How/why did you get into the reptile hobby?

So I get asked this question a lot: Why do you wanna do such a thing like breeding snakes? Mostly by people who dont understand reptiles or snakes and think they are gross or creepy.

So here it is: For me reptiles (snakes in particular) have always been fascinating and I have always been a field herper while I was growing up and my mom would never let me get a reptile for a pet. It wasnt until I was 22 that I got my first a veiled chameleon. After that my hog island boa. I wanted more but my wife said no especially since I saw some that were wicked cool and the prices were outrageous. So I had an epiphany: what if I breed the snakes I buy so they can atleast pay for themselves? After a few weeks of discussion she gave in.

So essentially I got started collecting/soon to be breeding because there were things I wanted but couldnt afford so I thought I would make them myself. Now the more I get into it the more I want. Whether this turns into a business is all in the stars.

So now I wanna know why or how you got into the reptile hobby whether its breeding or collecting or what have you I wanna know.

I started the same way you did, in a way. My dad, brothers, and I grew up field herping at the local wetlands and I've just always loved Reptiles. I got my first Reptile, my Leopard Gecko, just this year (at 22 years old at the time) and she has just made my love for Herps grow!!

i got into herps in a wierd way to be honest. i was actually in a local pet store (not petco/smart) picking up a mouse for my ex wifes ball python (we were married at the time lol) and i was actually afraid of snakes, i hated her python but i was doing her a favor. i saw a really pretty pastel redtail boa when i walked in and the guy asked if i wanted to hold her. i of course said no that i was afraid of the damn things. well after about 5 mins of talking to me he talked me into holding her. as soon as i held her i was sold. i bought her right there on the spot lol. now i have an albino male, pastel female, jungle male, laddertail male, and a hypo het for albino waiting for me in aug at daytona and im hopefully picking up a jungle female and 5 boaphile cages tomorrow and i have to admit i am glad that i did hold her that day because i love this hobby and everything about it! but to be honest i am still not a fan of ball pythons, i tihnk they are pet rocks lol well thats how i get into this hobby

Yeah I really love boas they are awesome and I hope to add a few in the coming years!

I was always fascinated with snakes. So like the week after my 14th birthday i came home from the petstore with a ball python. I really wanted a pet that was different and that was cool. Also growing up every weekend i was at my dads house and every weekday i was at my moms house so it was hard to have a pet that required alot of care. Also after having gerbils and hamsters i wanted a pet that didnt smell. So yea, nothing really all that exciting. (Except for my moms reaction when i brought a snake home, that was rather exciting lol). After the 2nd,3rd, 4th, 5th, and soon to be 6th addition she doesnt really care anymore. My whole extended family kinda just accepts the fact that im different. I dont mind being different, living in my own world most of the time lol. Its pretty nice here, we have buffalo wings and free wifi.:D

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Originally Posted by Mike41793

I was always fascinated with snakes. So like the week after my 14th birthday i came home from the petstore with a ball python. I really wanted a pet that was different and that was cool. Also growing up every weekend i was at my dads house and every weekday i was at my moms house so it was hard to have a pet that required alot of care. Also after having gerbils and hamsters i wanted a pet that didnt smell. So yea, nothing really all that exciting. (Except for my moms reaction when i brought a snake home, that was rather exciting lol). After the 2nd,3rd, 4th, 5th, and soon to be 6th addition she doesnt really care anymore. My whole extended family kinda just accepts the fact that im different. I dont mind being different, living in my own world most of the time lol. Its pretty nice here, we have buffalo wings and free wifi.:D

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HAHAHA! yeah I like being different and having such a cool animal that is easy maintainence is a plus! :gj:

I've always liked snakes, never went looking for wild ones though. Anyhow, my father hated them, just like his mother. Both are terrified of snakes, so I could never have one. After I moved out, me and my girlfriend (wife now) were looking for a fish tank for our apartment, and walked past some corn snakes, started talking about snakes that we couldn't have and ended up with two.

started catching garter an corn snakes upstate ny at my summer place which resulted in me getting a gater as my first offical snake an then my father bought me my first bp in 98. Been hooked on reptiles ever since. especially the bps

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Originally Posted by Mft62485

I've always liked snakes, never went looking for wild ones though. Anyhow, my father hated them, just like his mother. Both are terrified of snakes, so I could never have one. After I moved out, me and my girlfriend (wife now) were looking for a fish tank for our apartment, and walked past some corn snakes, started talking about snakes that we couldn't have and ended up with two.

