Sad part seems to be with a lot of general lizard/herp type books is the author's probably regurgitating stuff he/she read somewhere oh about 20 years back that was in itself regurge of other unrealiable information. Basically an author presenting themselves as an "expert" who likely hasn't had 10 minutes of hands on time with most of what they are writing about. Toss in some nice photography and bingo....makes it pretty appealing to a newcomer. Lots of pet stores stock those kinds of books. They have a big visual impact with little attention to content (bet the pet store manager never even cracked the book open). Spend your money on books from solid breeders that are specific to what you are looking to raise is my take on that (NERD's new book is an excellent example of this).

Then compound that by the misinformation that does come out of a lot of pet stores (not all and I know some of you work hard in pet stores to do your very best...sometimes without managerial support). A lot of herp owners get their first one through a pet store. We certainly did with Rionach and a combination of our own research, a bit of blind luck and this forum is what made that experience very positive.

For a lot of folks with that sort of bad information coming in as "facts" (plus a lot of WC sold as CB) you get snakes doing poorly or ending up dead or abandoned and people turned off the hobby because they went by the book or the pet store and it was a total bad experience all around. Oh and you get the whole BP's are poor feeders, shedders, difficult snakes stuff....funny but I see a ton of folks on here not struggling unduly with their well started, well cared for BP's.


~~Jo~~