I remember a time where there was a lot of this unnecessary aggression and "attempted" dominating posts. It took a while but I and a few others made an unplanned effort to make these forums more agreeable and pleasant to exist in. We, as a whole, showed zero tolerance for inciteful drivel and encouraged friendly exchanges of knowledge and experiences. I do not reccomend retics for just anyone, but I do more often "encourage", rather than "discourage" people/herp hobbiests of a reasonable age to get one if they truly want one, but I do take the precaution of seasoning my advice with pointing out likely dangers and probabilities. But rather than use these examples as a way to deter one from getting the snake they want, I use this to encourage one to start with a hatchling and thus "grow with it" over time. This almost always results in a herper that has true retic experience at the end of the 2 or 3 year "growing period". If one begins with an adult and is unprepared for what the snake can do or be like, then resulting fear will inhibit their potential ability to properly handle the animal. But on the other hand, to learn these traits when the snake is small, is easily managed, and is not capable of instilling any real level of viable fear,... then all experiences convert directly into knowledge rather than a database of fear and uncertainty. And let's not forget the importance of the snake being able to bond with and learn YOU as well as you learn about him. That's equally important.
I got my first retic when I was about 11 or 12. I already had 4 burmese, several boas, numerous rattlesnakes, other colubrids, water dragons, indigenous lizard species of course, and probably a few things I am forgetting. My first retic was about 5 feet or so, very thin, an import and very very aggressive. But by this time I had been keeping snakes for 3 or 4 years and was unconcerned with a snake that wanted to bite me. But had this been a 14 or 16 foot retic I would have almost certainly been at a loss of what to do. I wasn't very big at 11 or 12, so my physical ability alone would greatly limit my abilities. Some of my burmese were quite large,.. but docile. So it isn't the same. Then again, the vast majority of retics available today are very tame. At present I only have one retic that is aggressive. Ironically, she almost got me last night. It was a very close call, but that is another story for another post. All the rest of my retics, and I have many, are all very tame. So I guess what I am saying is that the aggressive imports are a thing of the past and one has a much better experience raising a tic these days. Just make sure you do get a captive produced baby. This post got too long, so I'll close it now. By the way, Bob Clark exports and has really cool retics. Almost all of mine are from him.
>>I have been working with snakes for a number of years now, but the last time I browsed this forum, it seemed that people were content to simply bash potential retic owners (trolls I can see, but some really inteligent questions were getting squashed too). I just posted above asking about dwarves at the MARS show, and 12 months ago, despite that fact that I have worked with snakes for a while, I would have gotten flamed with "You have NO idea what you're getting into", or "If you can't handle a full sized retic, don't bother with a dwarf", and my favorite, "Dwarves still GET HUGE, you should try a burm for your first big snake". Well, Retics are nicer looking, and as I stated earlier, with my experience, I would rather take on a 12 foot dwarf than a 20 foot Ambon. Seems like a logical step for someone to take, not a stupid one. But this forum seems to be much more tolerant of these questions, and it should be, because peopel should be made aware of what they are getting into, not scared or intimidated by a few individuals who are more impressed with themselves than anything else.
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It isn't "Ideas" that fail or succeed,... it is the "Systems" which are instilled to launch and sustain the idea that either fail or succeed.>[Me.]
Unfortunately many of the great users are also gone.