Have Experience? (another rant)

[Siretsap]

I would like to point out something. Sometimes grammar shouln't be taken into consideration to grade someone with experience...

I mainly speak French at home, I went to a French school all my life and I also work in an environment that is mainly French (but i do get many calls from the Bikini Villages in Ontario, and we know they speak English). So the most common mistakes for me are which, whitch, tought and thought.... so I will make mistakes in those words. Even if I will sometimes put that wicked old lady with a broom in a sentence where it should mean the other word, it doesen't mean I am a newb and do not know anything about reptiles.

I do not see how anyone can put a tag on someone as a newb or anything by the grammar mistakes he makes or spelling.

I do not consider myself an expert.
To me an expert is someone who is able to make a whole cycle in the life of the reptile it owns (from birth, to breeding to birth again) and can keep his reptiles in very good shape and that has enough guts to be able to admit that he might still learn something about that species down the line.

I was able to fully cycle a leopard gecko and fat tail life cycle and still consider there is much to learn on them.

There is not only one way to keep a reptile, that is what many of us have trouble according with. If you are not able to accept the fact that there is more than only the way you succesfully kept your animal, then you are not an expert in my opinion.

And also, I would prob put an expert tag on some of the older people, not because of their age, but pecuase they would be the ones who have taken the reptiles that were wc and acclimated them to the captivity conditions to a certain level. They were the pionners in keeping reptiles in captivity. They allowed most of us to buy captive bred specimens that would already eat, and eat mice and rats, cause we all know not all snakes would eat those things in the wild.

How many of us today buy captive bred specimens? And why? Because we do not want to have to fight with the animal all the time to get it to eat. We do not want to have to treat it for parasites and bacterial diseases... So how can we consider ourselves experts if we aren't ready to take the challenge a wild animal would give us?

Just my thoughts

Michael