Hoarding vs Responsable Keeping... when are we on the line?

[Aaron_S]

Originally Posted by Jlassiter

It REALLY has to do with your financial situation......

I make a pretty good living and can financially care for around 200 animals, but I keep it around 150 until Summer when 300 or so hatch out....lol

It is not hoarding if you know what your doing and can afford to do so.....

Now someone making about $30K a year could not afford to keep 100+ snakes.....

I don't think you can say that about someone's income. We just talked about each individual person and their ability to keep 1 or 100 snakes. I don't think their personal income actually matters. Who's to say that 30k a year person isn't married to a rich person who supports everything else and they only need to support their collection? Who's to say they aren't a 20 something year old living at home rent free and only need to pay their own way. Lots of situations where 30k a year can support a good collection.

Honestly, you can easily afford to keep a solid large collection of snakes on the cheap. Build your own racks, breed your own rodents and buy the proper substrate and it doesn't cost too much. I would say though that only works in single species set-ups since you can do everything in bulk. With multiple species it's a little more difficult.