So we got a plethora of knowledge and animals around so just curious on how long you all been addcited.

started with a bearded and a couple snakes back in 96 and off and on repties for a couple years. than in 2001 I really caught the bug and its been all down hill from there.

Since I was a kid.... around 10 or 11 when I was introduced to diamond pythons. My mother actually caught my first diamond python when we were driving home from school one afternoon and came across it crossing the road...

Started with a Speckled Kingsnake that my dad brought home to me from a hunting trip...I was around 6 or 7...Damn - I feel old...That was back in 76 - 77...

Started with a newt back in '75. I was 5 years old.

Started with a newt back in '75. I was 5 years old.

Wow, me too.. in 75 I was five and my uncle and I talked my mother into letting me keeping a gopher snake wei had caught. For a long time she would only let me keep one. So i was alway turning one loose as i caught a new snake i had to keep. I have been hooked ever since.

Since the last half of 99. Learned the basics on a BP and found boas shortly after.

I cant really pinpoint a time. I grew up on a farm in Texas and we always had a wide variety of snakes roaming around the barns and feed bins. Texas rats, bull snakes, garters, rattlers, cotton mouths, horny toads, bull frogs, coral snakes occasionally....
I remember my mother telling my wife she didnt mind the shoe boxes with rubber bands around them with a live animal in them under my bed. What she minded were these boxes with nothing in them meaning something had escaped in her house!
I got my first "exotic" when I was 10, a female burmese python. She lived to be 17 years old, 18' long and about 175 lbs. After I joined the Army at 17, my parents cared for her for another 10 years.

When I was 9, the folks got me an iguana for Xmas, claiming it would the closest thing I would ever get to owning a snake under their roof.

Two years later, I got my first snake, an adult BP which I still have to this day...still living with the folks, at that time.....and would be for the next 10 years.

My very first memory was when I was 5 and I attempted to convert my parents new cooler into a turtle tank with some box turtles I had found...may still have marks from that one. Then some frogs, insects and snakes but really I think I was 7 or 8 when my parents broke down and got me my first 'american' chameleon aka anole. Dwindled in high school since my mind went to other new exciting finds but as with all your first loves it somehow never went away and turned into the addiction it is today...

Since I was about 14. Mostly rats snakes at first. Then I got more into Bp's and Boas these last few years.

2nd grade when my parents found a melenistic eastern hgnose. I even took it to show n tell. Still remember the only girl in the class that would not touch her. That was back in the 70's, so a long time.

I started when I was 4 in '96 with a fire bellied toad and an anole..... when I was 8 I really got into it with balls, corns, leos, etc.

I was one of them kids that liked to go out and catch everything I could. Some of my best times when I was young and would go out and catch everything from gartner snakes to turtules. I can rember my cousin taking me out one day when I was very young and coming home with 18 gartner snakes. I used to keep huge wash tubs of turtules in the back yard.

Now I spend all my money on it. :lol::wamma:

I had to do the catch and release as nothing allowed at home but then I met Scott and collection keeps growing

We grew up w/everything in my house from dogs and cats to boas and taranulas, so I was in from almost birth. I started w/a corn, then some kingsnakes and macklot's...now I'm looking at moving into carpets, but I can't make up my mind about which ones!!! :cool:

This oughta age me a bit.......http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/ff315/QuigsPlace/74692scan0002-med-1.jpg. I can't remember the year of that pick up behind me but the pic had to have been taken in '56 or '57, maybe '58. I was born in '50 so I was a young'n at the time. That was a garter snake around my neck. I've been chasing and keeping local reptiles for 50 plus years.

Got my first Ball in '91 and the small collection that I DO have has expanded from there. You'd think I would have gotten into breeding long before now, wouldn't you?

as a wee lad i knew every dinosaur known to man as of 1970. new york museum of natural history and bronx zoo visits always topped my favorite places to go back then. caught some red efts and wood toads in the pocono mtns of pennsylvania back in '72 killed 'em pretty quick. but i was hooked. parents allowed turtles and salamanders, but nothing serptile, 'till some years later when i caught my first when i was 11 yeas old, killed that pretty quick too. spent many years in late 70's -early 80's with my tropical fish addiction. finally got into exotic herps in the early 80's, burm, boa, balls, bloods...good times. back then everyone you knew wanted you to scare their friend with your snakes, always hated that concept, felt like the only herp that wouldn't do it.
we used to have swap meets at this wholesale herp dude's house. that was the reptile show. everything ate live except my burm, she would eat a tray of defrosted chicken thighs (drumstick attached, with bones) out of my hand, one at a time (three tray pack) like a turtle (never bit me once...not during feeding anyway !). lookin' back, i may have pioneered f/t in '83 ! (at least on a personal collection level, pretty sure zoos were doing it by then )
always had some kinda herp for most of the years 'till '95 when i had a rack built ( still have) by my cabinet guy ( i was a contractor back then, so i had my own cabinet guy ). although i had built racks for others circa 1986 with tanks in the compartments (part cash, part sunglow corn pair trade ! )that were heated by heat cable routed onto the shelves. at the time, a pretty new concept. used to have a nice collection of rosy localities, which i first started breeding in '96. then sand boas, solomon island ground boas (couldn't breed those for nothin' ! ) then morph sand boas and albino rosies. now as most of you know, it's all about the balls and a little about the cresties.
only thing i wish i'd have held onto was a pair of testudo kleinmanii that shot up in value when they closed that export market, i sold those when my daughter was born 'cause of the salmonella potential. if you've never kept tortiles, these are the bomb, full grown pair were less than 6" long each, look like mini monster torts.
what was the question again ?...
ck

Lets See?
About 1971 hid my first reptile from my mom :nono:
Been hooked ever since ! We field collected Rosy boas,Garters,Gophers and Kings back then. Reptiles were very limited in pet stores at that time. I encourage all parents to allow your kids to explore reptiles !

