Keeping several BP?

[Kinra]

So I am way past the point of having just a couple BPs or reptiles for that matter and I'm starting to wonder if maybe I should stop adding to my collection.

I currently have 16 BPs, 4 boas, 2 rat snakes and several geckos, and I started the year with just 1 BP... I feel all of my reptiles are well taken care of. I feed weekly, spot check daily and scrub tubs weekly. My record keeping has also gotten much better in the past few months. BUT I feel like I no longer give my snakes individual care.

I used to be able to tell just by looking at my BPs if they are about to go blue and shed, but now I've actually had 1 or 2 surprise me and shed with out me noticing. I love the challenges of keeping a lot of reptiles and I know that they could care less if I take them out and hold them every other day or so, but it bothers me a little that they can shed without me noticing.

I don't want to miss signs for anything else because I don't give them more individual care. I'm really torn here because there are several more morphs I really want to add to my collection and I would like to breed, but I don't want to get in over my head. How do you handle your larger collections? How can I balance maintaining a larger collection and still giving individual care while working 45-50 hours a week? Is it possible?

Sorry this is so long winded, I'm just worried I'm not doing the best I can for my snakes. :/

[Jason Bowden]

I realized a good while ago that I can't work with all the BP morphs. It is impossible for me!
So, I pick the ones I really want to work with.
Also some are very close. Such as mojaves, lesser platinums, and butters. There will be plenty folks on the forum to disagrre with me here, but of the 3 listed I chose to work with lesser platinums. There's plenty of times that I wish I had a mojave project going on ,but I know that I can't work with every thing available.
I got my first BP(female albino) in 2003 and you already have as many BP's as me. Hope this helps!

[mjmendoza]

When i talked to a local breeder near me, He said when people ask him what he does for a living he responds "I clean cages". He probably has around 40+ BPs, 6 boas , and a tegu. It is a lot of work when you have so many reptiles but if you can handle it then all is good. But owning a bunch can end up being a full time job. He lost his job a couple months back and now breeding and doing reptile education for students is his job.

[Kinra]

I realized a good while ago that I can't work with all the BP morphs. It is impossible for me!
So, I pick the ones I really want to work with.
Also some are very close. Such as mojaves, lesser platinums, and butters. There will be plenty folks on the forum to disagrre with me here, but of the 3 listed I chose to work with lesser platinums. There's plenty of times that I wish I had a mojave project going on ,but I know that I can't work with every thing available.
I got my first BP(female albino) in 2003 and you already have as many BP's as me. Hope this helps!

I don't really want to work with all the different morphs, in fact there are some I never want to work with, but there are some morphs I want to add to my collection. I probably could have cut down on the number of snakes I had if I had bought bumble bees and pewters instead of cinnies, pastels and spiders, but I think it will be worth it when I see my first pewter or bee hatch.

When i talked to a local breeder near me, He said when people ask him what he does for a living he responds "I clean cages". He probably has around 40+ BPs, 6 boas , and a tegu. It is a lot of work when you have so many reptiles but if you can handle it then all is good. But owning a bunch can end up being a full time job. He lost his job a couple months back and now breeding and doing reptile education for students is his job.

Yeah, it is a lot of work caring for them all, but even with all my reptiles my dog still takes up more of my time.

I'm not saying I love cleaning cages, but I love how much work I have to put into my reptiles. To me it's worth it in the end to be able to show off some well cared for reptiles. I think it's obvious when people love and care for their pets and I hope people notice it when they see mine.

I think I may have started worrying about nothing. All of my doubting start coming about yesterday when I noticed my large normal chilling out in her water dish. I thought she looked a little dark in some of the pictures I took, but when I looked at her it seemed like I missed the blue stage of shedding. Her belly was super dull and she was extremely dark. When I got home tonight though I realized that she was just entering the blue stage, so I really was start to doubt myself over nothing. The one BP that always takes me by surprise when she sheds is my pyb and that's because I only check on her, clean her tub and feed her. After her 2.5 month hunger strike I've been really worried about doing anything to stress her out and turn her off of food again. She's a 2010 and only about 400g. >__<

[dpal666]

I currently have 47 reptiles, 8 of which are snakes. daily care is about 30 mins a day, with one day a week being aroung 3 hours for cleaning.

Since I started with snakes, I realised how much easier they are than anything else in my collection.

Too much, nope, taking care of them is how I relax after work, and the wife has her own list on what to add to the collection.

[meowmeowkazoo]

If you feel uncomfortable with the lack of individual care, you should probably sell some. You should only have as many animals as you can take care of, and everybody has different definitions of care.

For instance, many rat owners I know say that rats need at least one hour a day of time outside the cage, but because I breed mine for food and because I have so many, I just can't give each one time outside the cage. Somebody else might get rid of many rats so that they can spend quality time with just a few of them. I prefer to keep all my rats and take care of the bare necessities with a few extras thrown in.

As long as the needs of the animals are being met, it's really a question of what you're comfortable with.