Fred kick

I do not know Fred Kick. I have never spoken to him or e-mailed him. By paying attention to his ad's for many years, I know he has been working with Hypos (Orange Ghost) and G-stripes for a very long time. Awhile ago I purchased a sub-adult female Black Pastel Het Hypo from a hobbyist who had purchased her from Fred Kick before he saw all that stuff on Fauna about him. After reading all that he decided to sell her for a great price (he had had her for several months and she was in good health). I have seen the reports about the condition of his animals but have never seen issues with his hets proving out and he sells lots of them. Knowing this, I bought her. She is a 2008 and this is the clutch she produced this year from breeding her to our Hypo Black Pewter: 2 Hypo Black Pastels, a Hypo Black Pewter, a Hypo, and a Pastel Het Hypo.
http://www.piedpeddler.com/data/stor...13f374cc06.jpg
There is a big difference between somebody who has poor maintenance/husbandry practices and somebody who is an outright scammer and thief. If he sold them as hets, they probably are.
- Paul

Thank you for that! Reading this does make me feel a little better! :)

i have a female spider and a female black pastel both received in person from fred kick from the store. both have been fantastic and were in great shape. no mites, no bad shed.
there was a time when the store looked pretty bad. it has been a couple years since i have been there. but last time i was it was fine. he does sell a lot of wild caught animals that dont always look the best. the ball python breeding is done in the upstairs of the retail store. if you have seen the size of the store it is huge. my local store gets many of their animals from them and they have never had mites. she does always treat them as soon as they arrive though. so it may not be apparent.
i wont hesitate to do business with him again if he has what i want.
i will say to the poster who just received the pin with stuck eye caps and what not that if they are as bad as you say i wouldnt hesitate to take the appropriate measures to get it resolved even if it means going to the boi.
adam jeffery

I've heard that excuse alot on different forums (and really, I am not trying to start a dispute).
Just because someone is a big producer of ball pythons does not give them the right to let their care and husbandry get to this point. I really don't think the ones I purchased were wild caught (how to sell them as 100% het?), but more likely left overs from one of his morph clutches. Mites aside, stuck shed and retained eyecaps are pretty easily prevented through proper husbandry, and that apparently has not been the case with these. I did look over the pictures that he sent before shipping them, and the stuck shed is way out of focus, and the snakes nose is pointed straight at the camera (could not see the eyecaps). How hard would it have been just to email me and say..."hey, there are some slight problems with these..."
By the way, I only spoke to Fred for about 2 minutes, the rest of the communication was with a "helper"? Kinda poor customer service from the start. Seems like he didn't even have the time to give me his paypal address himself. (I pay him and I get treated like I'm bugging him)

there is never an excuse for poor husbandry or bad customer service. i was just stating my experience's. nor did i mean to imply that your snakes were wild caught. just that he deals in wild caught
adam jeffery