How did u get into this?

[Dom]

Simply cause I am board and have nothin' better to do, I though it would be interesting to read up on ppl's story ..


So how did u're obsession start?


Mine well .. I always wanted reptiles - mainly snakes but never actually though that it was possible to own a snake..

Until one day - at my work some girl told me "If u love snakes so much why dont u buy one?" LOL I feel stupid now but I had never realized t'il that moment that owning a snake as a pet was a possibility .. after that it just got out of hand!

and here I am now with 11 snakes, 2 monitors and one crocodilian ..

So whats ure story?


C'mon guys share!

Dom

[Linds]

I was 4 years old and my mom sent my dad with me to get a hamster which was to be my first pet, well, we ended up walking in the door with an iguana instead! Iggy is now 18 years old and still kickin around the house :D

[snake_girl]

My neighbour in Germany owned millions of reptiles and I'd always wanted one, so after a long struggle with my parents my collection began :P and now I can't seem to stop it.

Grace

[PoiSoNouS]

It all began 2 years ago. My boyfriend was really interested to have a snake and his mom didnt want him to have one in her house.
So he moved.
One day, he met a guy that had some snakes...
Another day, the guy called him and said: "hey man do you want a snake? I'll give you one."
He came, showed us the snake (African House), explained the big lines and made her eat in front of us with thawed food to show us how..

Then... we began to search more and more on the subject on the internet. I found some informations and pictures at first, on Brazilian Rainbow Boa...
So beautifull snake (picture below).
I never thought before, that a snake could be this beautifull.. So I kept on checking more pictures, got addicted.. :bugged:

We have now 12 snakes (3 brazilians rainbows and the adult female is now gravid :bounce: ), 1 golden gecko.

<img src="http://www.kingsnake.com/bhb/boas/brazilian.jpg">

[Jotun]

well my old science teacher gave me her old rat snake Snakey when she could no longer take care of it. Well I didnt properly take care of it cause I didnt have any idea how too! Basically i gave him water, newspaper and a mouse or two every week but no heat besides the room temperature. Eventually Snakey began getting "frisky" and biting me and whatnot. So we gave him away to a breeder and well I had missed him ever since. Then just a year ago I got my wonderful King Snake, Magnus! Now I'm getting my second snake next week! :D

[Geck-co]

My addicition started with fish..... piranhas... started off with some red bellied piranhas.... then got a rhom, then some spilos, and a medenia.... I still have the spilo's and the rhom actually just gave my friend my medenia today (had to make room in my bedroom for the leo's i'm gettin this weekend)

So I had been keeping fish for awhile and I started talking to lindsey a lil more n more and she showed me pix of leopard geckos... I was hopeing to get one back in january at the expo but my mom would not hear of it.... well I got my frist leo a few weeks ago :) and the addiciton is CRAZY tommorow i'm picking up a small group of paternless leo's and on sat I pick up a pair of orange banded albino's thats enough for now.... heh well I lied.. i'm putting a depsosit down on some uroplatus next week LOL


but affter that I swear I told myself no more... at least no more this year... my rooms a mini zoo

[Quervo]

I started late with my adiction. My mother HATED snakes or anything that "crawls on it's belly". Somehow this included all reptiles (not sure of the logic there), but for the longest time I never thought of reptiles as pets. My wife (ex) worked in a few pet shops, so I got re-introduced to the pet world and started out with fish .. lots of fish. I had a 110 gallon home built tank and poured rediculous amounts of money into it. Then came birds .. lots of birds .. I think I was trying to make up for my deprived childhood .. I said deprived, NOT depraved !!!;) Then last year my daughter said we should get a snake. I did some searching on the web, found the Henry Piorun & Don Patterson and got all excited (Ya, well, at my age it doesn't take much ... for that matter, it never took much) We settled on a ball python, got the cage all set up, and brought home the new "kid". Now I'm spending like ten hours a day researching snakes and cages and materials, etc, etc (the movie industry out here sucks right now so I haven't worked in a few months .. a few too many months) and I'm waiting to get some money and get more .. more .. MORE!

