Wow! I was really rambling! LOL nm

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Posted by Tegan on January 14, 2003 at 11:03:38:

In Reply to: I'm kinda like you I guess....msg posted by Tegan on January 13, 2003 at 22:21:45:

:I really hate being told I cant do something cause it's to hard...but when it comes to animals I'll take any advice I can get. I may really want that GTP or that Monitor but if someone tells me I need more experiance first and seems to know what they are talking about and has good sound advice I tend to listen. Doesn't mean I want that herp anyless...just means I wait a little bit.

:I started off in the herp world with a little amel corn snake named Mr. Jingles that I bought on a whim after dealing with some snakes in my vet tech courses. He's almost two years old now and doing great (ok honestly I dont know if he is a he or a she but that doesn't matter to me too much.) He was however a major learning step for me. And he gave me some of the experiance and patience I now use with my other herps.

:All my herps are learning tools, because no two are exactly alike. They may have the same general requirements but they all vary...even if only by a little bit. By starting with a hardy easy to care for species you get the basic knowledge on how to care for herps and you can learn from your mistakes without causeing too much harm.

:After I got very comfortable with Mr. Jingles I wanted to expand my "hobby" so I picked up a trio of ball pythons (one het albino male and two 50% het albino females) with the goal to learn all I can (I did research a ton before also) and in a few years take a crack at breeding and see what I get. I'm not in it for the money really...just the joy of producing a beautiful animal (even if they all look normal they are still beautiful.)

:Then one day I was looking around on some websites seeing what else I might like to get into and I saw a picture of a crested gecko and fell in love instantly. A month or so of research and setup later and I got a 1.2 trio of crested geckos from crestedgecko.com (Beautiful animals and highly reccomended breeder.) They have been an absolute joy and even though I haven't gotten any viable eggs yet (big deal!) they have been one of the best things I could have done for the furtherment of my hobby. They have been one of the best teachers I have had to date. They taught me all about natural enclosures, varied diets and supplimentations (remember just snakes up till then) and micro climates. They've forgiven me through my mistakes and thrived when I finally got it right. As of right now I'm thinking of picking up another 1.2 trio (still have a lot of christmass money left over hehehe).

:Then I learned the hard way what I dont like. I went to one of the big reptile expos in chicago this past summer and picked me up a pair of 1.1 blizzard leo geckos. The first month or two went ok...but after that I got really really tired of live feeders, dealing with them and trying to keep them alive. I determined I will never get a pure insect eater ever again. I just dont like them, they arnt my cup of tea. So I'm selling the pair of leos (All ready sold, this isn't an ad I just haven't shipped them yet) so that I can make room in my collection for things I enjoy more. At least now I can say I tried them and learned from them. You may discover you dont like the cresteds and realize that getting a leachie would have been a big (size wise hehe) mistake. Because of their price cresteds are easier to rehome then leachies. (Although leachies because of their rarity seem to move pretty fast too.)

:I've now moved on to the next big step (for me) and gotten a little red-footed tortoise. He's an absolute joy to have and a vegie eater to boot!! (And I used to think I never wanted a pure vegie eater...boy was I wrong!)

:I guess the moral of my whole story is: You live, you learn, you adapt, you learn some more, you adapt some more.

:It's realy great to see someone so young that is willing to listen and learn and adapt. A leachie might be what you really want, but a crested will be more fogiveing while you learn..then you can adapt what you learn from your crestie and apply it to your leachie.

:And I think I've rambled enough for one night. Good night everybody I'll be here all week!!

:Tegan

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