In the last 2 months every time I have been to my local Petco, which I do my best to avoid. Whatever employee has been caring for the reptiles at the time I am there, asks my advice. One younger guy asked me what leopard geckos are supposed to be fed. On another occasion a very skinny boa constrictor, that was marked as a red tail and was not, was so underweight that I actually asked to speak to whoever was caring for them at the time. Keep in mind she had been there over a month, this gentleman couldn’t tell me what they had been feeding her, went to get someone else who wasn’t sure what size food they were feeding her, who then went to get the female assistant manager who informed me they were trying to feed hoppers to a snake that was not big enough to even eat pinkies. I hate to support Petco but I bought her on the spot. It’s been only 3 weeks, I’m feeding her a pinky twice a week, her spine and ribs are no longer showing, and she is coloring up really well. Turns out she is a hypo parahet, but you couldn’t even tell in the store because she was in such poor condition. Overall I’m glad I made the purchase, I hate that the money went to supporting them, but she’s a beautiful female and will be a great addition to my collection and once she started to not be starving became very friendly. It’s outrageous to me that there Pet Care Associates don’t know what to feed there are multiple types of lizards, and that it took three different people to finally tell me what they were attempting to feed a hatchling boa constrictor. It’s deplorable
I’ve made a couple of mistakes.
- I didn’t have a clue what recessives or hets were when i started my collection which was a huge mistake, do your research before buying!
- Letting people trick and bully me as i was starting out. I joined some discord servers and subreddits to get more intact with the BP breeding community and a bunch of smaller groups tried tricking me out of good projects, “ball python breeding isn’t profitable unless you dump your life savings into it” “pieds and scalelesses don’t have a good quality of life” that type of stuff basically. They were obviously just trying to decieve newcomers to have less competition in the industry, don’t let trolls trick you
I just read your post now…more tragic than a country song… you deserve a hug!!!
So sorry, there are crumbs out there, but also people who will go out of their way to help and encourage.
I’ve dealt with some… not so pleasant things, but I ignored all of it and have been successful with producing my first clutches!
Going into my second season now, and the females I’ve been pairing are already developing follicles. Super excited and hope for an even bigger turnout than last year!
Though I need to get a new thermostat for my incubator, my VE-100 seems to have quit working properly.
It keeps making this clicking noise, and the temp spiked up to around 80° (it was set to 74°F or so)… hopefully my gecko eggs will hatch out okay. 
Probably gonna look into a herpstat for it!
Another one of my recent additions appears to have gotten mites on her. Oddly enough the male (which I got from the same breeder) does not have any mites.
The numbers were very few and I caught it quickly so I’ve been treating them vigorously in hopes I can stamp them out quickly.
Let the breeder I got them from know that she had mites, since they’re local and I want to be sure they can address the problem in their own collection. I know they’ve had mite issues before (they had my fiancé and I spray ourselves down with bug spray before leaving their shop) but it’s a bit tough to hear they still have them.
I’d say my worst was going to my first show.
Went there to look for my first snake, which was a juvenile, BCI female.
First thing I noticed was that the show was mostly just ball pythons, reticulated pythons, and geckos… lots of geckos. First guy that had BCIs, kept trying to sell me normal adult females, even though I let him know right off the bat what I was looking for. He kept saying, this is the cheapest one I’ve got. Though I never asked anything about the price. Most of the breeders there had the same attitude.
Last guy, showed me just what I was asking for, and answered all my questions, though I did notice that he handled her rather rough. I ended up buying her from him. Brought her home, and finally noticed the tail kink she had right above her vent, and even after months of having her, she would stress out from just smelling a human.
Sorry to hear about your snake. I’ve never had a snake with kink before, but I know it can be either livable or severe. Other than the fear of humans, is the snake okay?
It’s worrying that people sell animals without pointing out issues or just looking for a quick sale. I haven’t been to an expo in years due to how busy is gets. I like to ask lots of questions and not feel rushed. If I have any doubt in the seller, I won’t purchase.
I’ve had vendors pressure me into buying an animal I didn’t need nor want, it’s so dang uncomfortable. Not everyone that comes through is a newbie looking for a pet. I’m only gonna be interested in animals that work with existing projects, or animals that could start me with a new project I’m interested in.
That is definitely how I am feeling now. It is all and go to want beautiful snakes that don’t fit in our breeding plan but I am going to spend the $$$$ on something that is going to carry my hobby/business to the next level every time.
That’s horrible, I’d hate it if someone did that to me… Although my husband is great at saying no so maybe that will help.
