Reptile Fight Club - Best to Go Broad or Niche? with Kori Martin

Episode Date: June 21, 2024

In this episode, Justin and Rob talk about whether it is best to Go Broad or Niche. With special guest Kori MartinWho will win? You decide. Reptile Fight Club!Follow Justin Julander @Australian Addiction Reptiles-http://www.australianaddiction.comIGFollow Rob @ https://www.instagram.com/highplainsherp/Follow MPR Network @FB: https://www.facebook.com/MoreliaPythonRadioIG: https://www.instagram.com/mpr_network/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtrEaKcyN8KvC3pqaiYc0RQSwag store: https://teespring.com/stores/mprnetworkPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/moreliapythonradio

All right, welcome to another episode of Reptile Fight Club. Today we're joined by Corey Martin. So we're excited to have her on and talk a little bit about her breeding and projects and things like that. So, and with a nice fight topic on there too. So, of course, Rob's here, faithful co-host. Hello. Oh, great. There's co-host. Hello. Oh, great. There's a slight delay.

Is it a delay? Yeah, it's the hit and record. It just messes it up. The podcast knows that we're about to cut it off. Yeah, it's rebelling in its last dying legs. Well, shoot. I guess we'll just kind of maybe turn the time over to Rob and hear about his trip. Well, how about we hold that one for the next week? Cause it might wind up being you and I, um, and we can chat through some stuff in your perspective. Um, so let's just focus. I'm pretty, uh, I'm still kind of, uh, recovering in recovery, shall we say. It was a great trip. I guess the long and short, quick trip, great trip. We definitely pushed it hard, Eric and Brandon Valentine and I, to San Diego and surrounds. Saw the two principal things. Saw three more new species forming in terms of the U.S. Crotolist Forms Project up to 19 to 27 by my count in terms

of how I maintain the list, which apparently puts me one above Dr. J. And I can make up even more ground here in a month or so than he can because he's already got a couple of those that would be open spots for me. So we'll see. Maybe he'll try and throw me off the scent and run me astray, but we'll see. But otherwise, I'll be here to maybe interject. I'll just have to wave my hands around and then there'll be a pause and I can interject without causing too much disruption. But otherwise, I'm going to let you two run the show. All right. Darn that squad cast. I'm not

sure what's going on here, but what do you do? Yeah. Well, Corey, what's, what's going on with you lately? You got some good stuff cooking in the incubator? really shy and I don't see much more than their face. And so I had never seen a copulation. I had never seen my female's body to have any sense that she was gravid. I just was cleaning the water, cleaning the water and I lifted up the water container and there were eggs underneath it. And so most of them, most of them were not good, but it looks like I got three. It looks like I got three good ones in there.

They're starting to vein up and stuff. So that's exciting. That cool yeah are they kind of i mean you know they're shy shy animals and do you kind of have an empty cage syndrome or do you get to see them you know you do usually usually they're they'll kind of scutter away when you walk past or they'll you know you'll see their heads quite often i have a log that's horizontal, you'll see their heads quite often. I have a log that's horizontal and you'll see their head poking out under the, under the heat light. Um, and so you do get to see them. It's not empty cage, but it's, um, they're definitely, you don't see a lot of them and you don't see a lot of them throughout the day. Um, but, um, the male, the male you see a lot more often, he's a little bit bolder, but the female is pretty shy. Um, but, um, the male, the male, you see a lot more often, he's a little bit bolder,

but the female is pretty shy. Um, and that's pretty common for them. Um, they're, they tend to be a shyer species and mine were both wild caught. And so I think that, um, captive would be a little bit calmer, probably as tends to happen. That's cool. Well, congratulations. That's beautiful lizards for sure thank you

and yeah then i've got some i've got a couple clutches of black tree monitors cooking i've got cool i've got green tree monitors cooking and then a couple well i'm trying to think one i think i have one clutch of ackeys going right now so yeah oh nice yeah yeah but it's funny how black trees used to almost be kind of like a cheap, you know, people didn't want to work with them. They were kind of a garbage species in a lot of people's minds, but it's so weird. I don't, I have no idea why. Um, I think, I guess probably because they've been a little bit harder, at least in the U S there aren't a lot of people successfully producing them right now. Um, and so a lot of what you see out there is stuff that's been, um,

