Another irresponsible misinformed herp owner.

Ok so yesterday i went dirtbiking on some farmers track. we had to switch off every 15 mins. because there were two groups of people: the beginners and the experts. So during my time not riding i talked to this 12-year old who has has previously owned 2 cresties 2 leos and 1 BP. All of them died and were mean. i asked about his care for them to try to figure out why they were so mean and why they died. Here is why:
1. he kept them all in the 10 gals.
2. feed WC food: he caught voles mice and crickets for them in the wild and he only feed the baby BP once a month and the Cresties and Leos once a week. Cresties need repashy diet or fruits. Crickets should be a treat.
3. He heated the Bp at only 85 ( he only used a 50-watt night glo bulb) he didn’t heat his cresties at all and he didn’t have AC in the summer ( his family couldn’t afford it).
He used the same bulb from his dead BP for his Leos. Which the female most likely died due to the fact that they were raised together in the same 10 gal. and she probably got egg-bound.

Oh, and did i mention theyre all dead now so he decided to get two alligator snapping turtle babies and put them in the 10 gal. I asked him what he would do when they were huge, and he said that they grow slowly (not at all true) and he would be dead when they needed a new cage (not true either) And he cant release them because he lives in Wisconsin.

It happens all the time man. We don't appreciate people that come here for answers enough. All you can do is your best to try and educate people or at least steer them in the right direction. Otherwise, if you worried about this kind of stuff all the time you would have the weight of the worlds exotic animals on your chest. The majority of people don't do things incorrect because they want to. They do things incorrect because they don't know any better.

Regards,

B

I thank my parents for teaching me to pay attention to details and that the bare minimum is not appropriate for any situation. I might not be filthy rich but I offer my pets the best that I can!

While I certainly don't want to detract from the fact that this owner did not know much about herp keeping, I wanted to say something:

I don't provide heat for my crested geckos, nor do I have AC. Luckily the basement is surprisingly ideal for crested temperatures throughout the year. Sometimes herp keeping doesn't have to be complicated.

True i dont give my cresties heat either however they live in a room thats usually 70-75 and in wisconsin it will get well above 80 in the summer which is as hot as cresties should be and although they had heating in the winter he told me it still gets below 60 alot in his house in the winter which is colder than cresties should be.

Things like this make me angry and that parents let it happen. My very good friend has a two year old and she has played with each of my snakes big to small. Good for their socialization as well. She understand to touch them softly on their back, no touching their head and to moves slow around their face. She will be great as she gets older. I found out now she makes play doh snakes at home and names after my snakes. She even gets the sizes right. She can distinguish between baby and juvenile.
People need to educate themselves about any animal they bring into the home.

you should have told him it was illegal to catch wild animals and keep them as pets. and you could have told him its illegal to let animals die in your care. maybe use a little scare tactic to get him to learn more about his animals.

At this point i just feel sorry for any animals in that kid's care. I think we should all thank our parents (or whoever raised you to love animals) for teaching us that it's not just an animal, it's another life that we've decided to take care of. It really irks me when people let their animals die so flippantly.

Ugh, that's disgusting. It's sad enough that it happened to the first animal, but when he chose to continue keeping them after seeing them die in a short period of time is disgusting. Where the hell are this boy's parents? They should teach him that all life has value, and must treated respectfully. :( Even if they don't give a crap about the animals' lives, shouldn't they be bothered by the multitude of dead reptiles that have been in their son's room?

I hope that somehow the snappers end up in better hands. I don't know what Wisconsin's animal abuse laws are, but could you call them? 10 gal is WAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYY to small for multiple baby alligator snappers. Did he mention what he feeds these guys? Or if they have a filter? Has the 50 watt been passed down to them?

Guys it sucks that the animals died and it sucks that how he's housing them now but let me just say this HE IS JUST A KID. You cant tell me as a kid you didnt catch frogs and toads lizard and turtles and keep them as pets. Kids don't know any better and not all kids have parents like a few of you do or have parents like us. I know as a kid I had all sorts or pets that I found and yes some of them died but I didn't know the things I do now.

I can actually. If i tried to keep them, my mother would yell at me to put them back because i wasn't capable of taking care of them. It wasn't until i hit 11 or 12 that she decided it was okay for me to keep animals, and even then i was limited to mice or gerbils (i went with mice. little did i know what used to be pets to me is now food for my BP O.o). It is not the kid's fault for the most part (getting EVEN MORE animals after his died is entirely his fault), as the parents clearly turn a blind eye to what this kid is doing to them.