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My dad cant even look at pictures without freaking out. I am like that with spiders but I like to believe that I love snakes because of his fear of them...

I have always loved snakes for as long as I can remember. I remember my neighbor (uncle hank) calling me over to catch a garter snake out of a patch of mint they were growing by their house. You called all adult friends of the family uncle or aunt out of respect back in those days. It was the summer between 1st and 2nd grade then so I must have been about 6 or 7. I remember my Dad caught a baby Massasuaga rattler in early fall of the same year and brought it home in a galvanized bucket. I begged him to let me take it to school for show and tell. Needless to say he didn't.

From then on, I was a full blown addict for which there was no 12 step program. I read everything I could get my hands on that pertained to reptiles. I especially liked the books "the Living World of Reptiles" by Karl P. Shmidt and Robert F. Inger as well as "Reptiles of North America" by Raymond L. Ditmars. Some of the older reptile enthusiasts here may have surmised that is where I came up with my blog name. For those of you who don't know the name, he was really the father of american herpetology.

I caught every snake that existed in Michigan, ( and had been bitten by the same) other than the Massasuaga. I never found one of my own. I loved the Fox snake as it was about the largest snake you could find there. I remember I once caught a female that gave birth to about twenty offspring. That was a surprise. I caught my fair share of snapping and painted turtles, frogs, and salamanders too.

I had a ball python, corn snake, california king snake, eastern coachwhip, reticulate python, and a ball python, all before 1980. That may seem like nothing today, but trust me when I say in 1979, I was an outlier.

Then in 1988 I got married. That was the end, and I feared there would be no return of "The Salad Days". The wife and I had 3 female critters. But not to lose all hope, as all of them are very comfortable with reptiles.

Fast forward about 15+ years and my 8 yr old daughter seems to be really interested in snakes. Three years of convincing the wife later, and she finally gets her first BP. Now she is expecting her first clutch of eggs early July and we finished making the incubator together a couple weeks ago. So the story continues.

I had always been interested in snakes. The first time I saw someone get shooken up over seeing one, I knew I'd like them. Our local mom and pop pet store had a huge albino Burmese and I thought it was awesome! I asked my mom for a couple years and saved up a bunch of money to pay for anything I needed and she always said no.
Well, one day her boyfriend(now husband) was around and I asked her again in a somewhat joking manner figuring I already knew the answer. Sure enough, she said no. then the surprise came! He asked what kind I wanted and I said a corn snake and he said they're cute and not too bad, my mom flipped out and was asking him why he'd say that. He replied with stories of his 12burm and two rtb's he used to have.
That week we got Geoff, my corn snake, who turned out to not be a boy.
That was last May. That October (on Halloween!) I got a ball python from my bio teacher who didn't really want it anymore. For Christmas I got a pueblan milk, then in February I went with my stepdad to get some mice and came home with a gtp. My mom almost lost it. Then five days later they were shopping and my mom got an expensive purse. Well, is forgotten to get fresh bedding so I asked them to pick some up in their way home, and they came home with another gtp. So, 5 snakes in a year, I'm not complaining :)

I started out with keeping a garter snake. I then discovered ball pythons back in 2008 and I have been addicted to them ever since. Now I want every reptile that you can possibly imagine. I plan on getting a red tail boa and a blue tonngue skink when I eventually get a house and have more room.

