2 posts were split to a new topic: Enrichment versus minimalist
My scariest moment was during shipping. I bought 3 snakes and they were delivered a block over on someone else’s front porch. I saw the delivery truck go by my house and checked tracking info, yep, it said it was delivered. I went on a search, and looking like a porch pirate. That could have been one heck of a surprise for someone. From now on all shipping stops at the hub and I pick it up as soon as the plane hits the ground. They are all doing good to this day.
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19 grams. I didn’t know they made them that small. I hope it turned out ok.
What’s there food source mainly. When we feed our rats we are feeding our snakes; and of course if they know what prevent-a-mite is lol
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It’s crazy isn’t it, we have a love and obsession with these animals that have a simple stimulus-response brain the size of a pea, and human beings are the ones that mess it up.
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Yeah, it happens. There’s this one person i follow on tumblr who had a hatchling from half an egg - sometime during incubation they candled their eggs only to find one sort of half dry/dead but with healthy looking veins in other half. It hatched just in time with others but was less than half the size, othervise healthy. Maybe one half of a twin where the other one died? Who knows. The thing is, it happens and i saw one like that on pictures last summer.
I was shocked by the 19 gram hatchling. He absorbed all of his own yolk and looked like he had appropriate weight for his size. The egg was normal sized, not a boob egg or anything. There was a lot of white matter left in the egg, but nothing resembling a snake. I’m thinking maybe it was a twin egg where only one hatchling developed? I’m not sure. Either way, the tiny hatchling started on pinks and he’s been doing just fine. 
Here’s a pic of him right after he hatched. 
And here he is at 38 grams, beside another average-sized normal that hatched about the same time.
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How do you find a FedEx Hub? I think my brain is broken, but I can’t seem to find them.
I work all around FedEx buildings, so I actually might be closer to one at work rather than at home.
I’m also near an airport where they fly in/out of. Is the hub info on their site?
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I think you can look up FedEx shipping center (not FedEx office). Generally the packages are unloaded from the plane right into the FedEx shipping center. My local hub is technically at the airport in an out building. Most businesses that are doing shipping will help you to find the right location for your area.
If you already have a tracking number there’s a button to request to hold it at a hub.
If you haven’t shipped yet you can check here: https://www.fedex.com/locate/index.html
Use “I want to …” → More → Hold at Location
I always ship live animals to the hub and pick them up. I don’t trust them being carted around in the truck for 8+ hours in whatever weather conditions. 
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Some place like this? I don’t know why I was thinking of an actual FedEx building hub thing.
No you can only receive your snakes in a fedex staffed facility, not Walgreens or print and ship, to make it easier select hold at location and dangerous goods, so only fedex hubs (ship center) show.
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Thanks Deb. I do have one right next to the airport from where I work.
That’d be easier to do moving forward!
It gave you a Walgreens location when you searched by Hold at location? 
Weird. Good job, FedEx website.
The “dangerous items” check box sounds like a good tip.
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Story time! This just happened today.
Can’t find red sand/desert sand at any local pet store. Not really in range of a Home Depot, etc, so I just decided to suck it up and try to hit up PetSmart. Wander around. Can’t find it. I can see a bag of it in “Bearded Dragon Kit” with a terrarium, etc. Clerk comes up and does their shpiel. They ask “What animal is this for?”
“Woma.”
“A what?”
“Woma. Woma python.”
“Oh, a python. We won’t sell you that because sand messes up humidity.”
“What? Humidity isn’t a concern. This is an Australian python. I just need this stuff in this Bearded Dragon Kit.”
“Pythons aren’t from Australia, they’re from Africa, and the sand is going to mess up your humidity and cause impactions. We don’t sell it to you so that you don’t kill your snake.”
… and just a few minutes later I got kicked out of PetSmart.
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I mean no offense to those who work at a petsmart or Petco but in my opinion they need to be trained better. I was buying a leopard gecko for my little cousins bday and they wouldn’t sell it to me until I got a baking light for it. Which they dont need. I then decided to say “okay well then explain how my leopard gecko is 12 years old and it has never used a baking light and only belly heat?” She then said I could ask for someone else’s help because I was being confrontational. Needless to say I did not leave with a leopard gecko that day.
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For sure. A job is a job. I do kind of prefer PetCo if I have to choose one, though. The animals generally look healthier to me and there are fewer angsty clerks.
It takes someone extra special to argue with a customer, though. The person I encountered had a job that entailed finding some sand. That was it. They intentionally, maliciously, and ridiculously volunteered to argue with a customer. 
Being generally helpful is one thing but suggesting I was going to kill a woma python with sand is a whole other ball of… sand.
It always strikes me as funny that people will gladly placate someone with a chihuahua by giving them cat toys, probiotics, and costumes but will standoff with someone over sand or a basking light when it comes to reptiles. That PetSmart still sold Vita/Calci Sand which has been proven to have an increased risk of impaction. 
The clerk didn’t seem to be tearing that off the shelf to prevent people from killing their snake.
This type of “helpful” person really is an extension of our community and the attitudes around the hobby.
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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
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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
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I just read your post now…more tragic than a country song… you deserve a hug!!!
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