Welcome to the FAQ!!
1. Some of your snakes look a little on the hefty side, what do you feed them and
how often?
Although I'm happy to hear that non of my snakes appear "thin" or skinny as rails, my snakes
are all lean and muscular, not fat. You won't find any fat rolls on these kids. The most specific snake
I get this comment on is Mystyx, my female columbian rainbow boa adult. She was
an infant when I got her back in early 2002 and has gradually grown to her present size.
I've been told on more than one occasion on KS that she looks a bit on the hefty side but not
fat by any means. She gets her rat once every 14-17 days (which equals out to her getting 2 meals per month essentially).
I feed all of my snakes an appropiately sized prey item and always wait for them to defecate before
offering another meal in order to prevent constipation (this can be deadly to snakes!).
I follow what Gus Renfro says as far as feeding snakes goes. Basically, if the prey item does
not make a noticeable lump, it's too small. If the prey item makes the animal unable to coil or move around normally
while digesting, it's too big. Plain and simple. I highly recommend anyone wanting to know more go to his site
and read his very informative article on raising and breeding boas. (look in my links section and you'll find it there)
2. Can I come see your animals in person?
This is a pretty common question asked by many breeders/keepers. While I'm certainly not
opposed to letting anyone meet my little ones, in the reality that there are very real threats that can be brought into their
habitats (whether intentional or not), I elect to answer "Unfortunately no, my collection is closed to the general public."
Mites and viruses are all too real and frightening to have people who have reptiles or come into contact with another person's/store's
reptiles, coming into see them frequently. No offense to anyone, I just can't take the chance of getting either
of those things in my collection.
The other reason is simple, with what anyone may or may not have in their collection, you don't
necessarily want to go handing out your address these days.
3. Do you accept trades for some of your animals for sale?
This is a sensitive question. The purpose of trading is for me to receive something I presently
do not have in exchange for the same for you. It's essentially the same as my buying that animal from you and you buying
one from me...but we establish a trade deal as saying these animals equal each other in value so no real money is exchanged
in our hands (except the animals).
On occasion I will accept a trade, provided we are both absolute in what is fair. I do
not trade for something I do not want/need only to resell it. Despite the email or two I've received with people suggesting
I could "make a profit" doing so, I will not do this. If it's not something I want to add to my collection, I won't
trade for it.
Please refer to my section on payments and other options for details on this.
4. I see you're a rescue as well. Do you keep your rescues and breeders near
each other?
Although my rescuing has slowed down considerably (purposely, I am focusing on keeping only so
many breeders that they get handled often and allows me to take in a handful of rescues too, so I needed to lessen the number
of rescues coming in), regardless if I take in one rescue or 20, this question has merit.
I keep my rescues totally separate from my breeders until I know they are 100% clean and will
not be a possible health threat to my breeders. I do the same with newly acquired future breeding stock. Hence
the reason for taking only a handful of rescues in nowadays. I need quarantine and treatment space for the rescues,
quarantine space for newly acquired future breeding stock, and the space for my resident animals that have gone through their
quarantine and are officially a part of the collection.
5. Is (any given animal for sale) he/she mean/nice?
Unless otherwise noted on the individual animal for sale, my answer to this will always be "They
are nice for me." Given any animal, no matter how docile/tolerant of us they are 99% of the time can react according
to any wandering/random smell (ie prey items, perfumes, other misc. scents) I can never logically claim them as "tame" or
"hostile." Granted there are of course exceptions to every rule, some animals just never trust/tolerate our presence
and are therefore often taken as "mean" and some seem to be perfectly happy letting us hold them and manipulate them as we
desire without so much as a hiss and get easily labeled as "tame."
In my humble opinion, we cannot label animals as "tame" as again, anything can happen to set
them off. They always have instincts that can be reacted on so just keep that in mind.
What I always guarantee with my animals is that they are healthy, mite free, eating, shedding
and pooping regularly and to the best of my knowledge, I can tell you how they behave over here. I cannot logically
claim personalities on any animal given the practically infinite factors that can make them react undesirably to no fault
of their own.
