated,healthy animals and they aren't producing for you,you are doing something wrong,because my bet is the animals are bored to the point that a good romp in the hay seems like a good deal.

Please realize that I am putting myself in this category as well.I produce a lot of babies and still don't do a danged thing.The snakes do it.They won't hold still long enough for me to nail them anyway.

... "hard working breeders" that are always mentioned here?

*LOL*

Your posting is a slap in the face of the people who claim that the guys of the "morph-industry" are such hard working men.

Though I do not competely agree with you I like your lines.
Boa constrictor

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Beware of Commies and Mutts!

It is not intended to be a slap at any breeder of any snake period.I simply become initially amused and then occasionally agitated(depending upon condition of gallstones,prostate gland,ect.)when I read that so and so couldn't produce a true Hog Island or insert any cough,cough,"True" redtail because it is so incredibly difficult.The extreme difficulty of that accomplishment is then always contrasted with the apparent ease of producing any Columbian morph,straight Columbian,truthfully insert any animal that you don't care for in the blank.

It is my contention that if you start out with captive born anything(for the most part) or young imports,if they are cared for properly,they should eventually breed,darned near irregardless of what we do.If you start out with adult imported anything the odds go way down.Still can be done,just takes much longer.Doesn't have anything to do with the fact that the snake was a Suriname or a Retic.

If you read it as a slap at the hard working morph breeders,you are definitely mistaken.The work goes into the husbandry,customer service,marketing,ect. and you know that.If you took it as a slap at the hard working locale breeders ditto.you are mistaken...same hard work involved.

To simplify,just take it as a rebuttal to the inference below that Dave Derrick must have used a Columbian to get his Hog hypos because of the incredible difficulty of getting Hogs to breed.Could have been he did it because that is exactly what he wanted to do.

np

To mislead, hugh, Hermann. Is it because you are so clueless, or is it because you are so disrespectful? If you would just have some respect for others, you would realize that keeping and breeding snake is HARD WORK for everyone in the hobby including YOU.

That's probably one of the reasons that they don't respond to the posts that suggest otherwise. They know it's fodder.