It's okay .. I'm going to have some quiet time now.
:D

[ReneeB]

well I started when I was about 5, collecting insects from outside and keeping them in my room.. then we got fish.. after that I got a hamster, then gerbils, then cats, asked mom and dad for a snake, mom said "NO!!!!!!", moved out got a few birds, wasn't satisfied, got a new cat [mom wouldn't let me take the 'family' cats, and the other animals had died by this time over 10 years]. Well the new cat and a pair of finches wasn't good enough, but with a new baby [human] and a herpaphobic [I know that's not that right word] boyfriend [now ex] I couldn't get my snake, or lizard, or etc.., so we got a dog
A couple years when by and I left the boyfriend, I figured HEY why not get.. oh wait.. Im moving back to mom and dad's to go to college for a few years.. *sigh* no herp :( But the cat came [ex killed the finches saying they were too noisy, and dropped the dog off at the humane society when I was visiting my parents for Xmas]. I stayed at mom and dad's for about 6 months and then got married [no not the ex]. Turns out my hubby is into herps too.. so we talked about a snake, decided on nothing bigger than a BP, and then I was talking to a friend on day and he had to get rid of his cornsnake... cornsnake??? well I researched all I could and told him I'd take her, that was in January, then in March we got another corn [a male this time], then in April another 1.1 adult corns. By this time we figured we should invest in some rat to feed all these as f/t is too expensive, and we both like[d] rats.
So the mice we had as pets [I had a male before we got married and soon added a female], got fed to the snakes, along with all the babies that had grow big enough. Well then I saw some Leopard Geckos and we discussed those and now we have a 1.1 het for Blizzard pair.

So in total we've currently got 0.1 black cats, 1.0 Anery Cornsnakes, 1.0 Snow Cornsnales, 0.1 Amel Cornsnakes, 11 Cornsnake Eggs, 1.1 Leopard Geckos het for Blizzard, and 2.4 adults rats with about 40 1-5 day old pups.
We're looking for 1.1 BPs, and atleast 2 more 1.4 groups of Leopard Geckos. [if it was just me I've get 20 more leos and no snakes, the rats are beginning to bother me, although it could be the fact that I'm 30 weeks pregnant.]

[Big Mike]

My girlfriend moved in with me about 4 months ago and she had always wanted a snake but was never allowed to have one. For her birthday, this last May, we went to the pet store and came out with a snake (striped Cal King) and all the goodies (tank, heater, light hides etc.) Granted we knew little about the care of snakes but we had a good talk with the guy at the store who owns a few himself. We had enough info to get started but that's not enough. I started to research the Internet while it's been slow at work. Now I spend up to 4 hours some days reading and posting on snake forums and web pages.

We plan to get another snake sometime soon (most likely another king or a milk) and a ball python when we move out of our basement suit. We have aspirations of buying an acreage and getting into snake breeding someday. This truly is an addictive "hobby".

[PO_0784]

My snake story is still very young... I wanted a jungle carpet as a first snake in june 2001. I realised that my tank wasnt big enought so I got my ball python in august 2001 :P..Now, this little guy drive me crazy ;). A cute little thing..well..he was a couple of inchs long when I got him but now he is 3 feet :P ! Now, im a mice addict too. I hope to get a jcp one day if I get the cash ( my music hobby cost me a couple of hundred dollars during the summer lol!).. Any jungle carpet breeder near Montreal? lol

[sungazer]

all my life has been decated to reptiles my parents as kids had reptiles and they all ways had reptiles then now i am 20 years old and still getting reptiles and now i have a great knowlage on them and i have soo many different reptiles and soon going to open a breeding opration soon and going to be a public speaker in school and such to make people aware that reptiles are great pets and raise that people need to find out every thing they can on there care

[CornBall]

Well it all started just over a year ago, I was in a mall alot with a pet paradise in it, and I have always been fascinated with animals in general (planned to be a vet sincs age 5 until last year), and noticed they had a few snakes in the corner. I got talking to the guy and he said come in around saturday my friend and I are bringing a few herps for a little show. Well it was around my birthday and I finally perswaded my parents to let me get one. I ended up getting an amel corn from the guy (man did I get ripped 130$), he taught me the care requiremnets etc etc.. (the amel actually came in a container I have only seen once used by a certain store/breeder. So I think he went done boughht the corn from the store and resold it to me (but hey what did I know).
Then I started researching and found kingsnake.com with hundreds upon hundreds of breeders and information, I spent hours a day researching them. I liked the colour of butter corns and got one really cheap but sadly it wouldn't eat for 3 months, and the breeder gave me my money back for the snake...
I then got a snow, and 1.1 BP's at the show in Sept, then I got a ghost corn, by this time I knew quite a bit about snakes but mostly on corns and BP's and seen that a breeder was selling Lavender corns, I jumped right there and picked up a pair.
I have also just recently got a free anery

my addiction has grown to the point where I have built a little room just for my corns and BP's, just finished the BP rack and am strting the corn rack today..
But I am still looking for a female striped corn with little luck.

