It drives me crazy!

[rabernet]

I visit another ball python forum (which I will not name) and it drives me nuts some of the BP owners.

You can tell by the typing and shorthand that the forum has mostly teenagers to early 20's, because they write like they are IMing each other.

Then one writes that he just got his BP and wants to know why she keeps hissing at him and balling up in his hand when he waves his other hand in front of her.......thunk......!

And another tells people... you can let your temps drop to the 60's at night, no problem.

And another writes in to say she thinks her snake may have scale rot or mites and should she use neosporin on it and gets offended when I don't answer her question but suggest that she get her snake to a vet, that we certainly can't diagnose sight unseen and besides that, no one on that forum is a herp vet!

I feel so sorry for the snakes owned by these people. I don't know why I keep going back, maybe hoping that I can share some of what I've learned from you guys and save a BP life or two.

Robin

[doobysnack]

i hope this doesnt make every one look at teenagers like they dont know what they are doing. because i am only 16 but i do agree with you those poeple do sound pretty much like they dont know what they are doing i wouldnt mind smacking the one who said your temps can drop to low 60's at nite sry people like that shouldnt own snakes!

[frankykeno]

LOL Robin I just bet I know which forum you mean to as it also makes me grit my teeth and fight to not go into "mom mode".

Fact of life is some teen-agers (and a lot of supposedly more mature adults) shouldn't own any living thing but do and the poor creature suffers for it.

I do think it's awfully unfair to a pet to be bought though if the parent in the home isn't educated and able to assist whatever the age of the young person. Having a pet to teach responsibility is all well and good but any kid needs back-up. My 11 year old is away on a few days sleep-over, so of course we care for her pet rat for her. How can she learn responsibility if we don't model it?

I think a lot of these younger owners are just left out in the dark that way. Kind of "okay son you get that snake but I'm not dealing with it!" thing. Not fair to the teen and certainly unfair to the snake.

There was a thread on another unnamed forum about a 17 year old with a 3 year old burm he'd had since it was a baby and of course the poor young man was struggling with raising it and providing proper care. Who in heck lets a 14 year old have a big snake like that unless mom or dad has major snake experience!!!! Boy was I biting my tongue.

My own almost 14 year old wants a big spider. For now it's no, until I can get past my own unreasonable fear of larger spiders as I know I would need to help care for it and help him learn to care for it properly and I can't do that if I'm afraid.


~~Jo~~

[BallPythonBabe448]

I'm only twelve..

But I can say that I don't talk like I am IMing people all the time.. and certainly would never say:

hi grl how r u i men its werd we boff hav bp's i like 2 hold mine wen its sleep-n..

and I hope that no one would say or spell anything close to that..


I know what you mean though, some people preach everything that is wrong.. and when someone corrects them they get defensive and stuff. It makes you not want to read anything they say when they use ebonics and slang all of the time, it gets agrivating.

[Forrest]

The best thing you can do is put the right information out there ( to the best of our abilities) and call out bad information with corrected information. No one is perfect keep that in mind, but please correct bad information. Remember these are the individuals will do the unthinkable and get our "babies" banned from owning them privately (Out of pure ignorance). Here in Colorado snakes ecspecially large ones do have a bad rap. Within the last 5 years there have been 2 deaths because of improper husbandry. The first was an Aurora man who wanted to play with his then shedding adult snake (I am not shure of the specific breed) by himself who in return got aggitated and strangled him (It took 10 police officers to remove the snake? Why? According to newspaper). Then a Commerce City boy was strangled by his pet Burmese, who had free range of the house (why?). Now in the Commerce City case a good freind of mine was friends with the family of the boy who died. So I do know more details than what you can read in this case. Now in both of those city it is now unlawful to own any snake over 10ft in length. My condolenses go out to both these family first, but secondly a little more knowledge and better hudbandry could of kept both these individuals alive. So do you think I preach good husbandry pratices? You betcha. I will correct any misleading information as well, I do not want a repeat of the examples to ever happen to a family again.