that's been wild caught and is maybe not of the greatest health and not the greatest looking animals and that sort of thing. So I don't know. Um, they, they're incredibly beautiful. They, they should be, um, a lot more popular than they are. That's for sure. Yeah. I've always liked those better than the green trees. I think I just, they're so cool. That jet black just. Yeah. And when they're like freshly shed, it just like glistens. It's so cool. They're really pretty. And then the babies with the spots on them. Um, yeah, they're just, they're neat animals. That's awesome. I'm glad I'm working

with those. Yeah. Yeah. I've got, I've got a few, I've got a few other pairs I'm working on and some grew up captives and that's, I'm really, really trying to get that, that group established. So yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. And, um, I don't know, that's, uh, those monitors are, are a lot of work, a lot of, they're a lot of work. Um, they're not like feed it, water it, clean poop once a week. You're good. It's, uh, it's, it's pretty much, yeah. I mean, it's daily, um, whether, you know, I'm spraying to keep humidity levels, right. Or feeding most days, particularly the breeder females have got to constantly be working on getting them food. And, um, it's, it's a lot, it's a lot more active for sure, but it's also what I really enjoy about it because, um, because the, the opposite of that is

they're out and they're active and you can watch them and it's just, it's really fun. You get, I don't know, at least I feel like I get a lot more from the experience, um, working with them. They're, uh, they're just so rewarding too. I mean, just that intelligence and the yeah exploration and the yeah it's so fun to watch them hunt and eat and all that good stuff oh yeah you can just you can see the wheels turning yeah it's they're so smart oh yeah for sure it's a lot of fun yeah i uh i i recently got rid of the, the only monitor. I had some Ackie's for a while and I, I just wasn't doing great with them and didn't, didn't have the time. So I moved on, but that's just so fun.

I always think, okay, I can do this. And then I get them and then they don't breathe and they take up a lot of room. Then I'm like, well, maybe I shouldn't do these, you know, I'm not doing them justice. So yeah, the main reason I have them is just so that if I'm doing a show or that sort of thing, um, I can direct newer people to the more appropriate monitor lizard that they should be interested in as opposed to the tree monitors. Yeah. But I mean, it seems like there's, there's, there's quite a, you know, quite a bit of success being had with the tree monitor. There is the past few years in particular. Um, yeah, there,

there has been quite a bit of success. Um, yeah. Someone just hatched a bow of my recently, which was really exciting. Um, so yeah, we're, it's, it's definitely picking up and, and that's really neat to see. Yeah. I've seen one species of tree monitor in the wild and it's the Keith Horn eye up in Cape York. That's amazing. It was so funny.

Cause I, I heard kind of some rustling and I'm like, I'm going to go check that out and see what it is. And I kind of run into the under, you know, into the understory and look and see this kind of tail disappear up a tree. And I'm looking, it's kind of going to the other side of the tree. So I'm chasing it. And the slower ones, my, my dad

and Rico Walder were coming in behind me and me running around the tree, scared it where they could see it really well. So they watched it and I just got a glimpse of part of it, you know, as, as I'm trying to circle the tree, like, Oh, that's too cool. Yeah. But it was, yeah, it's fun to see. So we didn't get any pictures or anything like that, but yeah. Yeah. Iron range. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Yeah. And then I see, I saw somebody, uh, maybe last year, two years ago or something, they, they had these like closeup pictures and it's like all posed on a break. Oh yeah. I've seen those too. Did you get that?

It's like a fairly low log and it's just like draped along it. Yeah. What? Yes. I guess you get pretty lucky. Yeah. Yeah. They're,

they're really neat, neat animals for sure. Yeah, absolutely. That's really cool. It's cool. I really liked the blue trees too. They're just me too.

Beautiful. Yeah. I've got two pairs going right now but they've only been together a month and a half. We're still getting used to each other. Hopefully one of the pairs decides to get something going before too long.

Nice. No lizards for me yet. I'm still, I'm, I've got a bunch of snake clutches in the incubator. Yeah. What do you have cooking up? I've got, I've got some womas. The womas aren't faring too well though. Like the eggs are kind of crashing from one of my large clutch that I had. Most of the eggs kicked off pretty quick. So I don't know if I didn't get the male in there fast enough, but, and then I've got, uh, some anteresia clutches. My latest was a nice clutch of pygmy pythons. Oh, that's great.

