??Do people care who buys there animals any more?

I know that kinked snakes are sometimes used as feeders as well as "unimportant" species like garters and water snakes or "worthless" normal ball pythons. I have no problem with a zoo using captive bred common snakes as feeders in a captive breeding program for an endangered or threatened species but I have zero respect for someone who keeps snakes that require live feeder snakes just because they think that their King cobra or other ophiophagus snake is "cool" or that they are too inept or to bloodthirsty to get the snake on a different prey animal.

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Originally Posted by Kayak Steve

I know that kinked snakes are sometimes used as feeders as well as "unimportant" species like garters and water snakes or "worthless" normal ball pythons. I have no problem with a zoo using captive bred common snakes as feeders in a captive breeding program for an endangered or threatened species but I have zero respect for someone who keeps snakes that require live feeder snakes just because they think that their King cobra or other ophiophagus snake is "cool" or that they are too inept or to bloodthirsty to get the snake on a different prey animal.

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In all seriousness, could you please clarify to me how this is different from feeding live rats to a morph ball python?

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Originally Posted by Kayak Steve

I know that kinked snakes are sometimes used as feeders as well as "unimportant" species like garters and water snakes or "worthless" normal ball pythons. I have no problem with a zoo using captive bred common snakes as feeders in a captive breeding program for an endangered or threatened species but I have zero respect for someone who keeps snakes that require live feeder snakes just because they think that their King cobra or other ophiophagus snake is "cool" or that they are too inept or to bloodthirsty to get the snake on a different prey animal.

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I personally know 2 different people who keep hots, cobras included, who do so for the love of the hobby and love of the snakes, not because it's "cool". Their passion may not be the same as yours but they still have just as much right to follow it as you do.

Feeding a rodent that has a very limited lifespan and is a completely different animal than a snake is, to me, like us eating pork or beef. Feeding a potentially long lived snake to another snake purely because you find your snake eater fascinating, to me, is not so different than someone who throws a weak little mutt to a fighting dog because they find it fascinating or profitable. Keeping hots is a personal choice, if it's even legal in your state or town, and I know there are quite a few people that are competent keepers but there are also keepers who are not like the guy posting shots of himself with a Gaboon on his lap. Would you want your family living next door to an incompetent fool with a mamba? Excess healthy snakes just points to the fact that there are too many people breeding too many animals just like people are breeding too many cats and dogs.

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Originally Posted by Kayak Steve

Feeding a rodent that has a very limited lifespan and is a completely different animal than a snake is, to me, like us eating pork or beef. Feeding a potentially long lived snake to another snake purely because you find your snake eater fascinating, to me, is not so different than someone who throws a weak little mutt to a fighting dog because they find it fascinating or profitable. Keeping hots is a personal choice, if it's even legal in your state or town, and I know there are quite a few people that are competent keepers but there are also keepers who are not like the guy posting shots of himself with a Gaboon on his lap. Would you want your family living next door to an incompetent fool with a mamba? Excess healthy snakes just points to the fact that there are too many people breeding too many animals just like people are breeding too many cats and dogs.

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Lets not start this bullcrap circular argument where no one agrees and everyone gets ticked off. Lets all just disregard this comment and move on. My reply to this post will be below.

I've got to take a second to reply to this.

The "Big Chain" pet stores have really come a long way. Much of the health of the reptiles in those stores is reliant on how much knowledge the person has on reptiles. Best case scenario you have someone working there who at the very least has a wealth of book knowledge on at least one group of the animals. When I was in high school and working at pets supplies plus I was the resident "reptile dude" as well as one of the managers. There was an employee who knew a crap load about birds, another knew about small animals. This allowed our store to bring in some really cool animals that many other stores couldn't. I went back to that same store when I got home from the military and discovered the reptile manager guy had moved on somewhere else. And now, I don't even like walking into that store for fear of contamination from their horrid conditions, mostly because the cages are dirty and disgusting. This brings me to my next point.

The days of getting really cool species into the big chain stores are over but this is a good thing, these stores will have the the following species at any one time: Ball Pythons, Bearded Dragons, Leopard Geckos, Corn Snakes, Milk or King snake, Veiled Chameleon, Crested Geckos, Fire Bellied Toads (in the fish section), Green/Brown Anoles, Long Tailed Lizards and Green Treefrogs. You'll see the occasional Tarantula, Pac Man Frog and Boa Constrictor. Then on the bottom you'll have Map/Side Neck Turtles or Russian Tortoises. I may be forgetting one or two. But this has been my experience. All of these species can be kept reasonably well in the starter packs they sell for 150 or some odd dollars. The only thing missing from those setups is the thermostat, other than that the one decor item they provide does tend to leave things a bit bare IMO but I digress. The beardie setups are too small and the leopard gecko setups utilize a heat lamp instead of a heat pad which while unnecessary isn't exactly a death sentence.

When we compare that to the "home grown" store in the area, they are the ONLY store that sells Iguanas. 12 dollar iguanas are more sentenced to death than any of the "cheapo Green Tree Frogs/Anoles/Long Tail Lizards. Their cages make the previous mentioned dirty Pet Supplies Plus look like the Cleveland Zoo with how disgusting they are, you can check my review of Harbor Pets in Boardman Ohio on google if interested.

The point I'm trying to make is that the majority of these stores have decided to focus on a 15-20 species of beginner-lower level intermediate level and started selling these kits in the interest of trying to make sure that their animals get at least an OK set up right from the get go. Other places are just trying to do what they can to stay afloat, bad economy equals people spend less on pets and the like.

Now onto the second part about screening set ups and things like that. The question I have to that is, what are your standards? There are some people who see my snakes' (Baird's Rat Snakes) large naturalistic setups and think that I'm a moron because I don't keep them on paper towels with two hides, one hot spot and a water bowl. Then if I were to ask the same when someone buys my snakes and see they have a paper towel setup but didn't spend a bunch to make cool set ups like mine? Should I tell them no? When my snakes move to their adult cages they will have overhead spot light heat set on dimmers to mimic sunrise noon and sunset (not sure on this one yet depends on how I do my substrate, there will also be plants in there.

Some people would actually accuse me of bad husbandry.

I know some companies, Deer Fern Farms that sell Uromastyx and several other types of lizards and a few tortoise species that won't sell you an animal till they see your setup and are sure that you know what you are doing. This makes sense because Uromastyx are one of the most abused by the pet trade (reputation as being difficult to breed in captivity etc has made the constant collection of them from the wild necessary to supply the trade). They are really hoping that their lizards succeed where they send them.

Now a take a corn snake or leopard gecko etc, we can breed these in massive quantities to supply the pet trade. This is preferable to taking them from the wild in every way and is a necessary conservation effort. We all know (breeders, pet stores, etc) that a lot of them probably won't make it. This isn't any different from the wild however dying slowly from bad husbandry is a lot worse I'd say. BUT this is a necessary evil because taking the animals from the wild is worse.

One last thing before I cut this all short, you can tell how good a store is by looking at all of the cages and seeing if they let droppings gather. A few here and there is normal, but if all the cages have it. Steer clear.

Well this thread got derailed... Back on topic anyone? I'm sure someone can start a big chain hate thread instead of voicing your opinion about it here.