[rabernet]

i hope this doesnt make every one look at teenagers like they dont know what they are doing. because i am only 16 but i do agree with you those poeple do sound pretty much like they dont know what they are doing i wouldnt mind smacking the one who said your temps can drop to low 60's at nite sry people like that shouldnt own snakes!

Dooby,

I certainly did not mean to offend our younger members here, and if you had not told me you were a teen, I would not have been able to tell.

It's almost as if it's a "rogue" forum. There are some knowledgeable people on there who try to correct mis-information, but it is sometimes hard to even interpret what the question is in the "IM style" writing over there!

I don't care what age anyone is, as long as I can read and understand what the person is saying or asking. I know for a fact, that there are certainly some teens on THIS board who have had a lot more experience handling BP's than I have in my short three weeks of owning one, and I welcome all advice and mentoring I can get, no matter who it comes from!

Robin

[rabernet]

There was a thread on another unnamed forum about a 17 year old with a 3 year old burm he'd had since it was a baby and of course the poor young man was struggling with raising it and providing proper care. Who in heck lets a 14 year old have a big snake like that unless mom or dad has major snake experience!!!! Boy was I biting my tongue.

My own almost 14 year old wants a big spider. For now it's no, until I can get past my own unreasonable fear of larger spiders as I know I would need to help care for it and help him learn to care for it properly and I can't do that if I'm afraid.


~~Jo~~

Is the forum green by chance? LOL

Anyway, I don't think I can handle arachnids myself. Guess that makes me better appreciate what our friends who are fearful of snakes feel! LOL

Robin

[rabernet]

I'm only twelve..

But I can say that I don't talk like I am IMing people all the time.. and certainly would never say:

hi grl how r u i men its werd we boff hav bp's i like 2 hold mine wen its sleep-n..

and I hope that no one would say or spell anything close to that..


I know what you mean though, some people preach everything that is wrong.. and when someone corrects them they get defensive and stuff. It makes you not want to read anything they say when they use ebonics and slang all of the time, it gets agrivating.

Yet another young member, who I would have never known if you had not told me. Your example above is EXACTLY how some of the members over there type. Besides that, there's no punctuation to know when one sentence ends and another starts (and the one I'm thinking of is in her mid 20's trying to be cute with the younger ones).

Anyway...enough of my rant! LOL

Robin

[rabernet]

The best thing you can do is put the right information out there ( to the best of our abilities) and call out bad information with corrected information. No one is perfect keep that in mind, but please correct bad information. Remember these are the individuals will do the unthinkable and get our "babies" banned from owning them privately (Out of pure ignorance). Here in Colorado snakes ecspecially large ones do have a bad rap. Within the last 5 years there have been 2 deaths because of improper husbandry. The first was an Aurora man who wanted to play with his then shedding adult snake (I am not shure of the specific breed) by himself who in return got aggitated and strangled him (It took 10 police officers to remove the snake? Why? According to newspaper). Then a Commerce City boy was strangled by his pet Burmese, who had free range of the house (why?). Now in the Commerce City case a good freind of mine was friends with the family of the boy who died. So I do know more details than what you can read in this case. Now in both of those city it is now unlawful to own any snake over 10ft in length. My condolenses go out to both these family first, but secondly a little more knowledge and better hudbandry could of kept both these individuals alive. So do you think I preach good husbandry pratices? You betcha. I will correct any misleading information as well, I do not want a repeat of the examples to ever happen to a family again.

Forrest,

I think that's one reason I do go over there, to give what limited accurate knowledge that I do have. I do know enough to know what your warm and cool side temps should be and that they should remain constant to avoid RI's! LOL

I think I saw on the news about the first guy you mentioned.

[MrSinister]

Hi
Well I'm a new member to this forum. I'm in the process of buying a baby male pastel jungle ball python. This is going to be my first CB snake. I've owned many different lizards and a couple of garter snakes that i've caught in my back yard. Just a question tho before i get my BP, what will happen if the temp drops to 60, cause all the lizards i've had only needed a heat rock and a light to be turned on and off during the night... so i'm not too sure what the exact temp was in their cages.