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Originally Posted by ballpythonluvr

when I eventually get a house and have more room.

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Itll be dangerous when i get my first house. I will go nut and probably dedicate half the house to just keeping herps lol!

Isimply didn't care for dogs or cats growing up, I play with them but they just were not my main interest. I started cuaghting and handlingsnakes by the tiem I was 12 and it grew from there , Out of my entire family I am the only oen that not scared of any reptile and I finally started to infect my niece, and my mothe with the joys of it now lol.
Plus I met my fiancee on here and she a snake( animal in general ) lover ..

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Originally Posted by rlditmars

I remember my Dad caught a baby Massasuaga rattler

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My dad is a state park ranger up here and he worked at a park that had a problem with rattle snakes. He terrified of them so he asked me (14 at the time) if I would be up to helping him. I was all over it so I became the snake wrangler at the park. It was awesome. The type of rattlesnake that we have up here are only about 3.5 feet at best but they tend to have the shoot first ask questions later mentality! But thankfully I have never been bitten!

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Originally Posted by Mike41793

Itll be dangerous when i get my first house. I will go nut and probably dedicate half the house to just keeping herps lol!

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I feel ya I turned our guest bedroom into a reptile room and needless to say with only 13 snakes I still have a lot of room so I am getting ETS and its killing me cuz I cant afford any new snakes at the moment. We are currently looking to buy a house with a big basement so I can really open up the collection!

Well growing up i will say i was fortunate enough to experience a diverse first hand knowledge on a lot of animals due to my mom. from your common domestic cats and dogs, to farm animals like pig, chickens, pigs, etc, to more exotic and aquatic ones. we had some crazy stuff in our house growing up and was unofficially dubbed the Zoo of Upper Darby. you could hear the animals 1-2 blocks away. LOL. after i left for the airforce and returned, it was about 2-3 yeaars after that that i got my first BP, Rafael. and landed a job in the Pet store i grew up near. wiggled my way into the reptile room after a week or 2 there and loved it, while there i got some real fun dealing with many more diverse reptiles and exotics. including hots, aliigators/camien. and trantula's and many other things. While there they had a pair of australian brown water pythons, that no one ever looked at, or did much with, because of their protective nature. so i took a chance and took them out, and fell in total love with them. and was totally hooked on snakes from that point on. although i always preferred reptiles over fur and feathers.

As a kid I always loved catching animals, didn't really matter if it was a snake, frog, newt, insect, or (if I was lucky) birds/mammals. My parents were never very excited at the thought of non-dog or non-cat pets, so other than a venture with some green anoles when I was very young (disastrous) I was limited to betta fish when it came to actual pets. The rest was simple catch and release.

Fast forward to high school and I just stumbled across a corn snake breeder's website one day. I spent a good 6 hours looking at all the crazy colored snakes, and then googling for as much information as possible and more breeder's websites. After about a week I knew I'd found what I knew I'd love doing for the rest of my life. Easy to care for, fascinating, and so many different combos! Ball pythons didn't interest me at all though until I met a woman who kept a pair and let me handle them for a while. LOVED that they weren't so squirmy and the manageable size while still being pretty heavily bodied. I spent forever trying to convince my mother to let me just get one, but it was absolutely not happening.

So I spent the better part of four years just reading/researching, and it also gave me a much better idea on how the business/breeding side of the hobby worked before I just dove into it. Looking back it's probably a good thing. It wasn't until I'd moved out of my mother's house to my dad's place for free college housing that I started saving some money and looking at breeder's websites for snakes I would want to get. My dad's wife is TERRIFIED of snakes, so I knew I couldn't keep them there, but my boyfriend at the time didn't mind giving me some shelf space at his house. So after a few months debating whether or not I was comfortable having pets in a house other than mine I just jumped and got myself the mojave male I'd been admiring for weeks. Mojaves were (and are) my all time favorite BP morph, and rather than getting a normal female I decided I'd just get the nicest female pastel I could afford to go with him.