There's nine eggs. So not, not a bad clutch for her. And that is great. Got another female that should be laying, you know, sometime soon as well. A big black headed female. I got to watch, uh, one of my Western Stimpsons lay eggs. Like she was in the process of laying when I had like four or five out and then she laid another 10 or so. I think there were about 15, 16 eggs. So that's pretty fun. Yeah. That's great. Wow. It's always nice to kind of catch that. And I filmed one of like, I did a time-lapse, so it kind of shows the egg coming out kind of quick and that's pretty fun.

So I was happy to get some cool footage like that. Wow. Yep. So we're in full swing here. I'm hoping everybody lays before I leave for, I'm headed out to Australia in a week or two here, so it should be a nice to get back up there. Oh yeah. Do you have any that are due pretty soon?

That black headed pit Python female. Yeah. Yeah. That's imminently. And then that's exciting. Yeah. And so I think I've got three or four more females to go. Oh,

very cool. Excuse me. Oh, you're good. Something went down the wrong pipe or something. Is your black head at a first time or is she gone for you before? She's gone many years and I'm just terrible at getting them to hatch. So hopefully this is the year I figured out, well, I got some to hatch last year and actually, uh, they're taking off now, but they were the first clutch of the year.

And I had a temperature spike in my room, which brought up the incubator to over 100. And so I'm like, great. You know, I just killed that clutch of black and they all look pretty good. I caught up soon after being laid. And so I was really upset. And then I thought, oh, they're just all going to die in a few, you know, died pretty quick. And then three of them went the distance and, but they hatched out and they have like reduced eyes or, or missing eyes. So. Okay. So yeah, it must've been the heat

at that exact point in development. Interesting. Were they hard to get started? What's that? Were they hard to get started? Yes. I thought pygmy pythons were bad, but blackheads make you really frustrated. But it was kind of funny because a couple, like a month ago, I thought, oh, I'm just going to throw something in there, see if they take it. And they went nuts. They were jumping, crawling all over, trying to catch that mouse. And so now they're solid. Yeah. They, they, once they flip that switch, there's like no turning back. So yeah, that's great. But yeah, I spent, um, you know, last fall assist feeding blackheads and yeah, that's fun. Good times. And they were, they were really frustrating sometimes i bet yeah so it's it's worthwhile once they make the switch and yeah decide they want to your own i mean i don't know i heard a a really nice uh podcast it was uh i think project herpetoculture and they were talking they were talking to a grasshopper breeder yeah the name fails name fails me, but yeah. Probably Kai.

He is the one who worked with Kai to do grasshoppers. Gotcha. I guess I need to look it up, but he was talking about this phenomenon in herpetoculture where we're feeding things

like crickets and roaches and other nocturnal insects to these diurnal lizards. And it's kind of like, you know, why don't we do a diurnal insect instead of a nocturnal insect? So it was kind of a, I mean, it was a really great episode. I really enjoyed it. And yeah, I've tried twice getting grasshoppers going and I failed miserably both times.

Really? Yeah. Yeah. I failed miserably both times. Really? Yeah. Yeah. I've not had success there. They're, um, they're just, they're so fragile.

Um, if you buy normal lettuce instead of organic, like one time, that might be enough to wipe them out. Um, it's. Oh, weird. Yeah.

The, the, uh, um, no, he said Dean Missimer, he said is the, is the person. Oh, okay. Yeah. I missed that. I didn't see where he said anyway. Yeah. What's the name again? Sorry. Uh, Dean, uh, Missimer. Okay. Gotcha. Yeah. Yep. Okay. I was almost there, but he had to mime the name and played charades. I was a little slow. Corey. kind of have a limited amount of different feeders that can be bred in bulk. And so, you know, I, I don't know, it'd be, be interesting to, you know, and, and it's really cool that somebody is taking such a project on to breed a new feeder insect and, you know, try to figure it out for the rest of us. But like you said, it's not, not that easy.

