Keeper Difficulty explained

Just adding this here to help folks better understand what we mean when we classify a reptile under a “keeper difficulty”(Begginer/Intermediate/Difficult). I openly welcome anyone who has the proper experience to add any notes (or corrections) in the comments! (See disclosure for details)

-DISCLOSURE-
I made this as a very basic list to put a little more explanation to something that a lot of people just simply slap onto a species as a label without going further into what they mean when they make these labels.

I am well aware that every individual of a species will vary in their needs and care. Some individuals of a beginner species may be difficult to keep and some difficult species will have individuals that are an absolute breeze to care for. Then there are individuals of species that may be special needs and that is in its entirely own category since each special needs individual will have different care requirements in mind. This guide is just a very broad generalization of these “difficulty tiers” to help people better understand what they may mean. Please understand this while reading this post.

Keeper Difficulty: Beginner.
•Species listed under this difficulty require simple care standards that can be easily achieved. They typically have mild temperature requirements that are reached with heating elements provided widespread across pet supply stores (Please, please do your research before buying heating elements as they can potentially cause harm if they are poorly manufactured!). They have no troubles being fed and will typically eat at every meal readily, their diet is also easily accessible and simple. Their temperament usually will remain calm their whole lives or in a majority of situations, they can be handled easily and are not prone to trying to flee; bites will be minimal and relatively painless. Their size will remain within a reasonable range (small-medium) that will allow for ease of handling, transporting, and husbandry. Beginner species are typically very common in the reptile trade and has a plethora of information to read on.

Keeper Difficulty: Intermediate.
•Species listed under this difficulty require advanced knowledge and experience to achieve proper care. Responsible keepers typically will not own an intermediate species until they have had experience with another less difficult one. They have temperature requirements that may exceed what a beginner species would (but not always) and will require more setup for their husbandry. Their diet may be more challenging to access or they may be difficult to start on feed, they may also refuse meals when offered. The diet they require may also be much wider in diversity. Their temperament will vary from calm to extremely defensive, however they can be worked with to a point that they are no longer this way. Expect to recieve bites that may be painful or require mild treatment, as well as any other ways the species may defend itself. Their size may vary from tiny-large making handling, transporting, and enclosure sizing a bit of a challenge. Information on species that are intermediate may still be widespread but they probably wont be as commonly kept as beginner species are.

Keeper Difficulty: Difficult
•Species listed as difficult are only for the most experienced keepers. Their care is very specific and needs to be precise in order to keep the species healthy. Temperature requirements may need to be on point with specialized tools to get the job done or else the species wont thrive. They may require a diet that is specific to one thing only that is very hard to obtain, or there are few sources that provide it. They may have to be assisted at feeding to get them to start eating on their own and it may be dangerous to do this, difficult species may also refuse to eat for extended periods of time. Their temperament will usually never allow for handling without risk of injury, their handling will be difficult and exerting. Bites may be serious, cause hospitalization, or be outright fatal in certain cases. Bites may be painful and may have long-lasting consequences. Their size will vary but is usually not the biggest concern that comes with difficult species unless you consider housing- which they may need a lot of space to live healthily. Information on difficult species may be very sparse and only a select few keepers may own one.

Again I greatly encourage any tips and/or corrections in the comments to add to this post! Please do so with quotes to help me and others understand what you’ll be referring to.

I didn’t include example species in this post because of the point that individuals will vary between eachother, sometimes greatly. I also didn’t include pricing because this can be a very broad topic in terms of care requirements.

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I will add that a species does not need to check all the boxes to be put in a specific category and in some cases a single criteria may make a large difference

As examples:

  • Copperheads are available for fairly cheap prices, are pretty easy to house, remain in the small/medium size range, and are considered easy feeders but the single fact that they are venomous puts them squarely in the Difficult category
  • Western hognose have a well-known tendency to explore the world with their mouths and will readily, frequently, and repeatedly bite things. Further, there are documented cases of people having bad reactions to their venom. Despite this, the hobby generally considers them as Beginner animals

The single most important thing that needs to be remembered before buying any animal, regardless of how it might be classified, is: DO YOUR RESEARCH ON THE ANIMAL LONG BEFORE YOU BUY IT!!!

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Spot on with the Hognose thing! :joy::sob:
My Hognose will fly out of its enclosure with her mouth open every time I try to take her out. I consider them an Intermediate species, especially if you’re going to try to breed them and raise their offspring.

Anyway thank you! Its why I didn’t include a specific species to my post, because I know that some species will fit into multiple categories or that they may seem to fit into one category but are actually more difficult/easy to care for.

I hope to make this post more accurate without pointing to a specific species. So for now I will keep it broad.

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I understood your intent :+1:t4: But I also know a lot of people view things in a ‘just check the boxes’ way so I wanted to throw a couple specifics out where ‘just check the boxes’ is not going to work to emphasize the importance of research. Research. RESEARCH!!!

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Imo it generally comes down to two factors; how hardy/finicky the animal is, and whether it’s venomous or not.

A lot of the animals that are considered easy/beginner friendly are simply animals that will do well in low-effort setups, and won’t die on you if you make any mistakes.

Take crested geckos, ball pythons, and (to a lesser extent) bearded dragons as an example.

All of those would be considered easy, good beginner reptiles by many, because they can be kept in very minimal/easy setups (relatively speaking) and still do fairly well.

But if you look into their ideal setups, they’re all at least intermediate, and need relatively precise parameters.

You can get a BP to eat and breed in a tiny drawer with a bit of heat-tape, but if you only have one or two snakes you should, in my opinion at least, strive to do better, and that changes things quite a bit.

