About

I can remember having a love for reptiles and other creatures when I was very young, finding local wildlife, temporarily catching it to get a look, and setting it free again. When I was 12, my brother and I started keeping some of my first pet reptiles. Some of the firsts were green anoles, a ball python, and bullfrog tadpoles from the wild that I released where I found them once they turned into frogs. I have very fond memories of these early years, with avid curiosity about these fascinating species, so different from the pet dogs and cats everyone else had.

With my new found freedom to keep whatever species I wanted, I started trying more bold choices like my first burmese python. There was certainly learning experiences to be had about what information pet stores gave inexperienced pet owners, and the need to do more thorough research before even thinking about purchasing new animals. I think that is the bit of information I like to share most with people: always know what you are in for and plan for the unexpected! I hope that sharing this message can help prevent others form a lot of the rookie mistakes that I made in this stage of my life. With all the information at our fingertips today on the internet, it's easier than ever to do the right thing and think things through before making a purchase you will regret. While I made things work, being more prepared would have made things so much easier on me and my animals.

Eventually I began adding exciting things to my collection that were well thought through, and enabled me to have success in keeping some pretty exotic and cool animals from chameleons, to many species of tarantulas, to parrots, and all sorts of amazing things.

I loved sharing my adoration for animals with my family, especially my young children. It was really cool to be able to get them so interested in animals so young and for them to be able to have more experience with handling them and husbandry than I had the opportunity to as a child.

By the time I was ready to think about breeding reptiles for the first time, I was making better choices and pre-planning. I had a plan for how to find homes for any animals I produced, a plan B, and a plan C. I made sure I could afford anything and everything that I could need upfront, including veterinary care should something go wrong for a female (like becoming eggbound). My adventures in hobby breeding began with corn snakes, and expanded to rat snakes, ball pythons, and even green tree pythons after my initial success. I credit my success to careful planning and all the experienced breeders willing to share their knowledge, either personally or in forums. It would have taken a lot of trial and error on my part without being able to learn from others.

After a few years of successful breeding, I was put in a position where maintaining my collection would have been very difficult. Rather than risk stress on my animals, through a series of moves, eventually out of state, I decided to do something very difficult, and sell off and give away my entire collection. I could have made it work, but it is far less stressful on an animal to change homes locally or go through a quick priority-overnight shipment than to have to endure moving several times and long over-the-road transit. Not keeping exotics for a period of years was really tough, but I know I made the right choice to set the hobby down for a bit and come back to it when things were stable for me. However, you better believe the entire hiatus from keeping, I was reading, watching videos, planning, and daydreaming about how things would be when I picked the hobby back up!

As of 2018, I am slowly starting to rebuild my collection and intend to start off with 2-3 clutches of ball pythons in 2019. I purchased some ready to breed adults, and will be pairing them starting late April. I want to do things right, and start nice and slow, but plan to expand to about 18 animals by 2020, including my holdbacks from 2019.