Let's all confess - Page 2

clint545 · 01-26-05, 07:13 PM

When I was about 10 my GrandFather found a Red Ear Slider by the road and gave it to me.
I kept it for about 4 months, in a 10 gallon tank, no heat no filter, in the basement by the sliding door! Needless to say the poor little guy didn't make it.
That was 20 years ago, when the only info you could find on Turtle care was to feed them raw hamburger and fish.

gonesnakee · 01-26-05, 07:18 PM

I just discovered a big FU a few minutes ago. I recv. some Speckled Hognoses in trade last fall & read up on them & just put them down for brumation around 2 weeks ago. I had read that they could be brumated as normal Colubrids (55F). Obviosuly not as both were dead when I checked all the brumating snakes this afternoon. Unless something else is responsible (doubt it both were "cleaned out" & very healthy) I killed them by brumating them too cool %$#&^&&^*!!! Mark
P.S. POed MAJORLY!!! I should have trusted my orginal doubts on the temps!

Ptindy · 01-26-05, 07:49 PM

double post

Ptindy · 01-26-05, 07:50 PM

Well, I have a couple confessions. When me and my little sister were about 6 and 8, me being older, we received two RES as a gift from our aunt. We loved them. But the whole time we had them we didn't have a filter or a basking spot, just water, a reptile lagoon(shallow and open top) , and gravel. Well we bought a kritter keeper with some gravel from a garage sale and were so excited to see our turtles swim. The gravel ended up having salt all over it or was for salt water tanks, wasn't sure and my sister's turtle died. Mine survived. I kept him for about 6 more years the same way and he grew fairly large. I didn't realize I was supposed to do all this for him and he was growing and stuff so didn't realize there was a problem, his shell was kind soft though on the tummy. We ended up letting him go out at a beaver pond by my grandparents in ontario caues my mom wanted me to, i'm sure he died. On top of this, when I was in grade 5 or so I made an allowance for shovelling snow in the driveway. I saved up for a heat rock (bad) and two anoles that I saw at this neighborhood petstore. Well, buddy sold them to me and of course didn't make sure I left with everything I would need to keep them alive. All I had was a hot rock and a tank, they eventually died because I didn't have and UV lights and they were in a basement. I also tried to feed them mealies but they weren't having any of it, I don't even know if they will eat them now, but then again, they don't interest me so i'm not too worried about their care requirements. I also tried to sell frogs I found as a kid at my grandparents to kids on my street back in the city for a couple bucks haha, but I got busted and my mom drove them back out to let them go.

Mike

beanersmysav · 01-26-05, 07:54 PM

blah I left the top off one of my corn snakes cage and haven't found her yet :-/ felt so stupid I just went down to get a pinky mouse and in 2 mins she was gone, no where to be found! I'm still devistated it happened a week ago. Been setting up all kinds of water and pinkie mice all over the house, have a feeling he got into the heating duct I have disconnected.

reptiguy420 · 01-26-05, 08:15 PM

Id have to say the worst thing ive done was leave the lid of one of my hatchling cresteds enclosures open while changing food and water.Leave for 2 sec. and surprise, surpise 1 less crested.Never did find that lil bugger.

crazy4reptiles · 01-26-05, 08:20 PM

Well this doesn't really have anything to do with directly harming any of my reptiles... but it was still REALLY STUPID!!!! It was feeding day last Sun... So I put all the snakes in their containers to feed.... when I took my corn out of its tank I removed the heat lamp from on top... I have a T.V. sitting on the floor in my reptile room with a peice of glass on top of it.... so I set the light on the glass well I went to the sink to get my mice... It will be fine until I get back.... right... Well need less to say I FORGOT... until after my corn was done eating... So ya, I have a hole in the top of my T.V.... Wait a minute..acttually I'm an IDIOT!!! ... could have started the hole room on fire... So above where I said this didn't really have anything to do with harming anything.... I TAKE IT BACK.....

Gary D. · 01-26-05, 09:16 PM

My biggest failure due to ignorance was back in the days when there wasn't a lot of info out there to begin with (286's weren't even on on the market yet, let alone good info sites). Well I kept a golden tegu in conditions that were sub par to say the least, and fed him table scraps and eggs. He eventually died of stomatis. I still feel racked with guilt knowing I could have done better for him even with the info that was available then. And with what I know now, it would have taken very little effort to change the biggest of shortcommings.

