heating

[Mike177]

everyone here are all makeing verry valid points, I know if i was in the situation of
kill3r843 people being rude and impolite to me woulnt make me run out and and want to care for my anamal and better or faster. its important for people to understand that there snake need specal care and that it is never a good idea to buy a snake without prior knolage to there care. but i do think that some of the resposes i have seen people give to snake owners who made impulse buys have been fairly rude and out of line (not talking about BOAS AND PYTHONS posts, not that i have seen at least) but i do think its important not to be rude to newcomes of this hobby. It is enirely possable to stress a point without being rude. I dont come to the boa fourms as much but i have seen it alot in the large constrictors forums. if people just have to be rude then its a free country do as you may but i dont see any logical reson for it. just my 2 cents

[Tim_Cranwill]

Mousekilla, I agree with most of what you are saying.

My level of knowledge was ok when I got my first cb snake but I still had a TON of "first hand knowledge" to pick up... everyone does when they start... heck, I still do, or else I wouldn't spend hours a day reading these forums.

Granted, my VERY first snakes were a few wc garters back in junior high but I didn't research snakes much back then and I saw the effect that had on the animals. That's why I did it differently this time. I guess that's one lesson I carried forward.

And about putting the animals first, well that's a tricky thing to debate. If we TRULY put the animals first, we probably wouldn't have them in captivity at all. But once they are here, we need take proper care of them... we all know that.

But don't say no one researches. I ALWAYS want to prove blanket statements wrong. They just bug me...

[CHRISANDBOIDS14]

MouseKilla:

I would like to adress a couple points you made:

1)

I don't believe for a second that anyone researches their first herp, let alone for a period of years before getting into the hobby. That just doesn't make sense so I don't believe it.

When I first became interested in herps, I had to convince parents(very hard job) to allow me to get one. My father swore there would never be a herp in his house. Over the next TWO years, I did research to show my parents about herps, and learned more myself about how to care for them. My father finnally did reasearch himself for 5 months before he said it was ok for me to get a snake. Then I did research on corn/rat snakes for two months, and for my 10th birthday(YES I WAS THAT YOUNG AND ACTUALLY CARED ABOUT THE ANIMALS), got an everglades rat snake. It was actually sold to me from the store as a striped corn snake. Anyways, point made, people do research.

2) Throughout this thread, not just by you, but by others, was made mention that with herps, people cannot just go out and by a herp without the knowledge like any other animal(Ie: dog, cat, rodent, fish).

This is completely false. You do need knowledge before you go out and puchase any of these animals! It is completly incorrect to keep a golfish in a fishbowl and rarely change its water. You need to know something about the type of dog or cat you are buying such as amount of exercise and nutritional requirements and the type of food it can eat, does it shed? Are you alegic to it? Rodents need proper caging, food(very specific diets depending on the animal), what kind of substrate can you use? Birds need special cage and cages too. What kind of temperatures can any of your animals tolerate? Also, the point I find most important, if you even care about the animal, if you want it to be well/happy, YOU SHOULD LOOK INTO WHAT IT NEEDS TO LIVE, or else you will have an unhealthy, sad, suffering, ect... animal.

I understand if an animals is just droped at your door for whatever reason(previous owner is dumb, didnt care about it, didnt know how to care for it, animal/s was agressive, but as stated by Tony(BOAS N PYTHONS), you should have at least 1hr to research what you need to know on the animal, be it you go to a bookstore(Chapters?)(I do find great information about animals in books they sell), the internet(if you are posting on this site, it MUST be available to you), talking to people, find a book at a pet store, a magazine.

I truly belive if the person does really care about the animals they have, they should do some research on its care requirements.

My post was not intended as an attack on anyone or their statements, simply my knowledge/understanding on the topic.

I do congratulate the starter of the thread for at least having the sense to ask about the animal. At least from what they are told by the followup posts they will not do this again with another animal(hopefully).

I also believe that part of the problem is the sellers fault, as they are not assuring the animal/s are going to good homes, or that the person knows what they are doing.

Thank-you for your time in reading my posts, and again I did not mean to offend/attack anyone. Please, if you feel like, take my post apart and show me my mistakes, I will argue them with the facts and knowledge I posses.

Just my 2 cents.

C.

Edit: Just noticed the two above posts came up at the same time as mine, and I must agree with everything Tim said.

C.

[MouseKilla]

Tim,

Fair enough man, you did prove my blanket statement to be flawed and I'll give you that. I am satisfied with your acknowledgement of the fact that being a good keeper means you are always learning.

I think most people bring their first animal home fairly confident that they can care for it properly. They've bought all that expensive new gear and asked all the questions they could think of but quite often they still don't know everything they need to.

At this point they will either be smart enough to figure out they need to know more (which is about when they show up here) or they won't. If not, who knows what will become of that unfortunate animal? But if they ARE smart enough to figure out that they need some help (maybe a lot, maybe just a little), even though they might feel kinda stupid, what good does it do them or their new animal to have someone basically call them an idiot?

I just think it's better to help these people, even if they are idiots, if only for the sake of the animal in question.

[Heather123]

Even though I was given the boa I have in rather quick, hasty manner, its been stated here and I agree - you can still do the research to make sure you are caring for the animal properly. It upsets me (as it obviously does others) to see the improper care of any animal but are we really serving the interest of the animal (and the owner who wants to take care of the animal) by sniping comments at someone for their lack of research? I agree that I hold them responsible for their lack of planning and I would encourage them to either 1) do the research today, this very minute and ask the necessary questions to take care of the animal or 2) give the animal to someone who can care for it. Luckily, it seems, most of yall have done your research and have healthy, happy animals. I can honestly say that I did enough prior to picking the boa up to have the right set up and food ready but its ongoing process and I've learned soooo much since. My original post on this thread was simply to encourage understanding. I don't believe that particular people want to understand that I've read their posts and see the points they are making and that I think we are all coming to same conclusion - and that is you have to know how to take care of your boa (or whichever animal you might be discussing) properly.