Liars, Fools, and Television

I couldn't tell you how long it has been since I have had cable now. 4 years? 5? Maybe 6. As I don't watch sports, or follow any shows it has never bothered me. When I lived at my mother's house if I had time to kill I'd flip to discovery or animal planet to watch whatever re-runs they had playing.

Being as out of touch with the insanity stream as I am it's just sad to start seeing these shows now (mostly through Netflix) that star the world's "deadliest creatures" and people keeping exotics in deplorable conditions. The kicker? There is no positive angle or contrast. By just watching animal planet you would think that anyone crazy enough to keep a pet that isn't a dog, cat, livestock or small rodent has some serious mental issues. The thing that bothers me most and that I have only recently become aware of is that these incredibly negative shows will scout out people who take stellar care if their animals and follow zoo standards as far as safety and health goes, and the show will use editing/staging to paint these people as troubled and unstable. The producers will go as far as portraying these people as putting their families in danger for even owning these animals.

All for ratings. That's it. This garbage is being produced just to get your attention. There is nothing educational, and at this point remotely true about any of the information they are spreading. I am so ashamed of our media for these fiercely anti-exotic keeping propaganda, as if it should be a criminal offense to own anything that isn't fuzzy and domesticated.

Do they ever mention the HUGE captive breeding successes? Outside of zoos? Do they ever show the millions of well cared for reptiles and amphibians? The responsible primate keepers who have amazing relationships with their pets, and even breed because we no longer want animals taken from the wild? The amazingly well socialized and cared for birds bred all over the country, the beetle and invert breeders who are virtual interactive biology encyclopedias? Do they EVER mention that with millions of reptiles in captivity, there have only been 23 fatalities in 30 years contributed to gene outs and constricting snakes? (Your bathtub is more likely to kill you)

No, you see the handful of idiots who have no idea what they're doing, as if that's the majority of exotics owners. Or keepers unwise enough to let these television folks into their homes to demonize and crucify them for the fact they have a passion for an animal that the general public is ignorant about. They take advantage of YOU. They play on the viewer, portraying radical views and cleverly cut video clips as if they are educating or helping you, when all they are doing is filling pockets

I'm just so frustrated. On a channel where I used to watch Steve Irwin and shows that actually showcased these animals as the amazing creatures they are, it just feels like they should call it "Jackass Animal YouTube" now. Surprisingly human is fucking right

On a nicer note, here is a picture of the new tarantula after it caught a cricket.

Eight legs

I am so excited I might implode. A friend of ours stopped by the house today and asked if we wanted a tarantula.

Um, hell yes!

I have been waiting to pick up a T minus shipping charges for a while now, and this guy just fell into my lap. I'll. write more later when things have settled and I can figure out what we're going to do placement wise. He came in a monster tank, so I think I'll pick up one of those nice acrylic tarantula cages and use the tank for my blue tongue skink addition later

First Colony!

It's official! I have cockroaches, and a renewed respect for everybody in the invert hobby.

To be specific, I have lobster roaches. Man are those suckers quick! But not too fast to feed them off, and we did a test feeding with Spot the leopard gecko. He was on those roaches like white on rice. As long as we feed him one at a time in the future I think they will be a great replacement feeder. Nothing against crickets, they've been the backbone feeder to the U.S. reptile hobby, but I'm so relieved to have a significantly less high upkeep food source.

I've been super excited about these for quite sometime, and not just for the reptile food aspect. Cockroaches come in countless shapes and colors, and the more I look into them the less "yuck" factor there is. I'll admit, holding my first roach nymph made my skin crawl but I was grinning the entire time! I'm looking into glow spot roaches, death head roaches, and peppered roaches next.

It is easy for me to get carried away with my "Yaaay roaches" feelings. No matter who I speak with the reactions go from disgust to surprise to "Oh, it's Erica." I could care less what other people think of it, but I have a new respect for those who keep large invert collections. Having your passion and excitement constantly shot down can't be easy, and trying to get people over the Eww threshold so they can appreciate all of the cool things about your hobby is admirable. I'm really looking forward to getting my scorpion, tarantula, beetle, cockroach, and mantis collections going. The best part? They aren't terribly expensive, and the upkeep is even easier. The roach colony is really a door way to having food supplied for those types of creatures and I don't have to worry about making pet store trips. Living 20 miles from the nearest brick and mortar source of crickets sucks. Especially when they only come in two sizes

I'll do a post later on the roach colony how-to when I am more confident that they are doing well. Here is a pic in the meantime

Herpetoculutre

Herpetoculture: the keeping of live reptiles and amphibians in captivity, whether as a hobby or as a commercial breeding operation.