I am to the point where I get e-mails all the time on what I have for sale, when I will have them for sale and ?'s on corns and BP's daily. But I'm no computer wiz, I am computer illiterate except for looking at things on BP's and corns, if it wasn't for the MOUSE and links to click on, you would need to stick a fork in me because I would be done.

-Ryan

[Nett]

I was born in Calif. and started herping at about the age of 4.I didnt own one until I started working for vet named Lynne Andrews who just happen to be at the time 1/2 owner of Reptile World in Drumheller .So i bought my 1st snake from her about 14 yrs ago .My addiction is still growing .I have already out grown one house and am very near doing it again.I have over 300 breeders now and loving every minute of it :D :D :D

[RaVeNo888o]

My story isnt really as long as you guys. Im only 17, only got one snake, but i have loved snakes since i was a little kid. I dont remember what initial incident triggered this i just know ive loved them for a long time :D I almost got one when i was 14, but i guess its better i didnt cause my parents would have to pay for mice. Then recently i was saw some snakes and remembered my childhood love of snakes and thought to myself "why havent i got one?" so i researched (i already knew alot about snakes in general, just had to research about keeping them as pets) and I just got a beautiful 8 month old Aberrant Desert phaze California King snake. Its only 14 inches now. I cant wait for it to get bigger and i hope to get some more when im a little older lol. I aggree with everyone that this is addictive. Dont really know if ill ever breed but id certainly like to own a few of my favourite corns and kings o>

[BIG SCOTT]

My story is i'm 17 and myuncle is 40. He use to always tell me about how great it was when he was growing up and about he use to always catch these awesome snakes. I was relly intrigued about all his stories having to do with Rattle snakes, Coral snakes,CopperHeads, andCottonmouths. He would tell me about how snakes use to be so common that he could sell kingsnakes to pet stores for 10$ Gram snakes for 5 $ and Hognose snakes were so common that no petstore would buy them. He always had A BallPyhton for the longest time and I would always hold it and ignore evrything else when I was holding that snake. One day I just got tired of the Pyhton and decided I would start catching my own snakes . So since than I have been catching any snake that moves . You can bet that if i'm not at my house or at my work I'm in the woods at creek or by a river or tha local reptile store doing something with snakes just recently i've gotten very interested in breeding Speckled kingsnakes and Prairie Kingsnakes. My uncle and i even started a websit called Texassnakes.net

That is my story not very interesting but it works!

[SilverTongue]

Well I have always loved animals in general ALL of my live. Infact I do not remember a time not ever owning cats dogs birds fish ect. So having a addiction with animals in general has never been a problem. When I was about 16 my dad got 2 bps and all they did what ball up. Even when you took them out of the cage they just knotted up. Needless to say I lost intresed in them. I wound up getting three rescued abanded ferrits. Few months ago I got the idea to get my dad a snake for fathers day. My dad loves snakes! I never knew how much e loved snakes, because my mom is scared to death of them LoL. So my dads snake is in the mail and I now have a cornsnake, texas ratsnake, redear slider, japanese firebelly newt, 18+ fish, and 3 cats, a husband and a daughter :) With 3 more corns otw after they have eaten a few times. :)

[Nicky]

well first of all I've always loved animals cats dogs birds lizards snakes whatever so this is my story...


"It started 3 years ago when i moved from Calgary to toronto. I always liked lizards but never considered them as pets. Our cousins invited us to our cottage one day and I agreed because i love nature so whwen we were there My cousin cam eback from a bush with a garter I couldn't belive it I was amazed he had caught a real live snake.

so then i started asking questions and he told me u could have them as pets! I was amazed my mom on the other hand was not. After 2 years of begging and catching wild snakes showing that i could handle a real one I got one on dec 24 2002!

so now I have one snake (so far) named nicky after my cousin who started my ambition and love for herps even thoe I liked them when i was a little kid.

thats my story how it started".....


THE END

lol yup thats mine

[beyowulf]

I won a red-eared slider in a raffle in grade 8. Shortly after that I began taking in other people's sliders that they didn't want. I was always up to my knees in mud when I was a kid from catching bullfrogs and stuff. Last summer my friend Dale gave me 2 cane toads, and now next month I'm getting a W. hognose!!!

