Time to wake up
I posted a video of Roy Garber from the hit series “Shipping Wars” on A&E tv. I was shocked that on the main page of A&E’s website there was a video about this guys love for his pet alligator along with his love for snakes, frogs and turtles. In my eyes this was a huge win for the reptile community. A public figure speaking out about how cool these animals are. Did I think we need to appoint this guy the face of our community, of course not, but I think there might be some people that enjoy his show that might give reptiles a second look after his testimony.
Surprisingly a lot of repsonses were extremely negative about Roy’s husbandry of his alligator. Don’t get me wrong, I was not impressed either, but it wasn’t like they were being neglected. The gator certainly should have been bigger and a larger environment was a must, but again… this guy was pouring out his love for reptiles and our communities repsonse was to attack him. I tagged him in video and if for some reason he decided to pop in and see what “we” the reptile community were saying he would have seen the attacks and probably never wanted to have anything to do with our fight.
Some responses said that we needed to be careful who we want to respresent our hobby. Are you kidding me… This guy is not a rapist…. He’s a guy that has a successful TV show that for no personal gain decided to tell everyone how much he loves reptiles. Do we need to get in touch with him and tell him to never talk about reptiles again publically? Come on people, we need all the help we can get. We can’t sit back and tell someone that has a much bigger voice then all of us combined that he is terrible for our hobby and a reason that HSUS has ammo for more laws to be passed.
We can sit back in our small community on FaceBook and bitch to one another how we are getting our rights taken away from us, while we push people away because we don’t agree with the size cage they have or the amount they feed their animals. In the meanwhile the special interest groups are paying Michael Vic to do commercials on the importance of dog care.. Funny how our standards are higher then theirs.
Again, I’m not asking for this guy to be the “face” or “voice” of our hobby, but we need to embrace anyone that loves reptiles and if we don’t agree with their husbandry then we need to reach out them and try to educate them rather then shun them as terrible people for our cause and attack them on public forums.
I’m fighting so hard for ALL causes in the hobby.. my question to those that don’t want this “type” of exposure is… What are you doing to change anything??? Go ahead bash me for the way I keep my animals, bash me for Chewy getting bit, bash me for calling you out… In the end I’m fighting for your rights to keep reptiles and my love of my hobby and I’m not just sitting back bitching…. As always sorry for the rant….
mites
Are mites the kiss of death? Seems that a lot of people in the reptile hobby equate mites with being the plague… As if mites are as bad as IBD, respiratory infections or Herpes for that matter. Of course nobody wants to deal with mites, they are a pain in the butt and are something that everyone that keeps reptiles hopes to avoid.
It’s not secret that we have had issues with mites popping up in our baby Ball Pythons. There’s been plenty of conversation on the forums about it along with colorful threads on the BOI. First off let me say that as a reptile business it is inexcusable that I ship a snake out with mites.. This should NEVER happen, but it has and at some point in the future probably will again.. Uh.. Oh.. did I just admit that I will send out a snake in the future with mites??? Would you guys feel better if I lied and said “BHB will never send a snake out with mites in the future.. .ever!” As a matter of a fact I am willing to guarantee that every major and most minor snake collections in the country, at some point, has dealt with a mite problem. There was an old saying that says “If you haven’t had snake mites, you haven’t kept snakes long enough”. They come in on bedding, they come in on live rodents, they some in on “new snakes and they hop a ride on snakes that have been to reptiles shows. With a small collection they are very easy to treat and get rid of, normally gone within one treatment of Prevent A Mite.
Now let me take a minute before your guys head explode and tell you that we have had mites, and we are doing our best to rid of them 100%. But they’ll be back at some point and we have do to do better job of not only irradiating them from our collection, but certainly NEVER sending them out to your collection. But when someone tells me they will never do business with us because we sent someone a snake with a couple of mites by accident, then I lose my mind. When someone contacts me that has had an issue with a snake we sent them with mites, I offer to take the snake back with a complete refund, I offer to pay for the treatment and I offer them a discount on future business for their hassle with the problem that I created. Of course this is bad business for us and something we “will” get ahead of, but lets take a look at things with a level head. Mites are terrible, but as long as you take care of them they are harmless and nothing more then a inconvenience. Yes they “can” transport disease when not eradicated, but lets hope your “other” snakes are not disease ridden. Other then being a pain in the ass, are they the plague? Are they so vile that a snake business with mites should be ostracized and black listed? Come on people, if you get a great snake at a good price that is followed by good service, but unfortunately the animal has a mite on it, does that mean you should never do business with that person again? Especially when that company is willing to bend over backwards to help you get past it.
Listen, I hope I never have another snakes leave my place with a mite, but if I stopped dealing with people because I got an animal with a mite on it, I would have to throw my address book out and scratch off 90% of the biggest breeders in the countries names from the list of doing future business. We ship out tens of thousands of snakes each year and have had a very “few” leave this place with mites. When I say a few I mean less then 5-10 animals out of the 20,000 plus animals we have shipped. Of course one is still too many…
Certainly mites, suck… but if I was sending out a “sick” snake, then I think I would deserve the bad wrap that seems to be following us around because of a few animals that slipped out of our place with those pesky mites. I’ll do my best to stop it from happening again, but I think people need to be educated on what some “real” health issues are when it comes to their reptiles.. Until then I guess I’ll just keep working on better procedures to stop this problem while my competitors talk people out of buying snakes from us because of the dreaded mite problem.. I wonder if those people will be willing to do all the things we do to help promote and protect our hobby? Lets hope we never have to find out!
