I almost forgot to introduce myself!

Hi all!

I joined this forum recently and have made a couple posts and commented on a few and almost forgot to introduce myself!

My name is Chelsea, I'm 23 and I'm from the Tampa bay area in Florida. Growing up as a kid I've owned everr little critter under the sun. I had a nice tree frog collection (even started a frog club with other kids my age) , I've bred and showed gerbils (yes, that's thing!) Also owned and bred mice for a short period of time, along with owning countless different fish, several finches, dwarf hamsters, cats, dogs, the sweestest ferret, a green iguana and a couple ball pythons.
Growing up with parents who weren't too fond of any animals, you can imagine how crazy I drove them :P

After several hard years of struggling on my own, I've gotten to a nice, stable point in my life where I am able to own my favorite pets again and be able to provide the best life possible for each of them. As of right now I only have 1 ball python, whom I recently got along with my dog, Jay, who I've had for the last 5 years. I absolutely love reptiles, all of them, no matter the size or species. I'm currently majoring in environmental science in the hopes that someday I'll be able to help in conserving the habitat for Florida's native species and if I'm able to, I'd love to be able to start a small wildlife rescue and rehabilitation center, down the road of course.
Another thing I've always loved is genetics. When I was l and bred gerbils, I loved working out the genetics and being able to determine what a pair would bring me and then having the joy and seeing the little ones born and seeing that I was right about my predictions. Not to mention, I adore raising my babies from birth :)
In the next couple of years I plan on having a small scale, hobby breeding program with ball pythons.

Until then, I will be lurking this board, trying to absorb as much information as possible so i can give my snakes the best lives possible! So, I look forward to chatting with many of you in the future! And Sorry for the long rambling post :rolleyes:

All that sounds like a good plan.
(at 23, you're still a kid. :P;))

If you get a chance, at some point, Costa Rica has a fascinating wildlife rehab center on Caribe side. Can't remember the name, but CR is a small place. A quick search should find it. Everything from herps and frogs, to birds of prey, big cats, monkeys, wild deer, and sloths.

Good luck to you.
Looking forward to your posts.

Welcome and thanks for sharing that! Looking forward to your expertise. :)

Re the native fauna in FL, I recently came across some good papers on this. Written by the Barkers (can't remember first names), over at VPI, Vida Preciosa Internationale. They raise Pythons. They looked closely at some of the environmental studies re. the Burmese in the Everglades. They came to some unexpected conclusions. I tried to argue from their perspective on another forum with a member living in FL, but got absolutely nowhere.

I've also recently run into some really fascinating blogs kept by wildlife biologists, with a specific interest in herps. On of them is titled something like "Life is Short, Snakes are Long." There was another good blog, I'll try to dig it up later if I get some time.

As someone who "forgot" to introduce themselves on this forum (I lurked with no user account for almost two years), Welcome aboard! I mainly read this site to learn better husbandry so you're in the right place.

Thanks everyone! I can't wait to start lurking around and learning as much as possible. I've already refreshed my memory pretty quickly on the basics of ball python care from this forum

Pretty cool bio and very admirable dreams! Welcome :gj:!