But that’s just my perspective, I’ve never really been a super big fan of the whole beginner vs expert. Like Wyman said, just do your research regardless, almost any reptile can be your first, imo, if you have a good idea of what you’re doing, and you’re willing to put in the work.

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Of the Hognoses I have owned, not one of them has bitten me or even been flighty but the majority were finicky/unpredictable feeders. The one I have now will consistently eat for me as long as I put his big butt in a small container with his scary ft fuzzies and put that container inside his enclosure. Then he will chow down. :joy:

Otherwise he will hiss and hide from the big scary “dead” fuzzy!

A hognose as a beginner snake? I think not!!! :joy::rofl::joy::rofl::joy::rofl::joy:

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Good points here. I would add that people should take into account the extra challenges of accessing veterinary care for more unusual species. I suggest that people locate a vet who has experience with their chosen species before they purchase the animal. In some cases, this may mean a drive of several hours to see a vet.

One should also consider emergency plans for the animal. Will a power outage of two hours matter for this species? It can for some. What about two days? If one lives in a fire, hurricane, or flood zone, one should consider how to deal with their animals during an evacuation.

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Definitely agree with the nuances presented here. I like best the feeling that “Well, we do say these things but it’s really more of a rough shorthand- ANY animal can be your dream animal if you’ve put in the work, research, and maybe training or hands on practice.”

One factor, as probably mentioned, is a person’s previous animal experience, too.

Example: I count as a snake “beginner” but I’ve been looking after dogs (including home first aid and medicine) for over a decade, and I did have a baby tortoise I tried to save.
It was a lot of work, and even though eventually it got to a point where I had to make the call and put the poor thing to sleep as it was starting to suffer, i learned a LOT taking care of that little bug for a year. I got hands on reptile feeding and medicine experience including things like grinding up and “spoon” feeding nutritious supplemental mash, and doing intramuscular injections in a way that minimizes stress. Stuff like that.

So when I knew a Black African House Snake could be finicky about eating and for that reason may not be “Beginner” classed snakes if they do that, well, I felt ready to tackle the challenge.

Another Factor: Climate! I quite like lil frogs and toads. I’d love to keep a toad. but I live in one of the driest places on this continent, and it would take more work than I have energy for to maintain the proper conditions for an amphibian in an enclosure here. “Beginner” Frog species are a LOT more work here!

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For me, one of the biggest things that determines the difficulty level of a particular species is how tolerant they are of husbandry mistakes. Species that can tolerate a wide range of temperature and humidity are what I would classify as “beginner,” whereas species that need things to be more precise and are more likely to develop health and/or feeding issues when things aren’t just right would be intermediate or advanced (depending on just how precise things have to be).

But I think everything else you mentioned plays into it as well. Hardiness, husbandry requirements, feeding, and temperament are all important considerations.

I’ll also add that I don’t necessarily think that everyone needs to start with a beginner species. Depending on the person, I think there are plenty of traditionally “intermediate” species that could make a good first reptile for someone who has the commitment to really do a lot of research and preparation before bringing the animal home. That said, there are absolutely some species that a beginner, or even intermediate keeper, should not attempt to keep. Mainly species where mistakes can easily be fatal for the keeper or the animal (for example front-fanged venomous, or dragon snakes). But outside of those “experts only” species, I do think there’s some wiggle room on the experience level that’s truly necessary for someone to be successful at keeping a given species.

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The above, imho only, is why ball pythons should not be considered beginner snakes, but intermediate snakes.

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I’m not referring to any specific part of a post from anybody here, but I wanted to add that reptiles, or any pet really, bought at a big box store or pet store, may or may not have been kept in an ideal environment there. Some are not kept in the appropriate enclosure for their size, some are not kept in enclosures within the proper ranges of humidity and temperatures, and some are even housed in one enclosure with others of the of the same species, which is a big no-no in many cases. Sometimes, a buyer may be given erroneous information by a store employees who themselves are misinformed about the proper husbandry an animal needs.

So, as @t_h_wyman emphasized, research on any animal bought from a store is super important for a new keeper to do, ideally before making the purchase. Illnesses such as respiratory infections and scale rot, mites, etc., do happen and without this knowledge, it can be a costly, if not fatal, mistake.

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Although it is really sad to see the state of animals in big company pet stores and a part of me deep down wants to help them I totally agree that caution should be taken when buying any animal from one.

Thank you for pointing this out! Even with it being a big problem I dont see it talked about enough…

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Yup. I got a chance to see the “behind the scenes” while working in animal care at a local Petsmart for a few months. Nuff said……

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Eh, I’m a little ambivalent on how to classify ball pythons. They do meet a lot of the criteria for a beginner snake. And while some are picky about husbandry in terms of their willingness to eat, they’re also not likely to up and die on you because your temperature or humidity fluctuated slightly.

I think I’d classify species like ball pythons and hognoses as beginner species, with the caveat that they can be finicky eaters, and any beginner looking to get one of those species just needs to be prepared for that possibility.

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I still have to disagree with this Jennifer because after having owned a ton of ball pythons from the baby stage, it is very important that these guys eat from the get go, as they don’t have much of a fat reserve. I am not talking so much about temps and humidity issues as much as feeding techniques, tips and tricks to get a new baby ball python straight from it’s breeder to it’s new home to eat right off the bat. That’s why there are sooo many posts on this forum from new inexperienced ball python owners
about the new baby not eating, especially if it was eating live but the new owner/owners want to feed it ft. Even if the baby was eating ft at the breeder’s, it’s sometimes a little tricky to get it eating in a brand new environment. I would not use the term finicky either in this case.

It is very rare that you see posts about new snake owners asking for advice on how to get other types of new baby snakes besides ball pythons to start eating for them. It’s always ball pythons (or Hognoses).

I speak from experience on this one……

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