Idea for educating/ promoting the hobby
I had this idea a couple of years ago and never followed up with it, after all I have a few irons in the fire you know. Here goes… We pick a date in the spring, best around the end of the school year, where as many people from all over the country contact their local schools and libraries, asking if you can bring animals and do an educational show for the kids. We call it “Snake Appreciation Day”. If we get thousands of people to all schedule an educational “programs” on that day we can not only change a lot of peoples minds about reptiles with the “hands on” approach, but this would certainly be news worthy for the major network news and major print papers.
We can start a website, have people register where and when they are doing their “talk” for Snake Awareness Day, so people can see how this movement is growing. Once we start to get impressive numbers we can reach out to the News agencies around the country and bombard them with request for stories. When the day comes we can have local news out at events across the nation. We can have every local news agency doing “local” stories about this event and blow up the national News at the same time.
We can use the momentum to not only show people that our community wants to educate the masses and get away from the satanic death metal stereotyping, but also use the opportunity to fund raise for organizations like USARK and PIJAC…
What do you say…. You want to join me on this ride???
Champagne corks
You can almost hear the champagne corks popping at HSUS with this latest victory, and trust me it was a victory for them. They put together a masterful job of selling the public, the media and the law makers that there was a threat to humanity with “killer” pythons. Let’s take a step back and look at this from a “non” snake keepers stand point. You turn on the news and you see pythons invading Florida, they say they can eventually take over 2/3 of the country… You have no information saying this is not true, it’s the news, it’s in the USA today paper, of course it must be true. Then you hear claims from a Senator in Florida that there are up to 200,000 killer Pythons taking over Florida..and moving north! The USGS put out a paper with all kinds of unfounded scientific evidence that supports all these claims.. Of course the only action is to put a nation wide ban on these snakes before they are knocking on my door in south east Michigan, right….
Now let me ask you… Was the truth ever reported? Did we take this to the public and make the USGS report and the claims from “said” Senator look foolish? Did we contact the major newspapers and get them to print the other side. Sure, they probably wanted to run with the more sensational story, but did we press them to show the other side, the truth? Isn’t it just as big of a story to show the corruption of the system as it is to report false claims? It’s not hard to see that the initial claims from Senator Nelson where he said there could be a few thousand Burmese in the Everglades and within one year it went up to as many as 200,000! Now I’m not a genius, but I have stayed in a Holiday inn select once or twice. I don’t think the reproductive habits of the Burmese Pythons are that intense. Mind you that in the years that permits have been issued to find and kill these “killer” snakes, very small numbers of Burmese have been found, so where did they come up with these infalted numbers? Why did the estimated numbers of Burmese in the Evergaldes grow from a few thousand to up to 200,000? What about this “Super Snake”? The African rock Python x Burmese Python… the one that has no growth inhibitor and can grow to 30 feet and kill everything in it’s site? Is it just me or did this come out of a science fiction movie and have absolutely no scientific proof behind it. As a matter a fact, there have been plenty of African Rock x Burmese that don’t even resemble the “monster” that these “experts” described, and the media ran with. Heck there was a show on History channel about it and there is a show being developed for Discovery channel right now about it… Opps, was I supposed to know that? In the meanwhile did anyone do anything to show the truth?
I’m not sitting here on my high horse, I didn’t do a good enough job of trying to get the word out either. I tried on a number of occasions to get on Late night shows, Fox TV and in the New Times, but again, I’m just a guy with snakes and a YouTube show. I think our biggest problem is our efferts are spent on trying to convince people that already know the truth. We post on snake forums, facebook our reptile friends, do email and letter campaigns within our community, never trying to reach beyond the boundries of the people that already are on our side. At the same time HSUS and the other special interest groups are winning over the people that “don’t” have a clue. They are believing because they have never been showed the other side, the truth.
I’m not 100% sure who we look at to get this message out, but we had better figure that out pretty quick. If it’s USARK, then we better find them funding to bring on a PR manager, if it’s someone else, then we need to address them and get started right away. The one thing I know is, right now as we speak there’s a victory party going on at the HSUS and other special interest groups headquarters. They will be smelling blood in the water and you better not be fooled into thinking this is over.. Now that they won, and handed the reptile community the hugest defeat in it’s history, they will be back for more… I promise you that.
My question to you is, what are we going to do about it?
R.I.P. big snakes
In reality I probably thought I’d see this day come, yet I was still in denial. Maybe it was the promise of “fight” that we were putting up, maybe it was me just being naive. Yet, when the announcement came and four species of the “big” snakes that I have kept and bred for most of my life are now on the Lacey act and will be banned from crossing state lines, I was till shocked. How did we come to this? Last I checked our country was in pretty bad shape financially. Unemployment at high rates, housing market in a mess, yet our government feels that one of the most pressing things to worry about are “big” snakes. Mind you the only problem with big snakes are in South Florida, not “all” of Florida, but south Florida. Their brilliant solution for this so called problem that takes up less then 1% of our country…. is to punish everyone and stop the interstate traffic of these four species.
