How did you start your collection??!!

[Tyler99]

The title says it all!!

[snakehunter]

By showing my parents my responsibility and knowledge. They eventually gave in, AND my mom is hooked almost bought a leaftail for herself with no persuasion on my or my brothers part!

[Lindze]

I did the same, the responsibility thing. I reasearched king snakes for a year before i was allowed to buy one, i also had to keep my room clean for 6 months (BIG deal on my part) then my mom fell in love and helped me grow my collection to 6 kings.

[thunder]

my second grade teacher gave me a tadpole of my very own. he is now a frog and i still have him, ten years later. among other beasties. . .

[sapphire_moon]

I used to collect turtles when I was little, and mother would let me keep them, not realizing it would go on to snakes (took her 3 years to let me get one! from the time I was 13-16, and bought me an entire set up + snake for my 16th b-day)

[Bartman]

My rents said NO WAY, so I bought it anyway :p It was very hard to get the first snake in the house, but the same plan was used

[justinO]

my captive collection started when i was about 14-15 and I was going through some tough times.. family thought i needed a pet, and i wasn't responsible enough for a dog or anything, so they said i could get a small lizard from the local big-box pet store.

got one, then two then three... and it just grew from there, along with my interest and responsibility.

the rest is history.

[peterm15]

well im just startin mine.... it started last x-mas when my g-friend bought me a leo.... i bought the starter kit... ( 10 gal tank sand dish ect) the nextday i bought another... and switched them up to a 25 gal.... a few mnths later i started my cham cage then bought a veild.... now im workin on gettin a snake.... a small python of some sort... but my mom wont let me so im gonna build a vivarium... i told her "its just for looks".... but im gonna get a few cresties..... thatll prob be in march..... then ill work on the snake...

[chas*e]

With CASH....no really ...I loved reptiles since I was 6yrs old when my sister was taking care of the reptiles from her university biology class for the summer.....that was 39 yrs ago, had reptiles ever since.

[Darren179]

it all started with one gecko. and then boom!

[Brent Strande]

After buying a goldfish and bowl, I thought, "Hmmm, no one stopped me from getting this..." (I was no longer living at home) "So who is to stop me from getting a snake, like I've wanted to do for years?"

I went out and bought an anery corn from a Petco, and a 20L crittercage, carpet substrate, UTH, dimmer, expensive hide and waterbowl, and a bag of pinkies.

Got the corn home and a friend told me about ssnakess. I checked it out and asked some questions, people were great! Nobody jumped down my throat!

I started seeing all of the other snakes that were out there, and that you could buy without being limited to what the petstores in the area had!

I planned on getting more corns, so I began building an enclosure that had 3 separate sections... With research, I found that it would be sufficient to house Jungle Carpet Pythons! With that I ordered a pair.

The next month I added the Brazilian Rainbow boas. Soon after came the Bci, followed by the Chondro.

I was done collecting for awhile, or so I thought, but fate had other plans... The local University was reducing the collection in their herp room, and I wound up taking in an adult female Bci, an adult female Ball Python, and a male whitesided Bull Snake.

Somewhere back there I also got into the cresties... But I've written enough of a book for today...

[Dani33]

I started my captive collection with fire belly toads about 5 or 6 years ago. While I was going to school in Toronto, I had the worst, dungeonesque basement apartment. It was dark and cold. I couldn't even grow house plants. I didn't have much time inbetween studying and work either. Just wanted something living in the hole with me besides the mold ;)

[BoidKeeper]

I've kept herps since I was 13. But my collection started with a normal corn on Novermber 1st 2001.
Cheers,
Trevor

[beardieguy]

Mine started with a boa when I was 14. Moved to Alberta so I gave him to the zoo where I lived at the time. Started my new collection a year and 10 mths ago with one dragon. Now you can see my collection by the signiture at bottom....lol

Never thought I had that much... Oh yeah I have more beardies coming to me as wel

Collection:
3.4 bearded dragons, 1.0 haitian ground boa, 0.1 jungle corn, 1.0 charcoal corn, 0.1 reg. corn, 1.0 snow corn, 1.3 leapard geckos, 0.1 veiled cameleon, 2.2 cbb's

[ssscales]

I started when I was about 10, caught my first snake (ringneck) under a rock in the backyard. I convinced my mom to let me keep it, she bought me a 10 gallon tank. I remember the feeling I got filling it up with dirt, rocks and a water bowl. Unfortunately it never ate and I eventually let it free. My mom felt bad for me and bought me a gartersnake for $10.00, I thought it was the coolest! Throughout my teenage years I bought, traded and sold snakes. I remember keeping a BCI, BRB, Ball python, Norm and Albino Burmese and a couple kings. My bedroom looked like a zoo more than a bedroom.

Then it all came to an end...First wife! First real job! Snakes had to go!
I was led to believe this was something you grow out of. Marriage lasted 3 years!

Shortly after the divorce more than 10 years ago, I remember walking into a pet shop and buying a 55gln fish tank for my living room and seeing this kid with a ball python around his neck. Needless to say I bought the fish tank, but it did not house fishes till about 2 years latter when the occupant needed a new home. I had bought a baby female BCI and that was it. The year after buying her, I bought a sub adult male and the very next year they had a litter of 8 live, 3 slugs. I was a proud PAPA! I sold the babies to a local pet shop and went from there!

Today, I've been happily married for a year now and still keep, breed and enjoy snakes! The key is to find a woman who not only puts up with them, but enjoys them as much as you do.