It's not easy. It's, it's, it's, I have a lot of respect for the work that they've done to be successful with it because it is, it is not easy. Yeah. I mean, they need to bask and they need fresh greens and you got to have the right greens. He said he fed him kale once and it just killed him. Like they were dead eating kale, you know, it was kind of crazy. Yeah. that's wild. I don't know. Kudos to him and hopefully he's very successful and can teach us how to do it. Absolutely. Streamline it or figure something out. Absolutely. Yeah. Cool. Well, I'm headed out tomorrow to go herping. So I'm excited locally. Yeah. Yeah. That's fun. Yeah. I've got a, I need to find some

Utah species that I, that have eluded me thus far. So I'm going to go look for a Utah milk snakes. I did a little trip out Monday to go look for green, uh, smooth green snakes that have, uh, kind of the, the, the, uh, Western extent of their range occurs in Utah. Okay. At the periphery of that. But I was in an area where, you know, people have found them before and it's good habitat, but it was just a little cold. It was about 10 degrees too cold in the overnight temperatures

and the daytime temperatures. And the place I'd kind of found on google earth i went to go there and the road was uh blocked off with this locked gate and oh no yeah it was the i think it was the 29th and it opens on the first and so i'm like crap i'm oh yeah what do you do but we found a nice hillside that had good habitat and i think it looked like people had been there before. Cause it looked like the rocks had been flipped at some point, you know, and put back maybe not quite so carefully. So, and there was like grass under some of them, you know, that, so there's over, but, um, pretty nice hillside, but yeah, one of these days I'll hopefully find one of those as well. Yeah. Good luck. Being gone most of May is not going to help my local herping much, but, um, come June, we're going to do some herping down in, in, uh. I do. I do not feel sorry for you, Justin.

Like, oh no, I have to go to Australia. That's a good point. That's a fair point for sure. Yeah. I'm not complaining, but yeah, I, uh, I, uh, I'm excited to hurt locally too. So yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I've all I've found so far locally. That's cool. Yeah. It's always good to find the first snake of the year. Absolutely. I went out to a local garter snake den and found about a dozen. Oh, how fun. It's a mixed group. So there's two different species that are there, the Sertalis and the Elegans. So the wandering garters and the valley garters. And so we got to see both species kind of, um, in the same area.

And there was actually a, there was a group under some artificial cover. There was like this old box or something that I flipped over and there was like five or six of them under there together. Oh, neat. One, one of the, the, uh, Sertalis and then like a few of the elegance kind of side by side. So that's really cool. So I got a few,

few nice pictures and there was a really nice red sided Sertalis, really nice red blotches up the sides and followed him around taking, you know, pictures there for a bit. So, Oh, how fun. Yeah.

It's always nice to see the first, first snake of the year. Yes, it is. Yeah. I need to start going up the, yeah, it's always nice to see the first snake of the year. Yes, it is. Yeah. I need to start going up the – I try to get up around lunchtime in the early spring looking for snakes just up from work. Okay. You know, five miles up the canyon or something.

Oh, that's not bad. And go for a little hike for, you know, half hour and then come back for my lunch break or whatever. Oh, that's perfect. Yeah, it's fun. I found probably 30 yellow-bellied racers last year, just lunch hikes and then a couple of really nice rattlesnakes. And so fun, probably find more if I did it in the evening, you know, the warmer months, but it's a little more of a hassle to drive back out to work and then it is to

just go at lunch. Yep. Yeah. But I did find a Canyon closer to that, to home that was very productive on the half dozen rubber boas and a couple rattlesnakes and gopher snakes. So to get to know that road a little better too. Yeah.

Rob finally makes it up here. We'll make it easy to find a rubber bow and a yellow belly. You've seen yellow belly racers in the wild. Yeah. So I guess they, they have those in Colorado as well. They're yeah. One of the more common snakes out here.

Very cool. All right. Well, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself how you got you know where you fit into herpetoculture and yeah absolutely so um i've been working primarily with snakes for the past five years or so um i the majority of my collection was ball pythons but i also had a really significant carpet collection, including some Inlands from you.

We were meeting you at Tinley for the first time. Yeah, same, same. Yeah, so I think I did maybe four or five seasons of carpets. And in the past year and a half or so i've started transitioning over um pretty significantly into monitors um small monitors so um blue tree monitors are the biggest ones that i have in my collection um so a lot of tree monitors um a few adatria, and I have, I have, I have Ackies and then I also have King's monitors that I can't get productive to save my life, which is really frustrating because I love them so much. Are they leucistic or do they have the... I have, I have both.

So I have, I have Het and Leucistic and, um, but yeah, no luck. Um, no luck with them. I've gotten a lot of slugs, a lot of slugs and they're a little bit older. And so I'm sure that has something to do with it too. Um, but I'm trying a few different things to, you know, trying to put my meals on diets to make them a little more spry and mixing up the groups and all of that. And hopefully we'll get a little bit of something. But anyway, so yeah, I've been working on that over the past year and a half.