Sure you can still keep your pet Burmese Python, but pray you never want to move out of state or get a job transfer to another state. Because that long term “pet” snake will not be making the trip with you… What about our military? People that are willing to risk their lives for our freedom, yet will not have the freedom to take their pet snake when they get transferred to another base. Have the politicians really thought this out? Do they have a clue what they are doing? The short answer is… NO. What they have are special interest groups like HSUS that have done an incredible job of “selling” their snake oil to the law makers. Of course if you read or listen to their argument, it’s ridiculous, but the law makers are eating it up like it’s written in the bible. Do they really believe what they are being sold, or do they just follow those special interest groups because of huge donations? I would think the latter. Should be we mad at HSUS? Not really, in a way I respect them. They are better then we are at selling their agenda. Of course they have deeper pockets, but I think it’s as much about “selling” what they think. Let me ask you… When was the last time “our” message was on a late night show? How about a national radio show? Have we tried to reach out to these news organizations to “sell” our message? Not that I’m aware of. Truth be told, I have tried personally, but I’m just a guy that breeds snakes. We need our organizations to do a better job of “selling” the public on what we believe and know to be the truth.. There is no victory here…. We lost four species of snakes from our hobby. We should not be chest pumping that we saved anything… I’m a supporter of USARK and PIJAC and I can not imagine how hard their job is, but we can not try to spin this as a victory. This is so far from a victory it’s not even funny.
For people that have been in this hobby for as long as I have, you might remember that this hobby was born from the explosion if the Burmese Python market. That’s right, if it wasn’t for the “investment” boom of albino, green, labrynth, and other Burmese Pythons in the 90’s this hobby would look completely different, yet we can sit here and say that it’s okay that we just “lost” them for the rest of eternity? Well, I’m not calling this anything but what it is. We got our asses kicked by the other side…. Now the question is, are we going to do something about it or are we going to continue business as usual? Because if the best we can do is send emails off to the president then we might as well give up now. Do you think our president cares one bit about your “big” snakes? Come on people…. wake up. We have to change peoples perspectives on snakes and what they mean to all of us. We have to educate the public on the income they bring into this country, the jobs they create. I’m not bashing the organizations for dropping the ball, they did the best with the hand they were dealt. I’m just saying if we as a community don’t start joining together and stop the bullshit that we have been doing for the past several years, then we are all doomed and we might as well give up now. If people in this hobby spent 10% of the time they spend posting bullshit on the BOI about stupid shit and spent 10% of the time that people use lying about competitors just to make themselves look better and instead used that time on helping save our hobby, then USARK and PIJAC could actually have the resources they need to “win” these battles.
I’m so frustrated with so many things that have happened in the hobby in the past several years. The way it’s turned into a grade school mentality. This is not what it once was, when we respected others, we appreciated the success of our rivals. If we don’t get our shit together people there will be no hobby to protect ten years from now. I’m willing to do way more then my share…. But we have to all be in this together. I pray that this is the turning point where we can look back and say we started to take our hobby back. But that means we all have to change, we all have to do more. We have to be on the same team. You can’t tell me we can’t fund raise more? We can recruit people in the limelight better. I know for a fact that tons of celebrities keep reptiles, yet I have yet to see a commercial with them saying they like or respect reptiles… If we do not change public perception we are doomed.
I’ll apologize for my rant, but today feels like a look into the dismantling of our hobby. Is this the first domino to fall or are we going to stop this shit now…….
2012 high hopes and challenges.
I’m really not one to think of the New Year as a new start, after all it’s just one day after the last day in December and what really changes? With that said, I can see it as a way to put things in perspective, to kind of look back and inventory what the last twelve months have meant and what you hope the nest twelve will have in store.
There is no doubt that 2011 was the year of plenty of “highs” and “lows” for me and my business. I hate to admit it but there were probably more “lows” then “highs” in all honesty. Our production was not what we normally count on and I was not happy with the direction our company had been taking so we moved on from some of our crew that had been with us for a long time, which was personally hard to do, but the right decision to get things back on track. Bringing new crew on is always tough because I look at BHB as a family. We have been fortunate to find some key people that have really helped change the way we do things. Our production for 2012 looks more promising then ever. Of course there will be disappointments, but I think this will be our biggest year ever. We also have been trying to improve all other aspects of our business from a brand new website to bettering our quality of animals and service. It’s hard when things start to slip and you have to figure out how to get back to where you were before things started to go in that direction. When things start going bad it doesn’t happen overnight and the “fixes” don’t happen overnight either. We ended the last few months of the year working harder then I can ever remember. The turn around is slow but is obvious in the animals health and certainly worth the effort. To say I’m not excited to see how things turn out and looking forward to being 100% proud of my business like I had in the past would be an under statement. Again, it’s a process and we’re working our way through it as quick as we can, but I know that soon we’ll look back and be so happy with all the work that we have put into getting back on top of the way things run around here.
