To all of those that think us old timers might be a bit grouchy when it comes to the newbie questions….
My personal opinion on this is that I love to introduce new people to the hobby of herping. I keep a dozen standard answers on file to the most asked questions just for that reason. I gladly will help and share any knowledge that I have gained over the last several decades of keeping herps.
I can easily accept the panic from an impulse buyer who while at the pet store saw this awesome animal and just had to have it, but has no idea what to do with it know. After all that is exactly what I did when I was 15 years old and it got my hooked on herps ever since (holy crap that was 24 years ago!).
Feeding, temps, care, cages and the normal Mother hen questions are all good signs of a herper that is very interested in learning about his new animal and wants to care for him the best he can. I do have to chuckle when I get the questions like “My baby boa ate yesterday and has not pooped yet, is he sick” but that is not a question that will bring ridicule from me, it is a normal learning process and with some encouragement and direction those herpers will gain their own knowledge as they go.
In a perfect world a new potential snake owner would have everything purchased and ready for when their new snake came home. They would have done all kinds of research and have the Latin names memorized and be able to recite the entire taxonomy line to enter the new world of the Herpers club. We would all also take turns winning the lottery, live in peace with all of mankind and famine, disease and crime would never occur. Sadly, we don’t live in a perfect world and impulse buying is a fact that we live with, heck in the expos it is encouraged and some of the dealers are great salesman, and do a wonderful job of selling their beautiful animals onto the unexpected buyer.
There is however a newbie attitude that does fry my shorts. I see it posted a lot and retiles magazine has a great example of it this month. In Reptiles this month they posted a question about someone who purchased “25% het for albino ball Pythons” I am not even sure how you get a 25% het, maybe by breeding a normal to a 50% het? But the person asking the question stated that he had these animals and he wanted to now how long would it take to get to 100%. His logic was if he bred the two 25% het together he would get 50% hets as the offspring and then breed those together to get 100% hets? This person was obviously doing the same thing that many of the newbie’s try to do, take short cuts without gaining the needed knowledge and jump right to breeding to make “the big bucks”.
These are the folks that I get grumpy with. The I just bought two snakes please tell me everything you ever knew about them, so I can breed them and further flood the market with my offspring, and I never have to read a book about it! Oh and thanks but when your done can you then tell me what I should feed them?.... answer… lettuce!
Too many newbies come to the herp hobby not because they love their animals but because someone told them that they can breed these snakes and get little $1000.00 bills from them. These Herpers refuse to take the time to learn and want to get right to breeding and won’t even put forth the effort of reading a damn book. They expect the more experienced herper to teach them everything and use all his time to create another competitor for his business and then can’t understand why the experienced herper has an issue with the stupid question to begin with. Heck, with today’s TV babies who don’t or can’t read because the spent all their time playing video games and watching “Yo MTV Raps” they don’t even have to read about it, they can get the info on video now, complete with a guarantee of no paper cuts from those nasty books!
There was a lot to be said for back in the days when the breeding techniques were highly guarded secrets from breeder to breeder. It forced the new wannabes to learn about their craft and not just beg for the needed information, but to work for it. With the influx of new breeders a lot of beautiful boas are being produced and I think that is a great thing, but these people too have paid their dues and work hard on their craft. They just don’t “mind suck” the knowledge from others.
There is a lot of work and money that goes into producing top quality boas and herps in general and many of these newbies use it as a get rich quick scheme. This is where my problem comes from, not the new keepers that want to learn about or have questions about there new pets, but those who are looking to make money from the knowledge earn by the ones who came before them and have no desire to but forth the effort for it.
And for the record;
Yes you can house two baby sibling boas together for a period of time, just don’t feed them in the same cage together, it is very difficult to get them apart.
Impulse buying is not the end of the world.
No you can’t breed your ball Python with your boa and produce Boa Balls
Yes your female boa need to be at least three years old to breed.
The reason your 7’ boas head is so small is because you fed it too damn much and it is only 12 months old, and yes it will not be healthy forever!
I don’t know how much you can make a year breeding boas, try getting a job it builds character!
No, I will not read to you a bedtime story for the Boa Constrictor Manual.
Yes you have to feed your snake rodents.
No there is no such thing as a vegetarian snake.
No your 55 gallon tank is not big enough for an adult boa.
No your boa will NEVER lay eggs.
No your idea of a miniature rain forest set up on you porch won’t work, the boas will eat the birds and the lizards will eat the frogs.
And yes maybe you should have stuck to breeding Pit Bull puppies.
The End
Thanks for reading my grumpy rant LOL
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Jim Hopkins "Hoppy"
Hopkins Holesale Herps
Hopfam1@aol.com