I love saying my hobby is herpetoculture, or calling myself a herpetoculturist. Keeping reptiles as pets opens the door (and technically falls under the umbrella I believe) but what I love about herpetoculture is that it takes the mindset from one of the traditional pet in cage mentality and into wanting a healthy, thriving animal in your care. Maybe even develop or practice breeding routines in order to keep pressure off of the wild populations and produce captive bred animals that will do much better than their wild caught counterparts.

My dream job is running a reptile shop. I think reptiles have so much to offer in that they're relatively low maintenance as far as attention goes, but they are still docile and handleable. Snakes especially, but lizards and frogs as well. I'm excited to start gathering supplies for a blue tongue skink and bearded dragon this spring. I'm set on getting a high colored beardie from a fairly well known breeder, so that may end up waiting until next year. The blue tongue on the other hand won't require $500+ to get, on top of being cheaper in supplies, so I see that happening much sooner. Very set on a northern rather than an indo. Mostly for the size factor. I think I'm becoming a keeper who enjoys solid medium sized animals.

Holy daydream tangent. What I was originally going to touch on with dream shop thoughts is that I think it would really help people gain positive experiences with reptiles in a setting where proper care is an emphasis and there are resources to breed the animals yourself. Years ago my art teacher told the class about how she allowed her cat to have a litter of kittens in order to let her kids experience having baby animals in the house. One if my boyfriend's fondest memories is bringing home a clutch of gecko eggs and getting to watch them hatch. It seems so simple to me that public interest in reptiles would rise if it were common knowledge that they could be an easy interactive project. Anybody with a little space for a 30 gallon aquarium and a warm place to keep eggs could breed crested geckos for fun with very little difficulty. Or African house snakes, or pygmy pythons. I can't touch on frogs very confidently until I have more experience with them, but its rare to meet a kid who wouldn't love raising tadpoles.

As I get more involved with this hobby I am feeling a desire to share it that is only growing. Whether that turns into a utopia dream store or simply stays at the level of blogging, I know that I'll always be a proud herpetoculturist

Auuugh, Priorities!

As usual, I'm daydreaming about what I might want to pick up this summer at the reptile shows. Ever since I've been playing with the insect/reptile zoo idea, my head just spins with different animals at all times. Breeding ideas, housing and husbandry, feeding, presentation, and it feels like I'm on turbo!

My actual "plan" (if you want to call it that) is to build my breeding experience slowly. I'll start with the ball pythons, see how that goes, and move on to another species. Live bearing animals are something I want to try my hand at as well, and I know I want to produce blue tongue skinks someday, so I think I'll probably go the route of Northern blue tongues next breeding-wise. They're medium sized, friendly, and there's always a market for them.

However, before I pick up ANYTHING I need to get my snake setup in order. We finally have a whole walk in closet dedicated to animal space, and with the ball pythons being nocturnal I don't have to worry about lighting as much (in their current set ups they've been doing fine). I'm gathering supplies to get an actual rack set up for them, and it's exciting to have it all come together.We also need to build Bruce the iguana a new cage, he's been growing like a freaking weed! New UVB lights for him as well. I'd like to get the cresteds into a planted tank, but in order for that to happen I need to start collecting plants and keeping them pesticide/fertilizer free for a couple months before I'd trust them with the animals.

As far as non-breeding animals go I've been browsing around as well. O (significant other) has shown interest in getting a Sumatran short tailed python (black blood) and a pacman frog. Russian rat snakes have been getting my attention as well for the personality factor. My interest has really turned from cool color morphs to animals that just make great pets period, mostly persona wise. Of course, they're all individuals and you're going to get a sour apple once in a while, but you can general trust the docility reputation of CB species known for being great handlers.