Come August 2010, I got Monty and Ember :D and it's just been growing ever since. I now live in my own home with my pets, and am lucky enough to be with someone who's just as excited about reptiles and exotics as I am. The collection keeps growing as we're able to do it sanely, and I just couldn't be happier with how things turned out. I waited a long time to be able to keep reptiles, and it was so worth the wait

I got into it to make an obsurd amount of money by breeding snakes. It has completely paid off for me as I am currently a millionaire because of it.

Ps: why does it say millionaire twice? My post is broken and no longer funny. grrrrrr

I love all animals, and was destined to have a job working with animals in some fashion. However, I am disabled (I have CFS), so anything involving intensive labor was out. The minimal labor and high return drew me to invest in snakes. I'm extremely happy with the choice. :)

When I was born, my father had a young Colombian red-tail boa, so I grew with this snake. Once I was old enough, I started taking care of him, eventually breeding the rats to feed him (while keeping some as pets) and being the only one that cared for him. For some reason, which to this day I can't get an answer from him, my father decided he wanted to sell him at a show. I was very upset about this, since by then I considered him to be MY snake.

Once I got into a place of my own where I knew I'd be stable for a while, I rescued a baby Colombian from someone on Craigslist. I now have two pet snakes, and 2 rescues. I plan to continue to do rescues/adoptions because I've seen the bad conditions they can end up in, and I've seen that most of the people who actually know how to help these snakes won't (mostly it seems because they don't want to spend the money), so they go to people who don't know how to care for them who just want to help.

My first experience with snakes:
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7086/7...821ed73bd3.jpg

My biological father had snakes from when I was very young, and my parents' friend Craig had a garage full of racks, and tanks lining every wall in his house. I went through most of gradeschool in southern california, where herps are everywhere and I remember hiking through trails with my parents and the dogs, catching lizards and sidestepping diamondbacks (nearly stepped right into the middle of one coiled up).

I still get excited when I see a red tailed hawk or eagle in the sky. Hell, I was super giddy when I tossed french fries at the flock of seagulls at the closing K-mart parkinglot.. and 100+ swooped down and swarmed the car, blocking others from getting out of the lot. I get excited every time I find a garter snake or chorus frog.

My obsession is really with animals in general, not just herps, but it's worked out particularly well with meeting Brad (boyfriend, for those who don't know) that we ended up both having similar interests, and getting into ball pythons.

The short story is that I was looking for a pet for my kids that did not have fur. After researching bearded dragons, I realized that crickets or roaches were not my cup of tea. I came across snakes, liked what I saw and now here I am! By far my favorite pet and I've had a LOT of different types of pets!

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Originally Posted by Anatopism

Hell, I was super giddy when I tossed french fries at the flock of seagulls at the closing K-mart parkinglot.. and 100+ swooped down and swarmed the car, blocking others from getting out of the lot.

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This reminds me of one time in the beach parking lot this (JERK) in a convertible stole a parking spot that i was clearly going to park in then insisted he didnt see my turn signal and refused to move. So i went to the beach shack and bought french fries then came back and threw the fries in his car which he left the top down in. You should have seen the flock of seagulls that came flying down and ate and crapped all in his car. The car was still there when we left but to this day i wish i had stuck around to see the look on his face. LMFAO

Well, my daughter started all this. And I have fallen in, hook, line, and sinker. We have always had lots of pets, of many kinds. I used to be terrified of snakes. Couldn't even look at them. Long story short, teased and tormented with garter snakes as a kid by some jerk (aka my dad). So I had irrational fears, but didn't want them to rub off on my daughter. She loved the reptile sections of the zoo and pet stores. So I had to put on my big girl pants and deal with it. After several years of being drug around looking at all the snakes everywhere, and begged and pleaded by my daughter for one, I started researching them. I finally decided I needed to actually see her handle one, to make sure she was up for it, for real. Which of course she was. And as soon as I actually held one, it was all over. We brought home our first snake. Fast forward to today, we have 7. And I love them to pieces. We take them for educational/exposure visits to her school every year. And I will tell anybody who will listen how great they are. And anybody who I can, get to hold them. My mother in law actually held our boa today for the first time. :D. My husband never thought he would see the day when I would be near a snake, let alone love them to pieces! So, thank you to my sweet precious child!