It’s not all about “my business, our hobby has been under major attack this past few years, but 2011 might have been the most pressure our hobby has seen to date. I don’t just breed and sell snakes, but I work hard for the community, if that means promoting the hobby or being involved with “behind the scenes” work to protect the hobby, I am all over it. I put a lot of pressure on myself because I love what I do and I love this hobby and I am willing to do whatever it takes to keep this hobby alive. I’m not going to lie and say there aren’t times when I think that going back to just worrying about “my” business and not having to have all the pressure of trying to be one of the “front men” for the hobby. It was a lot easier life, but I can’t imagine not being as involved if not more involved then I have been. The love of the reptile hobby drives me, even when the weight seems too much. Sure it sucks when you work so hard and you hear people bashing you for one reason or another, saying the our “show” is hurting the hobby when you see the people flooding into the hobby because of your efforts. But then I get all the positive feedback, the tons of emails, messages, comments and it makes it more then worth it. I just have to not let the negative drag me down, because I know that my heart is in the right direction and that’s all I can do.
We’ve been working towards a TV deal for more then four years, with our “web show” growing in popularity it seemed like it would be easy, but trust me it’s not. Finally a few months back a network “green lit” a project that we would be involved with. We hoped to be in production by fall of last year and as with the whole process we have yet to film one scene. Once again, I realize how tough this TV industry is… Our producer promises that we’ll be filming the very first part of this year and with any luck we’ll make it to the TV screen sometime in mid 2012. The biggest reason why I even care to do TV is to expose people to our “world” of reptiles. To open the doors for us to get our word out. Who’s out there representing our hobby to the masses? Sure there are some that are trying and even making some progress, but I want to be even louder then that. I want people to see our passion for what we do, so they can understand that these animals are not dangerous monsters. Sure, there will be people within our hobby that will “hate” our show, they will continue to say that when we get on TV that we are hurting the hobby because we will be doing some extreme things. I can bet you that chewy WILL be getting bit from time to time, we will be showing the “ugly” side of running a family business, but we’ll also be showing how much we love the animals and how passionate we are about working with then. You have to remember it’s a fine line between entertaining people enough for them to watch so you can get your message out and boring people to death and nobody watching and your show getting canceled. If we go down that path then what did we do to help our hobby? You “have” to stay on air in order to get your message out. I always say you can have the best message in the world and if nobody is listening or watching what difference does that message make? We’ll do our best to represent our hobby in the best light we can. Trust me, I do not take that lightly and will not do anything that I feel will hurt us in anyway. And with the exposure that hopefully comes with it, I will use it to really change the peoples minds that don’t understand what we , the reptile community, are all about.
As you can see, this next chapter in my life is full of change, full of possibilities, from getting our business back to the standard that I will be proud of to trying to lead the reptile revolution to the masses… I have my work cut out for me and there will be many many sleepless nights to go with my always long days. In the end it’s all of you guys and all your support that empowers me to live my dreams and fulfill all my desires. If there is such a thing as a “New Years resolution” then mine will be to try to make all of you proud of what we are trying to do. I thank you for being part of this and I hope to make you all proud in this new year!
Ball Bids
I hate to bring attention to this, but I felt a need to share my opinion. There’s a “new” website called BallBids, where you bid a penny on a morph Ball Python. How it works is you pay for your bids, average of .60 or so. Each bid the animal goes up a penny. The auction goes for a few days, so in the end a $350 snake sells for $4. Keeping in mind that every bidder has lost money except for the winner, who has gotten a great deal on a snake. Now there have been “penny” bidding sites for a long time, with lots of them being shut down as scams. To me buying a laptop for $3 is a different story then buying an Albino Ball Python for $5. These are living animals and the care of the animal and the after the sale support will be non-existent.
For now all the animals being auctioned off are from Mike Willbanks from Constrictors Unlimited. Mike is a good friend of mine and has great animals and a good reputation. I have not spoken to him about this, but I hope he does not realize what part he has to do with “cheapening” our hobby as well as having no concern for the animals only money. Knowing Mike like I do, I have to imagine that he will “run” away from this as quick as he can. He is a good guy and cares for his animals and our hobby.
I am curious about your opinions. First, what do you think about this “penny” business model selling animals and second, do you think that you will still support the breeders that supply animals to this “make a buck quick” website.
I am hoping and praying that this site closes soon, not because I am concerned about the prices of animals, but the way the rest of the world sees how we treat our animals. These are incredible creatures that are alive! Not object that are valued at pennies to make “one” person a lot of money!
Time For Action
Ohio is one example of the many attacks that our hobby has coming at us. What exactly does a crazy guy letting dozens of Lions, Tigers and Bears have to do with passing a ” reptile law”? Well, it’s the perfect way for organizations like the HSUS to use this platform to push legislation that meets their agenda, which is to outlaw reptiles. We can all sit back and think that organizations like USARK and PIJAC will save us like they always do. But what are you doing to help them?
