I need help and to talk to someone.

[hungba]

This is going to be long, but please bear with me. I really need other reptile keepers to talk to about this.

I have been keeping animals (mostly reptiles) since I was a child. I took some years off during my later high school and college years but afterwards started again with an iguana 11 years ago. Like many other reptile keepers, my "collection" for want of a better term, has grown. In the past few years, I also started breeding (skink, snakes, geckos) and must say I have been rather successful, even creating world firsts as far as morphs go. I guess I should be happy about this, but the number of animals has increased exponentially.

I do take good care of my animals, but the amount of work, food bills, vet bills and time invested has increased very much and if you talked to me some months ago, I would never admit this, but it just no longer feels fun anymore. It feels like a lot of stress and I have neglected all other aspects of my life outside work and my animals. For example, just a few years ago, I was a competitive athlete. I now no longer even exercise. I have never been very social, but I honestly can't even remember the last time I have been to a social meeting with anyone except immediate family on birthdays etc. I am getting rid of human furniture to make room for more cages and racks. I also have boxes and boxes of equipment from past years that I am saving in case I need it for future animals, that I dont want to throw out (maybe I should?) but didn't bother listing to sell them because what am I going to get for a bunch of old tubs or second hand rock dishes? Make a trip out to collect $10? This isn't working.

Today, after months of vet treatment (since april), my 3 Mali uromastyx were finally given a clean bill of health from the vet. I came home feeling peaceful, only to see that one of my skinks seem lethargic and I probably need to go to the vet yet again. That felt like a "last straw" to me.

I still do love animals, and even the other day my mother commented how excited I was just seeing a house gecko at her house. I am not thinking of stopping altogether, but I think I really need to cut back. I am almost reluctant to say this because it sounds like my dad when I was a kid when I just had a few turtles, but it has grown to that point that he may actually be right.

But I don't know what to do. I am so attached to them I don't know if I can decide which ones to sell/rehome. There is plenty of demand but I just can not decide what to keep and what to sell. I look at my frogs and they are all different colors and if I sell all but one or two, which ones do I keep? I have skinks that I can sell some, but which one? They are all equally lovable.

Also, it would seem that to significantly reduce the workload/cost, I should really be selling all of a certain class of animal. Like, sell all insectivores if I don't want to keep live prey, or all frogs for example. For example, I have an air conditioned room dedicated to caudates and things needing cool temperatures in the summer. A warm room for snakes etc. If I sell 90% of all the ones in the cool room, I would STILL need to pay the bills for the air conditioning. If I sell half of all my cricket eaters, I would STILL need to make that trip to buy crickets etc.

Has anyone else gone through this? I know something must be done, but not sure how to get started, and indeed don't want to! Should I just sell one or two to "get the ball rolling"?

Please help.