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Originally Posted by Anatopism

My first experience with snakes:
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7086/7...821ed73bd3.jpg

My biological father had snakes from when I was very young, and my parents' friend Craig had a garage full of racks, and tanks lining every wall in his house. I went through most of gradeschool in southern california, where herps are everywhere and I remember hiking through trails with my parents and the dogs, catching lizards and sidestepping diamondbacks (nearly stepped right into the middle of one coiled up).

I still get excited when I see a red tailed hawk or eagle in the sky. Hell, I was super giddy when I tossed french fries at the flock of seagulls at the closing K-mart parkinglot.. and 100+ swooped down and swarmed the car, blocking others from getting out of the lot. I get excited every time I find a garter snake or chorus frog.

My obsession is really with animals in general, not just herps, but it's worked out particularly well with meeting Brad (boyfriend, for those who don't know) that we ended up both having similar interests, and getting into ball pythons.

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Awesome pic! That snake is so cool. That will be my little girl here in a few years playin with daddy's snakes! lol. Brads a great guy and he is lucky to have found a good woman who has the same interests! :)

WE got involved because of my 13 yrear old girl and her mother, meeting 2 very nice people at at store name Brad and Brit. By the time I got home I was taken down to the Petco in Olympia and meet the now Famous Brad and Brit. Well after hearing this man and women speak I fully understood what I was getting into and that they would not sale her a sanke if they felt she could not take care of it right. Well Now we have a few and I would love to get some more, space is getting tough since we do not use a rack system. We spent a lot of time with these two people and they taught us a lot and did a inspection of our home to make sure I was doing everything right, which was very nice of them and gave me peace of mine. I would love to get into Herpetolog but I a bit old but who knows. I have so much more to learn and I hope to be able to see my teaches still but they are very busy, so I read a lot and ask a lot of questions on the Forums to learn more.

I always like snakes but never got one.

So thank you my Wife, my Little Girl and Brad and Brit

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Originally Posted by MSG-KB

WE got involved because of my 13 yrear old girl and her mother, meeting 2 very nice people at at store name Brad and Brit. By the time I got home I was taken down to the Petco in Olympia and meet the now Famous Brad and Brit. Well after hearing this man and women speak I fully understood what I was getting into and that they would not sale her a sanke if they felt she could not take care of it right. Well Now we have a few and I would love to get some more, space is getting tough since we do not use a rack system. We spent a lot of time with these two people and they taught us a lot and did a inspection of our home to make sure I was doing everything right, which was very nice of them and gave me peace of mine. I would love to get into Herpetolog but I a bit old but who knows. I have so much more to learn and I hope to be able to see my teaches still but they are very busy, so I read a lot and ask a lot of questions on the Forums to learn more.

I always like snakes but never got one.

So thank you my Wife, my Little Girl and Brad and Brit

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Yeah they are great. I have worked with Brad primarily and he has been a HUGE help. He's always been very patient with me considering I have had a ton of questions for him!

To make a long story short my son wanted a Turtle for his birthday. I am not a fan of water turtles the stink and are very high maintenance. So we got a Ball Python then anonter and another ETC now we have 4 balls 3 rats (breeding) and an incuabotr for next season :) The addiction has set in :rolleyes:

When I was 10 I went to a reptile show at the library and the gentleman had a albino Burmese python. I fell in love right away. After the show I checked out several books on pet snakes and found the albino ball python which was something I could handle a bit better than the Burmese lol So from 10 on I asked my parents for a snake for every holiday, they always said no.When I turned 16 and had a job I asked again if I could buy one. I shared a room with my sister who couldn't get over the idea of sleeping in the same room as a snake. Instead I rescued a Green Iguana! :O She was the meanest thing I have ever owned to this day. It didn't matter to me she was my own pet and I loved her. I would take her out on a leash, she used to like to ride in the back on the car in the sun. Even though she was evil she was my favorite reptile even now when I own my own albino python. I hope eventually I will be able to get another iguana, they are so awesome.

