So mad I could Vomit with rage!!!!

[Scooter]

I am new to this forum, in fact I had to get into the rift that I just read for the last, I don't know, seemed like hours, about the feeding habits of the ball python. I found it quite humorous as well as entertaining. It is good to see a lot of diversity on this forum, I only hope that people respect each others opinions and don't get into dung slinging. I agree with the moderator that just posted, the written word can be informative, but just because you read it somewhere doesn't mean its gospel. Experience is the best teacher for most things including the feeding habits of the ball python. The problem with books and the internet, caresheets, etc, is that they aren't gospel, but guidelines to assist in proper care of your animals. Each and every snake is different and could have different metabolisms, just like people and therefore different needs. Whether you feed it once a month or once a week, you will need to keep a watchful eye on the ball pythons body structure, and you can tell a fat snake from an undernurished one. All I am saying is that use the caresheets, books and internet as guidelines for proper care and husbandry.:w , and can't we all just get along, and love each other, lets have a big group hug here!

[Ontario_herper]

"LOL I don't know about that. Seems most of the books you pick up have some innacuracies or blatant ignorance. Books as well, as only one persons' opinion, much like caresheets. You don't need to be a verified "expert". I have a book kicking around here somewhere that claims iguanas need to eat bird gravel to digest their food properly, and not so long as the other day I was sifting through a book on monitors that suggests they should all be kept at an even 80 degrees Sure any of these tips will work if your goal is to kill the animal :/ They may have less room, but just because they have an assigned editor, does not mean much."

Sorry I don't know how to use this fancy quote option. Linds I agree with pretty much everything you said except for the above paragraph. As you might have been able to tell from my last post!

The net if saturated with caresheets from people who have little experience with what they are talking about. How many times have you seen caresheets where some guy has gone out and bought a herp and then written up a "caresheet" after owning only one lonely animal. This author wannabe may have only kept this one animal for a matter of days or weeks. But because of technology he can almost instantly write up a how-to guide on keeping said species.

In the case of a book said person has to invest much more time into creating and publishing his or her piece of work. Almost all books list their sources of information. This list is often where you can validate the persons work. Did they just pull this info out of their rear-end or did they compare it to and learn from the work of others?

For example, I have a book that has over 200 pages of sources. At an average of 20 sources per-page that equals soemthing like 4,000 sources. So it would seem that this person has done a life-time of research before publishing what they believe to be reliable information. This person has stated what they belive to be fact in their book and then backed it up or compared it to what 4,000 other sources have said. To me that says something about the information presented in that book.

Most web-site have ZERO sources of information.

Of course their are bad books out there. Just like their are bad web-sites. The difference is that you can much more easily check and see if the author is full of BS or not.

Just my opinions......