Ever since I can remember I used to go out in the [huge woodsy] yard and catch garter snakes, tree frogs, salamanders, whatever we could find....

This oughta age me a bit.......http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/ff315/QuigsPlace/74692scan0002-med-1.jpg. I can't remember the year of that pick up behind me but the pic had to have been taken in '56 or '57, maybe '58. I was born in '50 so I was a young'n at the time. That was a garter snake around my neck. I've been chasing and keeping local reptiles for 50 plus years.

Got my first Ball in '91 and the small collection that I DO have has expanded from there. You'd think I would have gotten into breeding long before now, wouldn't you?

now thats photo proof and how long you have loved herps lol

Ive been keeping ball pythons since 93. I had a few turtles before that on and off growing up. From about the age of 7 or 8. A few other snakes too. Corn and just the normal garter snakes. The green grass snakes stuff like that. Whatever I could find in our yard growing up.

I was catching snakes when I was 8.

now thats photo proof and how long you have loved herps lol

Although I haven't made much of it other than to own a few I like. Reptiles have been a serious part of my life for a very long time. And I blame it ALL on me mudder. She used to catch snakes and let me handle them so as not to grow up fearing them.

My fascination with reptiles started when I was very young. I don't remember how old I was but I do remember the the day. My dad and I were walking a fence line on our farm in Virginia to see where a couple of cows got out. While walking through the tail grass I came across a large black and white snake. I freaked out. My dad stepped up and nudged it with his foot and off it went into the grass. I ask my dad what it was and he replied he didn't know. From that moment forward I had to know what it was. I started reading every book I could find on reptiles and snakes in particular. At the age of 12 my parents let me keep my first snake. A Banded Water snake I caught after a rain storm. That was 1977. JP

P.S. That black and white snake. An Eastern Chain King.

Keeping since 86 and breeding since 89. Had my first litter of pythons in 91. Been cleaning snake crap up in varying degrees ever since!

Been cleaning snake crap up in varying degrees ever since!

Well put :lmao:

This oughta age me a bit.......
I can't remember the year of that pick up behind me but the pic had to have been taken in '56 or '57, maybe '58. I was born in '50 so I was a young'n at the time. That was a garter snake around my neck. I've been chasing and keeping local reptiles for 50 plus years.

Got my first Ball in '91 and the small collection that I DO have has expanded from there. You'd think I would have gotten into breeding long before now, wouldn't you?

Quig, that is an awesome photo! I wish I had pics of some of the monstrous bull snakes I used to catch down in Texas as a kid....

LOL, I like it. I happened to find that one in an old family photo album at my mothers one day. Was the only one of me with a snake too. :wamma:

Although I haven't made much of it other than to own a few I like. Reptiles have been a serious part of my life for a very long time. And I blame it ALL on me mudder. She used to catch snakes and let me handle them so as not to grow up fearing them.

could you possibly ask for a better mum ?
ck

Although I haven't made much of it other than to own a few I like. Reptiles have been a serious part of my life for a very long time. And I blame it ALL on me mudder. She used to catch snakes and let me handle them so as not to grow up fearing them.

well ye mudder was a great role model than more parenting like that is needed.

I to just keep what i like and what I like just keeps growing lol

I got my first snake in 2000. It was a normal ball python. That same year I also got a boa. I kept them until I went into the Army in 04'. My wife wouldn't keep them up for me while in basic so I had to sell them. I got out of the Army and as soon as I got home I got another ball python. I went online and found acouple of forums, and thats when I was bitten by the ball python morph bug.. Now that the BLBC has been made I'm seeing other species that tickle my fancy.. I gotta have more room!!

I got my first snake in 2000. It was a normal ball python. That same year I also got a boa. I kept them until I went into the Army in 04'. My wife wouldn't keep them up for me while in basic so I had to sell them. I got out of the Army and as soon as I got home I got another ball python. I went online and found acouple of forums, and thats when I was bitten by the ball python morph bug.. Now that the BLBC has been made I'm seeing other species that tickle my fancy.. I gotta have more room!!

yeah there is just too many species not enough time, room and money

04' for me.. Just a newb!!

Got my first boa back in '91, been downhill since then. :lol:

04' for me.. Just a newb!!

WHAT FRICKEN EVER! :nono::cheers:

The ol' man got me a rough green snake in the early 80's. I was hooked. Damn thing died soon after I got it but that was it for me. Burms, Monitors, venomous, pythons and geckos

It never ends..

i was hooked from a kid about 7 but i started keeping them over 20 +years ago and i started with ball pythons

WHAT FRICKEN EVER! :nono::cheers:

Scott, I got my first ball in 04' Before that I had a boa for like 3 months. Thats it..

Scott, I got my first ball in 04' Before that I had a boa for like 3 months. Thats it..


That explains it..:devil:

That explains it..:devil:

explains what? That I dont know how to breed? Or I'm an aholeio??