Honestly I’ve had so many awful things happen to me since entering the reptile hoppy 
I’ll just name a few here: I purchased a Calico enchi spinner Yb Od poss het pied female ball python from someone and they said I could have their male normal if I wanted him so I said sure. They both had mites which they failed to mention, of course, the female had a long burn going down the front two thirds of her belly which the said was an old scar and clearly wasn’t bc when i got her it looked fresh and now 6 months after owning her it looks like an old scar. Both her and the male weren’t eating either; the male finally fed after three months and the female wasn;t fasting…she had eggs! 7 of them, but 2 went bad and only 1 out of the last 5 survived. The only baby is doing great now though.
At another reptile store I’d went to I purchased a ‘male’ Butter vanilla pin which was clearly a Super spark and a female! And then from another a lemonblast which was a Pastel g stripe!
Then just the other day at a petco (not about reptiles but still 
) I have a saltwater fishtank and I asked an employee to get 2 Emerald crabs for me and asked him if he knew anything about them and he said, “I know their pretty.”
I know it’s a long read but that’s not even half of it lol
That’s awful. I can’t understand people’s negligence when it comes to reptiles health. Not aiming that at you, you clearly care.
When we first got into reptiles, we had some issues but nothing too bad as we would rely on our instincts and not purchase anything that seems off.
Glad one of the babies survived, I hope mum is doing better. I know ball pythons can often stop eating, esp when traveling but that sounded more serious.
Oh yeah the moms doing great now, but she shouldn’t have been paired in the first place; after she layed she was only 1000g
Oh dear. Glad she’s all okay now 
Other than a few health problems/mistakes, anxiety-after-the-fact over buying from people without checking their feedback first (happened a few times-too-many, but has since been corrected), and a few shipping “scares”, I think the worst by far would have to be when I was just getting into keeping snakes long-term. I’d had them sporadically growing up, and even a few years there prior to this story, but since no job = no money, they usually got sold off pretty quick. As much as I hate to admit that.
Anyway it was about 5 years ago, so the details are a bit fuzzy, but I remember I spent about a month or two at least digging through kingsnake and faunaclassifieds trying to find the perfect snake to start with, the one that would be with me until the end because I wanted to prove to myself that I could actually stick with it before getting further into the hobby. And then I found him. A 2 year old ghost corn snake male. If I remember correctly he was fairly darkly colored, so probably not the “best” example of a ghost at the time, but he had quite a fair bit of pink on him, and it was the darker color I think that initially grabbed my attention.
Immediately I contacted the seller, got a ship date worked out, and waited for my boy to get here. And he did. But the seller shipped him with a heat pack in the middle of summer with no holes in the box. I knew as soon as I cut open the box that something wasn’t right because you could faintly smell the rot through the top of the styrofoam lid.
That was my first, and thankfully only, DOA.
I don’t have any hard feelings toward the seller though. He was polite and responsive from beginning to end, and ultimately handled the situation very well in the end and refunded me. And to be fair it could have come down to a mistake on his part, shipping on the wrong day (though I’m certain we had waited for it to cool off), or a freak temperature spike in transit. Who knows, but it very nearly made me quit the hobby.
Thankfully I didn’t, because a few months after this I ended up getting a bloodred ghost male from another seller, but damn, it was a close thing. I even tried to find another ghost corn that looked just like the first male. I didn’t want something different. I didn’t want that first DOA to be a sign that after buying and selling so many snakes while growing up that I wouldn’t be able to stick with it.
But then I found Cecil. And then 8 months after that it was my western hognose, Stormfly. And now I’m up to 18 snakes, 6 of which are babies that I produced myself.
I know this got really long winded and kind of odd, though, so I’m sorry about that. Once I got thinking about it again I kind of couldn’t stop. But! Here’s a picture of Cecil as he is today, since I don’t have any of that original ghost male:
That’s terrible about the first ghost. I’m glad you didn’t let that stop you and you kept trying.
Glad you found the "right one’! Cecil is amazing!
That is aweful, thank you for sharing your story. It’s not a nice thing to happen to anyone but unfortunately these things do happen. Glad it didn’t put you off
Cecil looks awesome.
Same. I honestly don’t know what I would have ended up doing if I never got into keeping snakes seriously. I’d certainly have more money saved in my bank though that’s for sure! And like I said, I don’t blame the seller because they were very apologetic about the whole thing and they’d lost that animal as well, but definitely could have been a nicer start.
And thanks to you guys as well! Honestly as sad as I am about that first male, I wouldn’t trade Cecil for anything. Even if he is a little gremlin sometimes! lol
Reading it back though I wish younger me hadn’t been such an impulse buyer for so long. xP I actually had a few ball pythons before that first cornsnake when I was like…16? I think they might have been het pieds. I got them because they were cool and I was going to make cool morphs, but I lost interest in breeding once I realized how long it would take for them to reach that point and sold them off. I cringe just thinking about it.