I have always wanted a snake. And was sooo close every time when I was a kid. But things happened like me getting sick or something else and it never happened. Truthfully I was always afraid of snakes but I loved them so much. Well I am glad I never got a snake because I was just so under educated back then compared to now. Then in oct.2011 my house burned down and in feb.2012 we finally got an apartment to live in. So after doing lots of research I found that ontario has reptile expos about once a month.

So 15 days after we moved in there was a expo about an hour away. Thats were I got my first snake! Then after me saying I would never ever get a ball python I finally got one in april. Then a 2 months later I now have 4 ball pythons lol.

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Originally Posted by reptiliachnids

Then after me saying I would never ever get a ball python I finally got one in april. Then a 2 months later I now have 4 ball pythons lol.

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Yeah I just cant stop buying them. I get a new one and for about a week or so I am cool then I start shopping again even though I know I have to wait. I bought 2 Back in Feb. then In may I bought 10 more! Now I want to add a couple of hypos. This coming season I am expecting to have 4 clutches! Woot! Then when my hatchlings start moving I can buy more snakes YAY!

I wish i could start breeding lol! But 2 of my girls are 2012 and the other is late 2011. O well :rolleyes: I wanted to grow all my snakes out anyways

I am one for instant gratification and so I bought a spinnerblast and some breeder girls so I could do it this coming season! But I just cant wait to start breeding the rest of my ladies too! And I really wanna get a hypo project going but theres so much I wanna do so I gotta focus on one thing at a time I guess so I will work on what I have now and some hypos and then in the coming years do some other things. I really wanna add Lavendars too but I gotta pace myself! AAAAAHHH!!! :taz:

I grew up in a house with a huge field behind us and spent a lot of time back there with friends catching anything we could get our hands on. I've always been fascinated with snakes and I am allergic to cats and dogs. So them as a pet was out.

I've always liked animals of all types but I never really wanted snakes. I always thought all snakes had to be upgraded to bigger and bigger enclosures and took up lots of room. Idk where I got this lol. Idk there was just no interest there. I've owned lots of lizards and amphibians.

Then one day I was on Craigslist and kept seeing ads for corn snakes and for whatever reason decided I wanted one. A friend who's into reptiles told us about the reptile expo so we went and picked out Cthulhu. Brandan had no experience with anything other than dogs or cats before him but got over his iffy-ness about him pretty quick.

Shortly after I was looking up corn snake stuff online and saw pics of clown and pied ball pythons and started researching them (by which I mostly mean looking up pics of every morph ever.) They sounded so cool and the combos, amazing! We very quickly became obsessed and worked out a plan of what we would like to start a small breeding project and picked up a couple of girls, Koko and a female spider we traded for Snizzy at the next expo. I never really thought we'd get quite as into it as we are now lol.

I never thought I would seriously consider spending $1000. It seems like the limit just keeps going up.

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Originally Posted by Coleslaw007

I never thought I would seriously consider spending $1000. It seems like the limit just keeps going up.

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Yeah for real! On another thread I mentioned that I would rather spend 45k on a snake than a car!

I always wanted a snake, but my mom wasn't very fond of them. Eventually she told me I could get a snake if I wrote her a two page paper showing I knew how to care for one and reasons I should be allowed to get one. That was on Christmas. Challenge accepted.

Needless to say I completed the paper in about an hour that Christmas. Unfortunately it was about time for college so I had to put it on hold. Now that I am living in a reptile friendly environment I was able to pursue my goal :D