Downers and Naysayers

It's the Internet and as far as the Internet goes this forum in particular has to be one of the most welcoming and genuinely kindest ones around. Just take a gander around the Internet it's pretty brutal. For the most part I don't go off on people new to the hobby, why would I? it's generally when someone new is the type of person that can't handle being new to something and right of the bat knows it all and sticks to their guns that what they are doing is the best way because they have had one snake for a couple months and it hasn't died yet. Luckily most people are not like that and on here there are a ton of people that have been doing this for a life time that are willing to help, it's when newcomers refuse to take that help I think they run into problems.


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Aercadia, I hear your points and can agree with most of what you said. The main thing you have to remember and I have been there too, is to wear your thick skin when you are out and about. Whether it's on the forum, at the expo, or talking to that fellow herp keeper. It's very important to continue doing the things that bring you satisfaction and completeness. There will always be the negativity, but the positivity is how we need to respond bc that is the harder outlook to take thus the more challenging. If it doesn't kill you it will make you stronger. I remember the times I was unnecessarily critical and counterproductive on the forum and was reprimanded for it. You know what? I made a choice that I was going to concentrate on giving the best advice I could in a positive manner without being judgemental. Makes things a lot more fun btw. Stay in peace and not pieces! ;)

You want members to ignore poor husbandry, not link to readily available answers when asked for advice and to lie about the reality of snake breeding as a money maker, all so that those new to the hobby feel good about themselves?

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Originally Posted by DennisM

Agreed. I think the most valuable thing about this forum is helping the newcomers to our hobby. Every one of us was a newbie once and had the same questions and made some of the same mistakes as today’s newcomer. So, for you more experienced keepers, keep this in mind; for every newcomer who posts on this forum there are hundreds of newbies who don’t. those who are posting here are making an effort to learn. Help them out instead of blasting them. Most worrisome to me is the increasing number of people who are one month posting a “I just got my first BP” thread and the next month posting an “I am a BP expert and I know everything about them and you’re an idiot” post.



I regularly un-snidely point out two resources for those who need to read them. Here they are. I don’t criticize, I simply suggest these are a good read for newcomers to BPs.

http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showt...ius)-Caresheet
http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showt...Husbandry-FAQs

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I agree. Providing links or directions to resources isn't snide.

And just to put a mark against the worrisome column, I've had two BPs for nine years and I'm not an expert on anything.:D

When I first got into snakes, I had pre-ordered a hatchling from a breeder and joined a cornsnake forum to learn about caring for my new snake. I made the mistake of asking about snakes drinking and asked "do snakes actually drink water?" meaning, do they drink like a dog would, or do they soak it up, like a frog would (I had a pacman frog at the time). You would have thought I had reported my plans to feed my cornsnake carrots and collard greens. The members of that forum went ballistic"If you don't know that animals need water you shouldn't own any," etc. Luckily, the breeder I had purchased from came to the rescue and basically told people to go eff themselves... new people don't know all the logistics of snake keeping, but learning is important.

There are plenty of helpful people out there. One thing you have to realize though (that few people seem to) is that for most of our commonly kept captive species there are many ways to successfully house and care for them, with very few "set in stone" parameters that universally must be met. There are people who successfully cohab their reptiles, or keep them in tanks vs tubs, etc. The very best thing for everyone to do, IMHO, is to read as much as you can before purchase, set up the best enclosure you can, that you find adequate and suitable, and provide the best care you can. Don't look for universal agreement from the internet. It will only lead to frustration.

I don't see this as a hobby problem. The world in general is ready to critique every move you make. Up to you how you want to handle it and how you want them to affect you.

However most of what you mention isn't that common on this forum, (if it was on the forum I'd be interested to see the thread) I see it plentiful amount some Facebook groups, but Facebook is pretty much the pit of the hobby as a very general statement. Its a system that reward the closed minded and makes it easy for your options to be to conform or get kicked. So your left with a bunch of people who all think alike, even if their misinformed. On this forum I can agrue with the mods and owners all I want, as long as I follow the ToS, ill still be here to share my opinion, however that doesn't mean others can't blast me for it either. But atleast we all get to speak our mind.

If all you see is people tearing each other down, you're in the wrong places. There's a million forums online for everything under the sun and if you don't LIKE a forum, you should definitely leave that forum and go to forums that make you pleased to be on them.

I'm not saying 'If you don't like it, leave!" in a nasty way. I'm saying, don't spend your valuable time with a forum that doesn't make you happy to log in. That's why I've left almost every reptile forum except for BP.net. It's why I'm on extremely few places online at all. I realized that if I went to a bar where people called me nasty names and threw stale beernuts at each other all night, I wouldn't go back! Why should I continue to go onto websites that make me feel the same way?

But as far as pointing out poor husbandry, or providing good resources to read on basic care... yeah, people SHOULD do this. Most good reptile people care a whole lot about the reptiles and if you've got an exposed spotlight glaring inside a ten gallon tank, you're going to hear "Take that bulb out before your snake fries!" If you are introducing new animals without quarantine, experienced keepers are going to point out how dangerous that can be. A forum that is all about caring properly for ball pythons is about caring for ball pythons, not about making every person feel like their the best keeper in the world regardless of their low standards of care. If a new keeper gets butthurt over being told that their pacman frog is going to die in that dry sand fishtank with the heatlamps over it... then they're just going to be butthurt because any keeper who cares about the animals will tell them.

I see people all the time who cry over the fact that a morph discovered 5+ years ago is now much lower in price. That's how it has always happened. It's new and high priced and as more people produce them, more animals get on the market, prices begin to drop as demand is satisfied... the price drops. Especially when it's a co-dom animal. A lot of new breeders think about the cool animal they want to produce and forget to plan for all the normals and single gene hatchlings that they will still need to deal with. Pointing out that you SHOULD have a plan for that is not bashing and is not fear of competition. It's bringing up a oft-overlooked point of breeding.

