Brian Barczyk's Open Forum on Snake Rack Systems

[JodanOrNoDan]

If Taylor wants to go as a rep for the board, that is great.

Here is where I stand and what I think is the reality of the situation. If Brian wants to be productive he needs to lay off the coffee. Its what you say, not how much you say.

The "rack question" is way to broad. I have only kept two species of snakes. I kept corns as "pets" not in racks. I keep balls as a small breeder in racks. It would be logical to assume enclosure size and "enrichment" items would depend on the species. I will only address ball pythons because that is the only species I feel I know enough about to have an opinion. These guys like small spaces. I have seen zero mental or behavioral problems keeping theses guys in racks. With balls, when and if you start having issues you generally go smaller, not bigger. They generally live in holes in the wild and only move if the have to unless it is breeding season. Their metabolism is naturally feast or famine. In my experience a healthy adult ball, especially females, do little to nothing unless stressed even out of their enclosure. If I ever noticed an issue keeping balls racked, I would reduce my collection and give them more room, but so far I seem to have healthy well adjusted animals. There is the occasional psycho, but like I said before the cure for this is smaller, not bigger.

My opinion on this whole meeting is that Brian is just looking for another money making angle. He is going to reduce operating costs by keeping less animals and up the cost per animal with the justification that he is keeping them in "better" conditions. It is BS and false advertising when it comes to balls. From what I have seen of his animals and things that I have heard from people that have been in his facility, mine are healthier and of the same or better quality than his. All he is trying to do is negatively impact the small breeders whom has to compete with. This whole subject when comes to ball pythons is a false narrative and Brian's motivations for even addressing the subject are suspect.

As an aside, in almost every video he shows, some snake tries to take a chunk out of him when he opens the rack. Hmmm, I wonder why. My snakes don't pull that crap even the couple "crazy" ones I have. I guarantee it has nothing to do with the rack.