These are the hard cold facts, the vast majority of the people in our hobby as well as the majority of the people reading this blog will probably do nothing. Do you know that on our www.facebook.com/SnakeBytesTV page has about 10,000 “likes”. If each and every person were to get their friends on that site to stand up with us we would reach over 3,000,000 people, that’s right, over three millions people!!!! That’s just on my facebook page alone. Could you imagine if we started adding up all the other people on social networks, forums, and casual keepers of reptiles. We would be in the 10’s of millions is not the 100’s of millions. If every person donated $5 to USARK and or PIJAC they could have the funds to keep fighting for us, and you could still sit back and profit from their efforts. Without having to do anything more then sending a paypal. If you so decided to join the efforts like some of us, then you would be part of a movement. You could take the pride in knowing you were a “part” of saving our hobby! Wouldn’t that be a nice feeling?
This isn’t a bitch fest by me, it’s me pointing out the numbers that we all have at our finger tips. The question is, will you take 2 minutes out of your life to encourage your friends, fans and followers to join us in this battle, or will you sit back and complain when the government takes away our beloved reptiles. The time to act is now… lets reach out to everyone and show these law makers that we are not in the weird minority, but a growing and responsible part of their constituents. Join: www.usark.org and www.pijac.org now… And “like” and share this post to show your support! We can do this……
Sugar plums dancing in my head?
With the harsh realization that winter is upon us, or at least from a weather stand point. It’s not sugar plums that dance in my head this holiday season, but the promise of potential Boa and Python production. We’re in the full swing of breeding finally, actually for use it’s very early. Normally I don’t even think of putting males and females together until close to Christmas, but with our animals looking great and our anticipation for what we have to breed this season at it’s highest point in years, we decided to start breeding early.
When I say we just started, I mean we just started. It was only Tuesday that males went into females cages. To my surprise when we went back to check the following morning about half the males were already hooked up. Does it mean that we’re going to have a magical year? Who knows? While I have high hopes and maybe even higher expectations, I also realize that it’s way to early to break out the victory cigar.
I always say there are three “stages” when it comes to breeding snakes. The first stage starts at the beginning of the breeding season. You start to think that each and every animal that you have dreamed about producing and now have breeding will in fact produce. Did I mention that all your odds are going to surpass what even the great Gregor Mendel would predict. I’m not sure about your dreams, but when I breed a pair of double het for Lavender Snow Ball Pythons and get six eggs. Realizing that Mendelian genetics says I will get 9:3:3:1 or in this case one lavender snow out of every sixteen eggs, but I truly believe I will hatch at least one male, if not a pair for my six egg clutch. And the thought of a slug egg is something that “never” crosses my mind.
Enter stage two… It’s normally about half way through the breeding season and things are not quit popping like your earlier dreams would have made you think. As a matter of a fact, your males are getting lazy, the follicle growth is slower then what you hoped and that little demon called “doubt” has now crept in your head. You go from thinking every female is going to produce, to wondering if “any” of them are going to produce. You start to curse yourself for not backing up males and you wonder if there is any hope for this seasons production.
After getting off suicide watch. Stage three and probably the most realistic stage of all starts to settle in. Some females are swelling up, while others are lagging behind. You go from thinking nothing will produce to realizing that a good percentage, normally 60-70% of your females will in fact produce. Not all 100% fertile clutches, but the overwhelming majority will have good eggs.
So the roller coaster ride of being a snake breeder continues. There are so many ups and downs, highs and lows in the process that it can sometimes drive a sober man to drink. In the end we all produce what is a more realistic number of babies. We hit some odds and get crushed by others. Did you produce everything you dreamed of? Probably not, but you still end up producing, and that’s all that matters. Breeding snakes is not for the faint of heart, not for the person that wants a safe investment. It’s for risk takers like me. People that live off the adrenaline of crushing the odds and can handle licking our wounds when things go the other way. It might not be all sugar plums, but I can guarantee that there will be plenty of gravid snakes when this winter gives way to the warm air of spring…
Mentally Tired
Each year in March I feel so excited about the year to come, female Boas and Pythons are becoming gravid, colubrids are coming out of hibernation and are ready to breed. Breeding and hatching snakes is what I love, and each year the potential seems so exciting. What comes over the next seven months is something that I am never truly prepared for. It’s a cycle that I have been dealing with for over twenty years. After a long winter and plenty of time to get my head back together from the previous year, I am full of energy, full of ideas, and full of anticipation for things to come. I can hardly wait for the busy hatch season, and all the travel that goes along with it. Moving through April, May, June and July seems incredible. Eggs are being laid, babies are hatching. You’re riding the wave of adrenaline. Sure the days are super long, and the pressure to do everything is immense, but this is what I have been dreaming of since I was a kid.
The travel starts in July, and picks up from there. But it’s not just the travel, it’s the pressure that comes with it. All the obligations like, talks, filming, P.R. for the hobby, but again, I love it.. It’s what drives me. Don’t forget all the emails keep coming, the phone never stops, 100 text messages a day, you have to keep trying to care for you clients as if you are not pulling your hair out, which you are. I have to keep reminding myself that each email, call, text has to be as important as the last.
