Hi, I'm new to the hobby, but I had the same horrible experience at a reptile show. I was buying my second and last snake for a long time to come, and I had a list of snakes (all ratsnakes actually) that I would be happy with. I went to a show larger than the last one I had been to, expecting that I'd definitely find all of the snakes on my list from several breeders. As you may have guessed, I found exactly one breeder that A) had something I wanted and B) was not a mass-breeder that knew little about that species or color, or how it was going to grow up looking. I was shocked that there were only two licorice black rat - containing booths, and NO Texas locality Bairds, and no (baby) albino yellow rats, and that the CORNSNAKE colors I was interested in were not there, etc.... I was mostly looking forward to handling an adult ratsnake to see how they were like, but of course that was but a dream.

Anyways, I finally got my licorice black rat (my first choice to begin with) from a very cool guy named Rick Cunningham who took a lot of time to talk to me about one $45 snake. He had ALL the marks of a responsible breeder and was the only person I met there that was as interested in non-cornsnake rats as I was. If he wasn't there, I would have had no choice but to leave emptyhanded and wanting my $15 entrance fee back (plus the almost $20 I spent in transportation getting there).

The funny thing is (if I understood the situation correctly) he had joined a friend in breeding Ball Pythons, which he also had in his booth. However, he took as much time to talk to me about my ratsnake as he did to someone looking at a ball python. So what I'm wondering is... why is the ball python craze such a problem that it almost eliminates ratsnakes from a large show like this? Just go in there and sell your ratsnakes!!

I know I want another ratsnake already, even though I was certain this one would be my last snake. I saw several kingsnake/milksnake and corn booths there, so they must be making enough profit to cover their costs. I also know that the couple breeders that took the time to talk to me and had responsible breeder practices (knew about their snakes, had guarantees, made me disinfect my hands, had lights, etc...) made me want to buy a snake from them so badly that the only thing that stopped my was that they really had nothing even close to what I wanted (this is the courtesy that someone already mentioned makes the profit). There was only one thing they could have done differently - brought pictures of the parents... grrr...

Well, I'm sure that there are good reasons why this isn't so simple, but it would sure be nice, wouldn't it...

Oleg

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