[chameo_liz]

I started at 10 bring home 2 anoles from a friends house his mother didnt want them there anymore due to the crickets running around. Got them and my dad wanted to see them so not knowing i opened the top and one came flying out and dissappered in a matter of minutes, never to be seen again. they other one lived in a ten gallon tank for alittle over a year after that. Thats how the collection started.

Kris

[Gary D.]

I started wand anole in the early 80's, got a gold tegu in the early 90's and a boa after that, but they were more of individual pets. The collection proper began when I bought a pair of boas that were in need of rescue. I got them healthy and was able to breed them. I then started selling, trading and acquiring more animals. Which was about the time I met some friends that were a bad influence as they were well established in the hobby, and infected me with the bug.

[hhw]

The first time I had a collection, it all started with a horned frog I got for getting on the honour roll at school. From there, I got into corn snakes, rat snakes, a colombian bci, a common basilisk, a sav, a house snake, and an african egg eating snake. I also had some thai house geckos and green and gray treefrogs in a naturalistic vivarium. Due to some extremely unfortunate circumstances however, I lost all of my collection from that time, and ended up not keeping anything for ten years....

Which brings us to this past summer. My dream herp more than anything was always a green tree python, which I used to always dream about back i the old days. However, not having kept any snakes for so long I thought it best to get back into it with something a little easier first, and I opted for a ball python over a bci this time. Well, a month or two later I met David Kwok at a WSPCR show and bought a female from him to pair up my male normal, and that was the beginning of the end, LOL. After seeing David's collection in person, I couldn't help but get more ball pythons, which brings me to the present day :P

[CDN-Cresties]

I got started a few years ago while I was in a pet shop and I saw a cham hunt down prey. It completely amazed me. So I picked up a few books, did my research and then got a veild cham of my own. That just snowballed into other herps.

[sneaky_boa]

I inherited a full grown peruvian red-tail boa (and his custom setup) from my tattoo artist, who was going through a Buddhist non-attachment phase.
My boyfriend was jealous, so I bought him a corn for our place as well.....things had snowballed to 8 snakes before long. Then the entire collection had to be scraped when we moved (I got into grad school)...and we're in the process of starting over.

[joey]

A few anoles when I was a kid....

[Scales Zoo]

After keeping frogs and salamanders for a while, cornsnakes started showing up in petstores.

In the late 80's, I got my first cornsnake. That was followed by another cornsnake, which died within the week. Took it to some guys place, who looked like a very short skinny version of Jesus - for an autopsy. He had over 200 snakes, of all kinds. Shortly thereafter, because of the dead corn - we got a good deal on a pair of amel corns.

Sold them to get a Dog when I was 16. I'd always wanted to have a dog, but my grandmother was allergic to dogs, so up till that point I could not have a dog.

Went to college, blah blah - and when I bought my house I started researching snakes again. Ended up buying a ball python from a petstore. Found out they were restricted in Saskatchewan.

My wise mother asked why I would have paid petstore prices for a snake, and said maybe I should look up that guy named Steve with 200 snakes.

Well, I did - and at he same time we started raising rats. Met more people with hords of snakes, and very few rats - long story short, ended up having 220 colubrids at the house. Got out of raising rats, sold some of the snakes, to buy snakes we liked more, bought another building and was granted a zoo license, and have been honing the collection ever since - keeping a variety of things, and learning a lot every day.

Ryan

[Linds]

LOL in contrast to everyone who had to earn their parent's trust, I sorta learned responsibility through my parents getting me a herp. My Mom sent my Dad off to the pet store with me to get me my first pet, which was decided to be a hamster (I was around 4 years old). Well, we ended up coming home with an iguana, who passed away this year at the age of around 20.

[munchy]

i started catching and observing garter snakes when i was about 8 or 9. im 20 now and ever since then ive just become more fascinated by snakes.
when i was about 10 years old and didnt know any better my pops said i could get a BP so we went to the pet store and picked up a wild caught (im assuming it was wild caught because it was full of mites and very aggressive) sub-adult BP. my dad is an idiot and i was only 10 so i didnt really know anything. we didnt have the internet back then either so it was a bit harder to do research. anyway my dad ended up going against a knowledgeable person's advice and housed the snake in like a 7 gallon fish tank with a human heat pad under the whole tank with no thermometer of any type, no hides, no water and fed it live adult mice. unsupervised live feedings led to many bites and scars within just the first couple feedings and eventually as you probably guessed the snake died. pretty sure the final cause of death was too much heat, but either way that snake was screwed...it was horrible..
since then i never wanted to see an animal have to endure anything like that ever again so i did mad research and a few years ago i got a kingsnake. then a BP. then another king... and another BP....and so on and so forth...

[hudson]

I was never allowed to have them at home because my dad hates all animals, so my collection started when my boyfriend at the time (now my husband) allowed me to start slowly filling his apartment with tanks. It started with a dwarf blue fisher cham and then a beardie and so on. We eventually had to find a bigger apartment and then buy a house to make room for everyone. The funny thing though is my dad still complains about all the animals when he comes over.

Kate

[drewlowe]

Well i always had some kind of mammal running around my house when i was younger (cats, dogs, ferrets, bunnies, squirels, hamsters, gerbils and more).

But I didn't get my first herp until years after moving out of the house. I bought my man 2 leopard geckos for christmas, one passing away 2 weeks after bringing it home from a calcium def. I'm glad that didn't stop my addiction. I'm up to 17 and counting!!!

Jamie

[austinnoel]

My collection started when I was 7. My father was in the military and we moved often so the got me something that would be a constant in my life. It was a Ball Python from there on out I kept collecting .

[capsicum]

I went to pick up a pet rat from a pet store, fell in love with snakes, and got my first spotted python for valentine's day the next year :)

TK