I’m a pretty high energy guy and for several months can keep chugging away, doing my best to handle the responsibility that I have created for myself. But each year about the middle of October I hit a wall. I wake up and feel I have nothing left to give, like I just need a break. Unfortunately that break is still a month or more away, the emails keep coming, the shipments still need to go out, I have to somehow keep going even if every ounce of my energy is telling me to shut down.
Am I complaining? Do I want you to feel bad for me? Of course not, then truth is I love my life and what I have been able to turn it into. I am living the dream, even if it feels like a nightmare this time of the year. I want to except and embrace the roll that everyone has helped me create. I want to be one of the front guys for the hobby I love so dearly. I never want to let you guys down….The fact still remains, that just a short few months from now I will forget this burned out feeling I have at the moment and will be craving for this time of the year to get here again. This is what I do, it’s what I always wanted to do with my life. It might seem like the light at the end of the tunnel is a “long” way off, but in the end I wouldn’t be happy any other way. For now, I’ll try to keep my chin up and keep moving forward. Like with anything, there is a price to pay to live out your dreams….
Pro Exotics
Reptiles, is it a disease?
Being in the reptile hobby for more then 23 years, the one thing that I realize is that once you have the “bug” you never get rid of it. Sure, you can get rid of your collection, but mark my words, you’ll be back. I’m really not sure what it is about keeping reptiles, but it’s just in your blood. I have seen so many people exit the hobby with the intentions of never coming back, just to see them years later buying snakes again. Is it a disease? A sickness? Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t, but the one thing I know is once you have kept reptiles and gotten bitten by the herpers bug there is nothing that will quench that thirst. Maybe it’s the “coolness” factor, maybe it’s the little voice in our heads that like to care for another living creature, or maybe they are just that cool. Bottom line is, if you keep reptiles and think you are getting out of the hobby. My suggestion to you is to not give your last cage away, you’ll be needing that again in the future!
The High Road
People often ask me why I never respond to negative rumors, post, or comments. The answer is very simple, I want to try my best to portray the hobby in the best light that I can. By going in the trenches and defending what I believe, just to discredit someone that is spreading nonsense is nothing more then stooping to their level. You actually validate their point if you respond. I would be lying if I said that when I see something that I know is an out right lie about me or my business, that I didn’t want to fire back. But again, what would I be accomplishing? I would look just as foolish as the person posting in the first place. I have a saying that says, “Internet wars are like the special Olympics, even if you “win” you still look “special”“. Recently we let Kel go for reasons that I will keep to myself. I have a ton of respect for Kel and appreciate everything that he did for us for the years he was with us. I wish him and his family the best and in the end I have no doubt that it was not only the right move for our business, but in the end it was the best for Kel and his family. He had no intentions of working with snakes his whole life, and he will be better off for finding another career. He is a good person and I miss him on a personal level. With that being said, there were rumors flying all over the place about him quiting for one reason or another. It is pretty humorous that not only were the rumors ridiculous, but what was more insane was the fact that everyone felt that it was only the right thing that I share all the reasons for letting him go. Again, I go back to the “high road”. Why would I share something that is an internal decision. People want it just so they can gossip about other peoples business. There is nothing to be gained by sharing details that are no body’s business. I think the entire hobby and the world for that matter would be better off if we didn’t have this need to get into other peoples businesses and try to make things up about things that we know nothing about. Is our life perfect? Far from it, but I refuse to focus on the negative and I certainly will always continue to take the high road when it comes to the insanity of the rumor mill. That’s my two cents on the politics of the reptile hobby.
Daytona is not dead.
Heading to the National Breeders Expo in Daytona was a bit stressful this year. The buzz in the industry was the show was dead, and this would be the last year. You have to realize that our hobby was built on the success if shows like the NRBE. For 21 years people have traveled from a far just to see some of the coolest animals and buy their future breeders and pets. To think it was coming to an end was more then I cod imagine. So was it really over?
I’d be lying if I said I was not anxious Friday night, and I certainly had a hard time sleeping. Saturday morning came and we went down the the expo center. There were a lot fewer vendors, but the quality of animals at the show was incredible even with the lack of what seemed like a 1/3 of the tables. With 5 minutes until the show opened I did my normal peek at the line to get in the show. I was pleasantly surprised to see one of the longest lines I had seen at this show in a few years. The doors opened and as the people swarmed in the isles fill up quickly. Within no time our booth was buzzing with people. I’m not sure how many people came through the door, but it seemed like a much larger crowd then the year before. How were sales you might ask? To be honest we didn’t sell like we had years ago, but we did have what I would consider a successful show. In the end I have no clue what the future is for the Daytona expo, but I know one thing…. The NBRE is far from dead.
Stand Up For Snakes
Just needed to vent a little about the video contest. This idea came to me over a year ago. A way to reach non-snake people with a positive message about our hobby. A way to get people to go outside our community for votes and show how awesome our hobby is. I knew it was going be a lot of work, not to mention the close to $10k I would be giving away with really no actual benefit to my own business. But I believe that we need to keep growing the hobby and getting new people into reptiles, so it was worth the time and the money. When I started to approach sponsors it took a lot of convincing as well as sticking my own neck out with them to get them to join the contest. There were countless hours spent planning the contest, lots of opinions on the best way to do things and in the end we figured out what we thought was the best plan of actions. Never doing something like this in the past as well as not knowing what the participation was going to be, of course there were a lot of unanswered questions. But I still felt that it would benefit our hobby.
