Greetings from Belgium

[CVH]

Hello everyone, I'm Christophe and currently living in Belgium.

I have been herping for 15 years and kept many interesting species over the years.
I don't remember them all but I'll try to sum them up.

Having kept: Kingsnakes, milksnakes, ratsnakes, cornsnakes, ball pythons, many tarantulas, scorpions, praying mantisses, walking sticks/leaves, poison dart frogs...

Currently I have a BCI, Kenyan Sand Boa, Amazon Tree Boa, Yellow Anaconda, Giant Asian forest scorpion and a Mexican flame knee tarantula.

I have seen the hobby change a lot over the years. For the good you can easily and cheaply acquire very good terrariums and supplies. Very good info is easy to find now online and thousands of books are to be bought. However for the not so good, it looks to me that the only animals you can find on the expos are boa and ball morphs and buckets of poison dart frogs...I guess it's a matter of demand/supply. You need to look hard to find something interesting, but I recently bought my Yellow Anaconda for a ridiculous low price.

Please also check out my thread about my yellow anaconda in the general boa forum. I will soon be creating threads about the other species keep.

Cheers.

Christopher Van Hoof

[Mikoh4792]

Go away....

[Mikoh4792]

jokes! welcome to forum. How do you like your ATB? Are they active at night?

[Donnie]

Hello and welcome

[warehouse13fan]

Originally Posted by Mikoh4792

Go away....

Hahahhahah
Welcome to the forum!

[CVH]

Originally Posted by Mikoh4792

Go away....

Lol, you had me there, did not see your second post.

The atb is less active during the day time then at night. Some good info can be found here.hXXp://www.urbanjungles.com/atbbasics.htm

Nice to meet you.

[Mikoh4792]

Originally Posted by CVH

Lol, you had me there, did not see your second post.

The atb is less active during the day time then at night. Some good info can be found here.hXXp://www.urbanjungles.com/atbbasics.htm

Nice to meet you.

Thanks! and i agree with your point on the hobby changing. These days a lot of it is about morphs, designers, and amateur breeders trying to make a quick buck. Not the hobby I left several years ago before I started back up again.

[CVH]

Originally Posted by Mikoh4792

Thanks! and i agree with your point on the hobby changing. These days a lot of it is about morphs, designers, and amateur breeders trying to make a quick buck. Not the hobby I left several years ago before I started back up again.

Nice to know there are some peolpe who have exactly the same view. I'm not against morphs, but just the fact that they dominate the entire market nowadays. I tend to go early to the expos and quickly check the tables for something 'interesting'. Last expo I managed to lowball (25 €) a breeder for a juvenile yellow anaconda, he quickly agreed and told me he was stopping breeding this species... The fact what shocked me the most where the visitors when the breeder was taking the snake out of the box and gave it to me to check it out, within moments I was surrounded by dozens of people making ignorant remarks. How can somebody know so little about snakes and still spend so much money on ball morphs. I fear for the well being of the snakes these people take home. When I was teenagers I could tell the difference between a BCC and a BCI with a quick look, when good info was hard to get. Now people think that 'Snakes on a plane' is a fact. But I'm nagging now. The hobby is still great and I'm happy to still be a part of it.

Funny story, my wife was nagging me for a bumble bee ball on that expo, we agreed to meet each other in the bar area around noon, (we have different interest on the expos...), you should have seen her face when she opened that box (she looked first so happy when she saw I had a box) and then I told her what snake it was. Oh boy...She firstly best guessed a carpet python (excellent guess though). No honey, It's an Anaconda ... Everyone in the bar area heard her then what I had bought. A WHAT!?!?...Anaconda my dear. A-NA-CON-DAAA!?!?

[Mikoh4792]

haha! Must have had flashbacks to the movie Anaconda.

[bigsnakegirl785]

Hello and welcome.

Funny story, I can picture it so well. What a shock it must have been to see you come with an anaconda rather than the ball python she was hoping for.