And of course, I get stuck in a wheel of possibilities. Woma pythons are cool looking and easy keepers/great pet personalities. Red tailed indigos are my DREAM snake, and don't have the permit complications of eastern indigos. Mussuranas have that awesome co-dom pied morph (SUPER PIED!) and are gentle snakes with very little feeding issues. Angolan pythons have always been on the wishlist, and have that awesome cobblestone type of scale pattern/texture. Macklotts and Savus are always running around on my back burner, those eyes are just to die for! Viper boas and sunbeam snakes don't have a stable CB population yet, and don't seem to be very demanding snakes, so that could be a cool project too. All the colorful old world rat snakes have an incredible variety, and they're small, so it'd be easy to set up a little collection. And then I still want to pick up a 100% citrus bearded dragon from Fire and Ice Dragons as a pet, just for kicks.

Really, it doesn't stop, that's just a fraction of the brain feed. Here soon I hope to get involved in beetle breeding/keeping, along with other inverts, and that will be a whole 'nother world of insane in the brain Erica time. Thankfully they're very cheap to maintain, and often MUCH cheaper than any reptiles to acquire, so it should be a good side project to work on. Not to mention the timelines are much shorter than tarantula or reptile breeding times.

But first: Tubs, rack build, Bruce build, Bruce lights, gecko tank, and incubator (I nearly have to chant this in my head when I get extra cash for the hobby lying around). Silly priorities

Quick Snippet on Cockroaches

Off and on for about 2 years now I've been looking into producing my own insect feeders. A big downside for me in keeping many lizard species was the reliance on crickets. I knew there were alternatives, but the commonly available ones were expensive (wax worms, mealworms, and butter worms from Petco/Petsmart) or unavailable, and using them as a staple would cause an unbalanced diet. The nearest reptile show is about two hours away from where I live, and it is one of two that happen annually within driving distance for me so purchasing at a show was not a long term option. Just keeping crickets is a messy, smelly endeavor and while I keep them healthy and alive for our leopard gecko's sake, I really am not interested in breeding them.

While lurking on bearded dragon (bottomless insect eating machine) forums, I started seeing cockroach topics surface. As someone who had never seen a cockroach other than in the movies, there was definitely that initial gross out reaction to the thought of paying money for insects that are cast as the scum of the earth. However, I was fascinated by the idea of low maintenance, low odor, and high production feeder insects. With a little more reading I started finding that not only are roaches easy and prolific, but the species that are commonly used for feeding are also tropical and easy to contain. Living in Washington, it means I'd have zero risk of having an accidental infestation (needing temperatures around 80 F to reproduce makes it difficult to live here) and I wouldn't have to dedicate more than a few plastic tubs space-wise for virtually infinite lizard food. It's pretty common now to see all sorts of insectivore keepers and breeders making their own cockroach colonies. There is also a whole part of the invert hobby dedicated to keeping roaches as pets!

With said off and on 2 years of research under my belt, I'll be making my own attempt at starting a roach colony or two. I was originally going to post a how-to guide based off of the pages I've found, but I'd much rather go off of my own experiences than parrot what everyone else has done. Plus I can take pictures, and who doesn't love PICTURES!?

Aside from the feeder colonies I'm seriously considering keeping some cockroaches as pets. There are hundreds of species of cockroach, and the majority are easy to care for. I love active animal displays, and there really isn't a dull moment with inverts. The sheer variety is mind boggling! Being able to handle them without worrying about stress is a big plus as well.

In the mean time, here are the pages I found incredibly useful for setting up a feeder roach colony:

Ball-pythons.net guide by Michelle C.

The Roach Ranch Dubia care sheet

Dubia roach care and breeding by The Dragon Spot

I highly recommend doing more research, but those are enough to get started (with focus on Blaptica dubia). There are many roaches suited for feeding including Lobster roaches (Nauphoeta cinerea), Madagascar hissing roaches (Gromphadorhina portentosa) and Orange Head roaches (Eublaberus posticus), to name a few. Find a species that works with what you're comfortable with.

Just for kicks, if you're interested in taking a look at a huge variety of roaches or looking at some of the commonly kept "pet" species, check out http://www.bugsincyberspace.com/ and http://www.roachforum.com/. They're really cool insects once you look past the rather sordid reputation that they have been dished. You'll find it's rather undeserved, I think ;)

Till next time!