The contest went much better then we even could have imagined, with almost 200 videos entered and tens of thousands of votes on the contest. You guys all kicked some major ass! I was told it was the most visited page on the host website the entire time the contest ran. We were getting the positive message out that I had hoped for. With all that said, the contest ended and the ugly side started to show through. The sponsors needed to review the entries and although we all wanted to pick the winning videos as fast as possible, it was prudent to take the time that needed to go through all of them. We needed three awesome videos, ones with the positive message about snakes and from people that had worked hard to get votes and promote the contest. If it was just me, I could have got it done relatively quick, but of course we needed to include all the sponsors in the decision, after all they put a lot of time, money and energy in to this contest and it was important that they were happy with the winners as well. It seems that the positive message of our hobby turned into some people complaining about the time it was taking. While I totally understand that so many people worked so hard to promote their videos and want to know who the winners are, I also can not understand how they want to take a positive and turn it into a negative. Remember what the message was supposed to be, positive, right? Trust me, I put ten times the time and money into this contest then anyone that entered, and I can not express my gratitude for each and every entry, but I am a little ashamed that there is all the petty crap that is going on after all “your” hard work. Does it really make a difference if the announcement is made a couple of weeks later? There will still be three winners whether it’s today or next week? I was so proud of how this contest went, and now I have a bad taste in my mouth. I’ll try to take the positive view and hope that it’s just a small group of people. I understand everyone’s excitement and desire to know the winners, but remember that the people behind the contest have had to dedicate their time, money and more then you can imagine to pull this off. Please try to understand that we are doing our best, and to not ruin the message of the contest in the last days. With the way things ended, it might be a really hard sell to get my sponsors to do this again, which was my intentions from the start. Please think before you act, our hobby has enough negative without the people within our hobby making us look even worst. I will do my best to get the contest winners announced really soon.
This is why I do SnakeBytesTV
It’s hard to believe that it’s three and a half years into producing SnakeBytesTV. Coming up with a new idea each week, trying to put together a show that the community will be proud of as well as people outside the community will enjoy watching. I would be lying if I didn’t say that I consider taking a break once in a while. Don’t get me wrong, I love producing the show, I love filming and I love interacting with all of our supporters around the globe. But I have to remind myself all the time that I breed snakes for a living. Doing a weekly show is very demanding.
If you want to know what keeps my energy towards the show flowing, it’s messages like the one below that keeps me motivated and excited.
Remove |
Block User |
Spam Marked as spam I used to be very very scared of snakes to the point where even seeing them on T.V i would start shaking - i started watching snakebytestv and now i feel so comfortable that im hoping to get my very own snake soon,i really want to say thanks for all youve done and keep up the good work <3
I get these types of e-mails, messages and comments almost everyday, and that’s what the concept for starting the show was all about. To win people over and change minds about the animals that I have dedicated my life to. I have no idea where things will go in the future, but I know one thing.. no matter what happens all the work and energy that we put into the show is worth it if even one more person changes their mind about these incredible animals.
The Reptile Family
Over the last twenty years it’s been a joint venture between myself and my wife Lori to try to run a successful reptile breeding business. There have been many ups and many downs during that time, but the one thing that stayed constant was both of our commitment to trying to be the best we could be. You might think to yourself that breeding reptiles for a living is all about fun, but the truth is it’s more work then most people could ever imagine. That’s why it has been so important to have a good partnership between Lori and I. She’s my ying to my yang and certainly the person that keeps the wheels turning when I’m off pursuing all the crazy dreams that I have.
My daughter Jade has worked on and off with us since she as a kid, it’s hard to believe that she’s 20 years old and going into her 3rd year of college. I won’t say that Jade has ever really enjoyed working for us when she’s out of school, but I do think she’s always taken pride in the “family” business. Whether she was feeding snakes or cleaning cages she always was a huge help in our quest to keep the business growing.
This summer has been really special for our family and our business. I think we finally figured out how to work together as a unit. Sure there are still issues, just like any family working together, but Lori is great at organizing and keeping the shop running. I have always been the “front man” and a constant promoter with my love of the animals as well as dealing with people. Jade finally found her niche this summer, keeping our web sales going with our “BHB auctions” as well as the tons of web based request. Even my son Noah has pitched in at times by doing the jobs that Jade used to be forced to do when she was younger.
Life is far from perfect, but this summer I really realized how lucky I am to not only do what I love for a living, but how incredibly lucky I have been to be able to share it with my family. Jade and Noah will be back to school soon and it’ll seen a bit lonely at the shop this fall. But hey, it is a summer I’ll always treasure!
Interesting question
In a blog post on our community site, the question was asked, “what we did with snakes that were sub par or not wanted by anyone”. People have asked if we put those animals down being that it might be a good business decision. Not that it was a leading question, but it made me want to explain my position on “all” of my animals. First off, when you work with large numbers of animals people sometimes assume that you lose the care for each individual. In some cases I am sure that’s true, but in my case it can not be further from the truth. I’m not going to tell you that we offer more care then a person that has a pet snake that they are in love with. Of course we don’t have the time to take each snake out and play with them for an hour a day, or maybe even catch a minor issue as quick as someone with a very small collection, but that still does not mean that we don’t try to give each animal the best life we can.
