How did you get started in herps

[sorraia]

Started way way back pretty much as soon as I could move around on my own and was allowed to play outside. My dad had a turtle pond with a variety of pond turtle species (cooters, red-eared sliders, map turtles, soft shelled turtles...). I was allowed to "help" him with the turtles, which when I was smallest meant throwing the food in the water, and when I got a little bigger meant getting into the pond to scrub the muck off the bottom. He also had a couple tortoises. I enjoyed "playing" with them, that is, feeding them flowers (dandelions, hibiscus) and following them around the yard and making up what they were "saying" to each other. I was also always chasing and catching everything I could. At home that mostly meant lizards. On our vacations that included snakes, frogs, and toads.

I don't remember exactly what order the rest of the herps came in, but at some point my dad got a ribbon snake as a "classroom pet" (he was a 3rd grade teacher). The snake came home when he wasn't teaching, and lived in the classroom while he was. I helped feed it and take care of it, but it was more of a display animal than a handle animal. It also ended up having babies. My dad was part of the local turtle and tortoise club too, and at one point my sister and I were allowed to bring home a couple of geckos from one of the shows. I don't remember what kind they were, but nothing special. I want to say they were just a couple of house geckos. Then I was allowed to get a ball python, and I loved that snake. Eventually my sister and I got a couple of leopard geckos, then I got a uromastyx. This whole time my father still had his turtles and tortoises (throw in some box turtles and a terrapin at one point).

For the last few years I've been "herp-less", instead getting my "herp fix" on the job. I'm a field biologist and though a big part of my job involves monitoring birds, part of it includes herps. Our interpretative center also has a few snakes I've enjoyed watching and handling when I am there. Always good fun! During the last decade I've been breeding pet rats, but when I got pregnant I made the tough decision to let that go. My husband was in the active military, and gone often, so I was typically home alone working full time and taking care of the house and pets (which went well beyond rats...), and it was just more than I wanted to deal with. So I stopped breeding them, sold some, and have been keeping the others to live out their life. During this time I still have my dogs, cats, horses, and rabbits. Earlier in 2012 my dad lost his house and gave me his desert tortoise (by now he no longer has his pond turtles - as much as he hated doing it, he had to let them go because the maintenance got to be too much for him physically). For quite some time I had been wanting a rosy boa too, but have been holding out for the "right time". Later in 2012 a coworker was given a pair of rosy boas who had already been mated. I found out about this and asked if she had homes for the babies, and she saw right through that and asked if I wanted one. When they were born in early September I ended up taking home not just one, but two (out of a litter of 5, two other coworkers took one each, and a friend of hers took the last one). And the bug bit again! Early December we brought home two ball pythons. We'll be getting two more this weekend, and my husband is wanting a lizard (leaning toward bearded dragon).