My more recent stupid errors are in not securing caging properly and having snakes escape.

GD

Paleosuchus · 01-26-05, 09:43 PM

Made two mistakes so far and hopefully the last. First was on a herping trip, driving to the everglades i saw a Huge brown watersnake, measured 5' 1/4". We got to a fishing spot/herping spot and i left the brown watersnake in the truck. Needless to say the tempatures sky rocketed and it died. Only other killing was when i fed one of my first snakes two large of meal. Extremely large, and he tried to regurge and suffocated. Can always expect more mistakes just hope they are not lethal ones.

nita · 01-26-05, 09:47 PM

The worst one was my first BP. She was a 15yr old adoption that was just wonderful, I had her in a 33Gal tank and was using ice cream buckets with holes cut into the lids for hides and she had been doing great. Usually she was out and cruising by 10pm or so and then one night she wasn't out, it was about 10:30 when I decided to check on her only to find out that where her tank was sitting was in direct sunlight during the day and she had overheated and died in her hide that day. I was devastated, how my DH managed to deal with me is beyond me but lets just say I am an emotional wreck over the loss of an animal, they are part of the family, and at the time Iwas 3 months pregnant so just make that emotional wreck to nth degree. I have since learned and ensure nobody ends up in the suns path.

zero&stich · 01-26-05, 11:07 PM

Worst mistake, which caused me to seriousally rethink 'lamps' for anything, was nearly burning my house to the ground. Well one night, I was moving cages around and rearanging and whatnot. During my lapse, I thought I unplugged everything and had everything cooled down on top of the cages. I never rested my hand on the lamp to check to see if it was cool and promptly put it on my carpet, and went about my business and eventually left the room. During the middle of the night, I heard the alarms blazing throughout the house. I bolted back into the room, to smell that which of a decaying animal. I saw steam rise quickly up from the carpet as panic gripped my entire body. I quickly unplugged and shut down everything. When I lifted the lamp off the ground, there was a giant, gaping hole right down to the orginal framework of the house because I saw the wood under the carpet.

This accident has most definatly forced me to see the benifits of thermostats and that pads are definatly less of a fire hazard.

Let this be a lesson to the newer herpers. If you use heat lamps, you might as well stand in the middle of a bon fire. You are playin with a natural force.

Be careful.

JonD · 01-26-05, 11:09 PM

Last year I had some friends over after the bar. I took out one of my not so friendly amazon tree boas. I brought it out and the thing tagged me in the forehead as well as a few other places..another time fell asleep when I my bci out. She just curled up next to me...I guess I've been lucky and relatively "incident free" so far..Knock on wood.

Great stories everyone!

Jeff_Favelle · 01-26-05, 11:33 PM

Oh yeah, seen and done it all. Hot rocks, tape, screen lids, aquariums, feeding too large of an item, basking lamps for nocturnal snakes. Man o' man, I wonder how sometimes stuff actually lived. Its kind of sad in retrospect, but its promising how far we've come in such a short time (10 years).

Aas long as we learn to limit the mistakes, and don't make the SAME ones, we'll (and the snakes) will be all right.

ChunkyMunky · 01-26-05, 11:54 PM

I bought a boa from a fish store

And even worse, I didnt know it had mites for about 4 months after I bought it. Haha, I didnt even know snake mites existed, untill I got on the internet and did some research. Just think of how stupid some of us would still be if there was no internet.

Dan.

reptile boi · 01-27-05, 12:43 AM

A couple stupid mistakes i can remember was 1. I had a flat rock scorpion that i forgot to water for over 2 months, was still alive and kicking after all that so i told myself id water it the next day, went to water it the next day just to find it dead. 2. i left an adult, 5" long emp in a rubbermaid that was only 3" high without a lid thinking it would stay in there till i got a larger kritter keeper, well, next day it was gone. 3 years later and still no sign of it. Another was i gave a baby fattail scorp a water dish a little water dish thinking it would save any future scorps from dehydrating, well next day i found it dead in the water bowl, now i only spray desert scorps twice a week for moisture and i only give water dishes (small ones) for larger tropical scorps.

Thanks,
Ben