Let's all confess

[JimmyDavid]

Sometimes we can go hard on new guys that make stupid herp mistakes, but we were all unexperienced at some point and, of course, made our own mistakes.
Why not share our "nightmare" stuff with everyone here?

I'll start: I got a 3 to 4 foot water monitor once and loved him since the moment he arrived. He was a well fed, beautifull, TAME lizard. The very same day he arrived i decided to not mix him with another water i had just to let him settle down. So i let him in a big cardboard box with a lamp inside for heating and a bowl of water. I checked the temp and it was just fine. But i forgot that the inside of a cardboard box doesn't remain constant and it got extra hot in a few hours. Guilty as charged; the poor lizard died the same day he arrived because of a stupid mistake i didn't think of. That's my worst
nightmare mistake! how about you?

[BoidKeeper]

I recently over heated a $1000 ball python on the way home from the airport. The $1000 hurt but not as much as the fact that I killed an animal for the first and I hope last time. I keep hearing that the longer you stay in the this hobby the better you chances are of losing something well I guess my number was up.
That was recently though. Back in the day before I knew any better I did a few things that where not that bright but it never hurt any of my animals. I had an iggy with only a hot rock for the the first month or so that I had him. I kept Leos on sand.
Ever since I've been into snakes I've been on line and have been into the reaserch as much as the animals them selves so now I'd like to think that I do every as best as possible.
Cheers,
Trevor

[Removed_2815]

Originally posted by BoidKeeper
I kept Leos on sand.

Ditto! Used hot-rocks too *shudders* That was about 11 years ago now (no internet access, no literature - that I could find). I learned from that pretty quick, with no loss of life thankfully.
Ryan

[concept3]

When I was younger I had a pac man, and an american bullfrog both die of mbd because I did not know I had to supplement with calcium. Just thinking of them try to move around with their jell-o like legs makes me sick to my stomach./

[Lrptls]

i'v made SO many mistakes it's sad, i still make dumb mistakes but most of the time the animals dont get hurt, for example i forget to close cages alot and see a snake crawling out. one day my water dragons cage was open all day, he didn't get out though. i'll submit the problems i had with my first snake. i got a little garter snake and 3 days later she had a whole bunch of babies. i kept some, my mom took some and she gave some to a friend. a few weeks later the mother snake died. i eventually only had 2 babies. one escaped 3 times. the first time he was gone for about 3 months. the 3rd time i found him i put him with the other baby which he ate. i didn't want it any more so i let it go outside =/. soon my mom's snake tried to eat the other, she pulled it out of the snake and it soon died. then not long after the other one died. so now all the garters me and my mom had are dead, she lost touch with her friend so we have no idea how his snakes are doing if they wern't cursed like ours. the end

[Slipknot]

Biggest mistake...housed a W/C Rock Lizard with my Leopard Gecko.

[Lioness]

wow Lrptls..thats a sad sad story..

im not a pro by far..but the stupidest thing i've done thus far is feeding my corn too soon after a regurge. (4-5 days)
sure enough.. i heard it from everyone here..i didnt fully understand how critical it was..but now i know. so i've learned my lesson.
thankfully my snake wasnt hurt..he digested it..and is doing well now.. matter of fact he's in shed again.
thats my only horror story..

[Manitoban Herps]

Ummmm.....Probaly 3 years ago when i bought a emerald swift, it was -30 outside and i put him down on my kitchen table which is close to the door, and went and helped bring in grocerys for 15 mins when the door of the house was wide open, his eye got infected and he died

But the lizard was not from the best supplier, so maybe it wasn't completly my fault.

[second skin]

I dont think there is enough space in ths forum , but I think the one that takes the cake is when my pet chameleon "walked" away in my own back yard
I had him out for some sun on one of my house plants and brilliant me thought it would be nice to go for a swim needless to say that was the last I saw of ol'spanky!