So lets get down to it, what do I do when we produce a kinked snake, or a sub par animal, or even a snake that nobody in the market wants? We’ll take them one at a time. Kink snakes do happen and a lot of them live full and happy lives, as a matter a fact the first Ball Python I ever owned had a sibling that was kinked and it lived over 20 years. Most of the time I will give them away to someone that just wants a pet and they don’t care about the defect. Of course when I have an animal born with severe kinks or is sub par and can not thrive without major issues, it can be a hard decision, but we try to do what’s right for the animal. In some cased putting them down is the most humane thing to do, but it never comes down to what the best financial decision is, but only what is best for each individual snake. When it comes to animals that people just are not interested in, which I have to say is kind of rare. It can happen, but it seems that you can always find a home for any good reptile as long as the price is what the person is willing to pay. When we do have that rare animal that we can not find a home for, they usually spend the rest of their days here at BHB. I have not and will not ever put a snake down so I can avoid the cost of care for it. Does it happen in our hobby, I am sure it does, but never here! Trust me, we have a lot of “pet” snakes!
I can not stress enough that the reason I keep and breed snakes is for the love of the animal. Not for the money, not for the fame, not for the power trip. I get up each morning looking forward to working with my collection. The minute that I make a financial decision that effects a snakes life will be the day I get out of the business. That doesn’t mean that I have not made mistakes, but it means I will always put an animals well being in front of my bottom line.
In the end it was a great question, one that a lot of people probably wanted to know the answer to, but might have been afraid to ask. There you have it, my answer… Hope you guys understand where I stand on the issue now! Have a great holiday weekend!
Egg Season
When you are a reptile breeder for a living, the egg season is what you dream for. Those long months of caring for your collection of animals while they are gearing up for the breeding season are always filled with expectations of egg production. That time of the year is finally here and each year it seems to come with on with a fury. When you get your first eggs of the year, it feels like it’s the very first clutch you’ve ever produced, but within a couple of weeks they are being laid at a rate that is almost insane. Each day this time of the year we average between 500-1200 eggs. Last year our biggest day was 1898 eggs, not sure we’ll have a bigger day this year or not, but there is still a long way to go.
We incubate our colubrid eggs on top of our adult racks, it stays about 82 degrees there and there is no need for an incubator. As each day goes by the row of egg boxes slowly takes over the tops of the racks. We’re probably only 20% into egg production and already the egg boxes that are stacked four high are almost half way across our colubrid room. I’m not going to tell you that it’s all fun, because the truth is there’s a ton of work. With that being said, it’s still my favorite time of the year. With every clutch we put on the shelf there is the hope that the coolest baby snakes are soon to be hatched. This is what a snake breeder lives for, egg production!
Big Breeder VS. Small Breeder
Seems that for as long as I have been in this hobby there has always been a slight divide between the big and small reptiles breeders. In my opinion, it’s something that both sides use as a marketing tool. The small breeder claim that the big guys don’t have the individual care for each animal or their clients, and the big breeders claim that the small guys can not afford to back their animals up in the unlikely event that something tragic happens. To be honest both sides have valid points. Being that once I was considered a “small” breeder and now I guess you would put me into the “big” breeder camp. I know that when I had a smaller collection I was more in tune with each animal and could probably tell you things about their habits, where as now I would have to rely on feeding cards or employee’s experiences. I personally can’t say that our customer service is worst because now I spend my entire day with reptiles and my clients, where as when I was smaller I still had a job and limited time. On the other hand there is some truth to buying from an established brand (big name), but I would imagine that most small breeders do stand behind their animals and if something ended up in a tragedy they would figure a way to make it right.
I guess the bigger question to me is; why does there have to be two camps? We are all reptile breeders and we all love our hobby, right? The smaller breeder has a lot of advantages over the big dogs and the big dogs have a lot of advantages over the little guy. I have never and will never use my status in the hobby as a way to steal a sale away from a smaller breeder. And I think that most smaller breeders feel the same way. As a matter of a fact, most of my business has been grown by smaller breeders, they are my best clientele. I want them to make sales, and lots of them, so that when they want something from me, they have the money to do so. Conversely, they should want the bigger breeder to flourish, because in most cases we are in the position to take the bigger risk on the newest projects. We also reach a much larger group of people with our message and the trickle down effect is normally where the smaller guys generate the business.
In the end, for me it’s not about how big of a collection you have, or how big of a name you have in the hobby. A buyer is going to choose where to get their animal based on three things; price, quality and service. Whether you’re a big name or the smallest name in the hobby, you have to be able to provide a good cross section of those three things. And lets remember, if the hobby grows, we all grow. Although, some might not admit it, most small breeders aspire to be big breeders one day. And maybe the other way around too!
I think the hobby as a whole will be a better place when we realize that our enemy is not another facet of our hobby, but the people that are trying to take the hobby away from us. All I have to say is long live the small and large reptile breeders! Booyah!