Find the good people. Participate in a good way. Enjoy the hobby. But make sure that you are doing it in a way that you enjoy. Make sure you are doing it in a way that enhances the hobby and always make sure the animals come first.

GoingPostal - I think you missed the point of my post entirely.

MandMac - I am always happy to see people posting resources in a cheery and helpful manner... it's the ones with an air of superiority, smugness, or condescend that irk me.

OWAL - You are right, the vast majority of my mentionings are not from this forum in particular.

I know I should grow a thicker skin - but the problem isn't all me, there really is a gross negativity out there that I don't understand. Thank you to everyone with kind words, I am glad to be a part of this community and continue learning all the time.

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Originally Posted by rlditmars

There are those who have or will get into this hobby because they think it will be a great and simple source of money. The reality is that it isn't. There are a lot of up front costs and it takes time to start producing babies, unless you just go out and get a bunch of adults and throw them together. Everyday you are not producing product, someone else is. The ball python industry has not completely run it's course, but it is getting very near the place, where it has. As life cycles do in many other businesses, the supply has been outpacing the demand for too long now. Many people went out and procured examples of morphs (good or substandard was not a consideration) and just produced as many hatchlings as they could. That has caused prices to drop and for many people who spent big dollars on morphs, they cant recoup their costs and that is disappointing. Add to that the fact that there has not been too many truly new morphs (sunset and scaleless) to work with lately and you can see the well is drying up. Soon this will once again revert back to just a hobby and the industry will be either gone or only be profitable for a select few who are operating in such mass that they can undercut all others and still turn a profit. As H.I. McDonough said, "I fear the salad days are over".

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I totally disagree with this statement. I think the glory days of breeding ball pythons are upon us right now! I've been buying up a few breeders for the last six months or so, never bred snakes before, so I'm just getting into the whole breeding thing. As with any other animal there are price cycles and they will rise and fall, sometimes very quickly. The good thing about ball pythons is that I still see snakes selling for $40,000+, first it was the scaleless heads, now the totally scaleless ball pythons. Brian Barczyk was offered $125,000 for his first scaleless, he turned it down! New morphs are constantly coming on the scene and with certain morphs such as pieds and scaleless it 'resets' the whole ball python industry giving us a new 'canvas' to paint on.

It's not only about making money on snakes (which I believe you still can make A LOT!), but it's about being an artist of living color. In the early days you only had a few base colors to work with. Now you have a whole array of hundreds of morphs to choose from. Never before have you had so many options as to what you want to make. And with every new gene coming out that's just thousands upon thousands of more combinations you can create with the new gene plus one or more old genes.

Personally I want to both make decent money and be very creative in my snake 'creations'. If you want to still breed for a profit you'll have to dump most of your old single gene snakes and pick up some genes new on the market or do multi gene combos, pretty easy to do and very exciting. I spend most of my days working through a gene calculator to see what kind of new things I can come up with, how much I need to spend to get into that gene combo, and how much it will pay off in the long run. It seems the more I spend up front the more they will pay off later. You have to keep in mind prices can drop like a rock, especially dominant or co-dominant genes, so you have to set a limit on how much you are willing to 'risk'.

Some of the big money right now is in the new stuff coming out like the scaleless, the 'Stormtrooper', the scaleless head, etc. If you are lucky you can produce a new morph that is high in demand and you can make your millions breeding snakes selling some of the first babies for $50K or more. :D

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Originally Posted by cchardwick

I totally disagree with this statement. I think the glory days of breeding ball pythons are upon us right now! I've been buying up a few breeders for the last six months or so, never bred snakes before, so I'm just getting into the whole breeding thing. As with any other animal there are price cycles and they will rise and fall, sometimes very quickly. The good thing about ball pythons is that I still see snakes selling for $40,000+, first it was the scaleless heads, now the totally scaleless ball pythons. Brian Barczyk was offered $125,000 for his first scaleless, he turned it down! New morphs are constantly coming on the scene and with certain morphs such as pieds and scaleless it 'resets' the whole ball python industry giving us a new 'canvas' to paint on.

It's not only about making money on snakes (which I believe you still can make A LOT!), but it's about being an artist of living color. In the early days you only had a few base colors to work with. Now you have a whole array of hundreds of morphs to choose from. Never before have you had so many options as to what you want to make. And with every new gene coming out that's just thousands upon thousands of more combinations you can create with the new gene plus one or more old genes.

Personally I want to both make decent money and be very creative in my snake 'creations'. If you want to still breed for a profit you'll have to dump most of your old single gene snakes and pick up some genes new on the market or do multi gene combos, pretty easy to do and very exciting. I spend most of my days working through a gene calculator to see what kind of new things I can come up with, how much I need to spend to get into that gene combo, and how much it will pay off in the long run. It seems the more I spend up front the more they will pay off later. You have to keep in mind prices can drop like a rock, especially dominant or co-dominant genes, so you have to set a limit on how much you are willing to 'risk'.

Some of the big money right now is in the new stuff coming out like the scaleless, the 'Stormtrooper', the scaleless head, etc. If you are lucky you can produce a new morph that is high in demand and you can make your millions breeding snakes selling some of the first babies for $50K or more. :D

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I'm not sure how you can totally disagree with a statement about it not being as easy to make money in this hobby as it used to be and then spend four paragraphs explaining how much effort and money goes into you wanting to do so.

Yes, there is money to be made. Yes, it will require an effort to do so. Yes, if you're not putting in the work, there is someone else out there who is. Yes, if you're in it for the right reasons all of this should come easily. Yes, those sound like things that it takes to run any successful business. Coincidence? :)

Best regards,
Eric