[marisa]

hmm probably keeping box turtles in small tanks on lettuce when I was REALLY young....used to catch mountain kings when I was young (under ten) and feed them then release them *shudder* that was horribly stupid....thankfully by the time I owned other reptiles years later I had done reading and had internet access.

Marisa

[Tim_Cranwill]

Keeping WC garters outside (well, in a garage but not a heated one) WELL into the autumn months with no heat source... and it gets COLD here! Then, keeping all 7 of them in a large aquarium with an exposed heat lamp in the science room and force feeding them pieces of chicken breast because they wouldn't eat. THEN letting them go in a near by field in the spring.... BAD MOVE!!!

That was about 13 years ago though. I didn't keep reptiles for about a decade after that, nor did I deserve to.

Great topic, Jimmy!

[dave68]

We've got a couple horror stories....sad but true I guess....We got a water dragon as a rescue and our oldest son had been taking care of it so well, feeding it mealies by hand and started to get really attached to "Tarzan", we came home with some live rodents (lrg rats) for the snakes that night, set them up in a cage and went about our day. Earlier in the day my son must have been feeding the dragon and forgot to close the cage properly, and the rat cage did not close properly, well let me tell you rats are nasty vicious savages when loose, we found blood everywhere and the water dragon half eaten, the saddest and sickest thing ever experienced Another time we stupidly decided to put a pacman frog in a huge Tokay terrarium as I had seen it at the zoo before, and knew Tokays could give a good bite, did not see it as a big problem, but one day the Mama tokay must have gotten too close to the frogs mouth and he swallowed her whole, worst part was when she came out she looked fine, just dead, she wasn't mangled or anything. That was a really stupid mistake really hard to deal with as this was our original female we ever started with, the male called her for months, so so sad...
Anyways theres ours...both these happened over 3/4 years ago and so far so good since then!!!!

[gargoyle]

It would have to be, putting my first Whites tree from near a window in a plastic (large critter keeper), then got really busy and forgot about where it was for about three hours..real stupid. well end result, very dehydrated whites tree frog, that perished due to my lapse of memory.....

I made a big boo boo.The first Red Tail Boa I had(and I loved it)kind of got sucked up in my vaccume cleaner.I was looking for the best way and fastest to clean the cage so I pushed the snake to one side and vaccumed,well I took my eye off the snake and I heard a grinding sound,ewwww.At the time I was thinking he was in the bag,so I pulled everything apart to look for him,then I noticed little,I mean little pieces of him all over the bag,he went through the fan and then into the bag which I realized.Trust me I take my time cleaning cages now!

[BOAS_N_PYTHONS]

JIMMYDAVID:

My biggest was on a feeding day. I took out 9 Brazilian Rainbow Boas and some 4 Blood Pythons, each were put in a feeding tub with a lid. Feed each one and walked away to see something on the computer I was getting from work and when I came back to put the boids back in their cages I noticed 1 BRB was missing. Turns out I did not close his lid 100% as I thought and I did not lock the feeding room. I knew he escaped and with a full belly so he was not going to be easy to find. He had 6 rooms to choose to hide and all had everything he can want to hide for a long time.

Well I went rampant trying to seek him out in each room, 4 of the rooms were for snakes and the other 2 were office and washroom. Office he was not in because I was there. Washroom was closed so not there either. So after turning over every cage and looking through storage areas of snake equipment I was baffled to find him no where.

Funny part is coming though. In my display room I have my book library and a few chairs as well as some nicnacks (sp). Well I got worried where he took off too and even made a small pray to find him. I have this statue I got in Cancun of an old Mayan Cheif represented by jungle snakes, the moment I looked up at it after my small pray - guess where the BRB was?

That' s right he was wrapped around the statue, how I missed that with a snake at 5 feet on a 1.5 foot statue who knows but maybe it was a sign

NOTE - I learned from that and still feed the same way but the room is closed if I leave the room.

Tony Pharosx