[PetCrazy]

I don't really know how to tell my tale...cause quite frankly, it's all a jumble.

I've been into animals ever since I was able to walk, so of course my first pets were cats, guinea pigs, a lop eared rabbit, a crab , fish, and a pony(then a horse) and canary (which is now a conure)...though I always had a thing for herps.
Even when I was in kindergarden, I helped take care of the water dragon in one of the older childrens classrooms.
At that young age, I also was known for taking off in the middle of the mall, to find the closest pet store.

I never knew I would ever be 'allowed' to keep reptiles when I was young. So I contented myself with planting myself infront of the tv to watch nature shows, and to read any articles I could find about them. As well as reading on the net, and e-mailing breeders on occasion with curiosity questions.

I never started keeping reptiles till I got hired at a petstore because I knew more then the associate there at the time. So I was hired pretty much on the spot (talk about boosting my ego)..and then I just...came home one day with a rescue leopard gecko (who is still with me as to this day).

Then from there, it's all a blur *lol* now I have a room entirely dedicated to my herps.

I love this 'hobby' 'passion' 'obsession'
As well as the people I meet along the way.

[Shroud]

I have always been a fan of ALL animals. When I was a kid, I would walk to the old railroad tracks near my house and find snakes. I would bring them home and keep them for a couple days before I let them go. I had pretty much every pet you could think of growing up. When I was 16 I decide I would get a couple Leo's as pets. I bred them for a year and a half and then decided I wanted a BP. I got my first python as a rescue from a pet store because i couldn't stand to see him there. About 2 years after that I got into boas and started breeding them. After a bad breakup with my ex, I sold off all my animals and I'm now getting back in by jumping straight in. I already got 1.2 breeder balls and am trying to get 1.1 Surinams right now.

Sorry, I was trailing. Anyway, yeah, don't eat yellow snow.

[reverendsterlin]

35 years ago at the tender age of six I caught a wild coachwhip (meanest snake alive lol). Mom didn't care as long as it stayed at the ranch. That led to greybands (I grew up in the Loma Alta, Comstock, 277 area), rattlers, and then blossomed into boas, corns, other kings, bulls, milks, pythons, gaboons, and have been hard at it ever since.
Sterling

[lance]

well i dont like bugs so whatever eats bugs i like makes sense right stated out with one trantula then up to five
now out of spiders and into lizards
sad thing is now i have to buy bugs lots and lots of bugs
oh well everythiong comes full circle i guess




lance

[gunnerslakeshor]

Ive been into herps off and on for over 20yrs , i got started catching snapping turtles and snakes in the river by my parents house ( drove my parents nuts) I dragged home everything.
Snappers kill baby swans here and at that time they had a bounty on them here so me being an enterpriseing type ( and money hungry) I put a dint in the local population 15 - 20 a summer at 20 + lbs each made a good buck .Ive since refined my herping and keep only that which i can take the best of care.
Like kings , Corns , Boa,s and pythons.
Phil

[SilverTongue]

you killed snappingturtles for money, or turn them in to be killed?? I would hat for the baby swans to be killed, but why not just transdplant the turtles??

[sophia]

Growing up in my aunt's home my cousin was in vet. school and had a virtual reptile farm in the basement, monitors, geckos etc. etc. though also being from the northern part of the country, I wasn't exposed to that many reptiles in the wild... also had a definite nervousness coupled with curiousity towards snakes. Moving to NC proved quite educational as there are just a couple of different varieties of snakes - especially the venomous variety. That was a new experience!

My love affair started when my wife and I visited a local pet store and I handled my first snake; California King and then shortly thereafter a Normal Corn Snake. I fell in love... and wanted one for about a year or so. We started off with fish - Jack Dempsey Cichlids to be exact... then traded them for the Arowanna... but it still didn't satisfy my snake fetish until I broke down and picked out a Ball Python and brought her home... if ever there was in international ambassador for reptiles.. Lilith is it. Calm and very mild mannered; she got me hooked. That and a wife that has a ton of herp experience to point out the mistakes ahead of time... better to make the wrong fast movement with a docile ball python than say a reticulated! It all got rolling there and then we had to get one for our daughter - a beautiful Snow Corn and then the Male Ball and then the Milk snake pair... and now either a pair of Bloods or Rainbows are in the plans for the future.

I have never been around such a fascinating creature... I love all of our animals, Dogs, Parrot, Fish.... but the Snakes get me every time.

I am such a sucker.
:rolleyes:

Jon