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Originally Posted by Simple Man

It happens all the time man. We don't appreciate people that come here for answers enough. All you can do is your best to try and educate people or at least steer them in the right direction. Otherwise, if you worried about this kind of stuff all the time you would have the weight of the worlds exotic animals on your chest. The majority of people don't do things incorrect because they want to. They do things incorrect because they don't know any better.

Regards,

B

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Exactly - the kid just does not know any better. Tell him what he is doing wrong and move on. I hope OP at least attempted to help him, as the original post does not make it seem like any effort was put into helping the kid rectify his husbandry problems.

First of all i did tell him to correct his husbandry issues i did not post that because most if not all of us already know how to take care of these animals. It was truly the parents fault. If an animal of mine dies i find out why and make sure it doesn’t happen again. He however made the same mistakes again and again and his parents didn’t do anything. I also don’t buy anything i cant take care of which is why i don’t have snappers. Oh and yes he moved the 50 watt to his snappers but the cage is way to small and he says he feeds therm worms and night crawlers which he catches.

Sounds like my neighbors. They're always getting animals and have had many reptiles die, just to be replaced by something new. I always give them advice on how to keep them properly, they nod and agree and thank me, then dump it into a ten gallon tank until it "mysteriously" dies. They usually feed whatever animal they have on whatever wild bugs and lizards and such they catch in the neighborhood, regardless of what the diet should be. If the reptile is big enough to eat rodents, they'll feed it pinkies and mice just to watch it eat them.

I do my best to simply give the advice and ignore the carnage. There's nothing more that I can do legally. I give them advice and tell them "It will DIE unless you do xxx" and pretty much they ignore it. The best they've done is feed a slightly better diet to the spur thigh tortoise someone gave them, instead of the iceberg lettuce and whatever foilage they pulled from the yard. Now it's mostly romaine lettuce... with some fruits and veggies thrown in.

They actually came over to complain to me how their ball python "escaped" from the 55 gallon tank I advised them not to use. The cover was.... *sitting down??*... a blanket draped over it. They were astounded that it "escaped" the tank. I actually did utter the words "You are the stupidest people I've talked to in weeks. You know that, right? Morons. Total morons."

They still come tell me about the latest critters and to ask advice. Maybe one day they'll start following it. Not holding my breath.

Well at least your neighbours like herps, my neighbors some how found out i had reptiles (stalkers) and now tell me they’ll eat me. WTF ball pythons eating a person.

I have to admit, I was once that little kid, killing everything it got it's hands onto. I blame myself, my parents were always telling me to let things go, but I was bringing so many things into the house, it was pretty much impossible to quell the tide, and my parents didn't know anymore about the animal's care then I did...I killed some really beautiful animals, much to my shame.

I hate what I've done, (and has taken quite awhile to not hate myself for it,) but now realize proper education is essential, and haven't killed anything in a long time. It was incredibly unfair and cruel for the animals to suffer from my learning experiance, but if the parents don't know any better, or don't know what's going on in their child's room, (:oops:) it's hard to blame anyone. I hope the kid learns from the death, takes the OP's advice, ands grows up to properly care for his collection. Education is needed for everyone.

Well.....at twelve years old the kid is old enough to seek out and learn what needs to be learned about taking care of the animals he has acquired, there is no excuse.

Kids as young as 9 are surfing the web for all kinds of info these days, and they all practically live on youtube.

The parents are another story all together.....They seem to me to have that "everything is disposable attitude" like many of my generation, pet dies, buy another one. Oh that one died too, well lets buy another one, instead of finding out why the animals died.
Or hey why not buy a care manual for the new pet we just bought little Johnny.

just my :2cent:

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Originally Posted by llovelace

Well.....at twelve years old the kid is old enough to seek out and learn what needs to be learned about taking care of the animals he has acquired, there is no excuse.
Kids as young as 9 are surfing the web for all kinds of info these days, and they all practically live on youtube.

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Depends on the twelve year old...I was fairly technology-free till I hit about 14. My theory at 12 was that love conquers all. Unfortunately, loving an animal to death doesn't take care of it's needs. It honestly never even occurred to me that the animal might need special care outside the obvious. Less intentional neglect, more ignorance. Although, I won't deny neglect was there. Children are lazy. :(