I got my first tree monitor eggs last summer. Hatched out early this year, and got a whole bunch more coming. And I've been in the process of really significantly transitioning my collection. I no longer have snakes over the past all of past, all of them, um, which, which has been, it's been bittersweet. Um, as I had, I had a facility where all my, where all my snakes were, it wasn't secure enough for keeping the monitors there. Um, and so, yeah. Um, so I had to pull all the monitors back home and then I just had the snakes over there and I was paying a whole lot of money for only having part of my collection there. And they just kind of, due to, you know, lots of children and space limitations at home and all of that sort of thing. If I brought some of the snakes home, it would have really limited my ability to work on the monitor projects I'm working on. And so, um, I ended up, um, after probably like six months of like existential

crisis, I ended up deciding to let the snakes go and it was the right decision, but a very, very hard decision. So yeah, not an easy choice to make. I keep thinking the same thing. Like I just need to slim down my collection and then I'm like, comes time to let some adults go. I'm like, yeah, nevermind. Yeah, I know. It's so, it's so hard. Um, and I went through, I went through several rounds of it. Um, and for the, for a while I thought it was just going to be getting rid of all the ball pythons and then keep all the cool stuff. And then, yeah, once I realized I needed that, it just was going to make the most sense to let the facility go. That it kind of ended up making the decision for me. I think, um, you know, getting more, I've, I also, I also travel a lot, um, and, and go herping on all sorts of different trips to do photography and herping. And, um, I think one of the things

that that has, one of the gifts I've gotten from that is it's given me another way of appreciating the animals other than just keeping them all and hoarding them all. And so it's like, it's helped me get comfortable with the fact that I'm never going to be able to keep all of the animals that I think are super cool. Like I just, you know what I mean? There's just so many, there's so many meat species out there that I love and would love to work with,

but it's realistically not feasible. And so I've just kind of ended up, um, picking a lane and, and that's what I'm going to do. And then I'll experience other things other ways. And I'm really lucky. I'm really lucky. Reptelandia is very close to me and I can go see their awesome collections anytime I want. So I need to come visit. You should. It's pretty great. Really cool. Yeah. Yeah. I'll make it out there at some point. Yeah. You should come for, you should come for Texas carpet fest sometime. Cause we have it there. Yeah. That would be fun. Yeah. So anyway, so that's kind of, that's kind of my, my long

story, but that's where I fit into things. Yeah. That's pretty, pretty impressive. And just after five years, so you're, you, I understand you've, uh, left your full-time job and reptile breeder. I did. Yeah. I want to say a couple of years ago, I ended up, I ended up leaving. I am, I was, I'm a lawyer and I was working a really, really, um, intense job. I was doing mental health work and, you know, it, it, it, it was in dangerous situations a lot. And so it just, it got to the point where I really needed to not be in that situation anymore. And that, and then, and so I just, I, so I left for that reason and then was fortunate

that reptiles were at the point where I could kind of lean that lean in that way. So that's cool. Yeah. But I've kind of shot myself in the foot by selling everything off. And now, well, before I, uh, got super productive with other stuff. So, yeah, that's, that's always the trick, I guess, is that balance? Well, and if you have a money pit of a, of a facility where you're not able to keep your monitors, then it's probably a better move anyway. So hopefully that capital from selling off your adults will help you survive until the monitors kick in. It will. And I'm getting there. I've hatched out three monitor clutches so far.

I've got a couple more due within a month and I've got several animals that are cycling every three months or so. So we're getting there finally. Um, yeah. And I guess I'm not, you know, I, I used to follow monitors pretty closely and, you know, just knew kind of what was out there and what was, are there many captive bred tree monitors available? Or, I mean, do you have like huge waiting lists for people who are interested in your.

Yeah. So I, I've only let a few of the animals that I, a few of my animals go, particularly the blacks because those ones are bred so rarely in captivity. The only time I've, I've seen them recently was I, I imported some from Canada. Um, and that was. And in cold blood, is that? Yes.

Yes. Yeah. I got some, I got some of his captive babies. Yeah. He's really great. Um, yeah, he also helped me when my initial group of blue tree monitors ended up being 4.1 and I needed some females. So, um, so yeah, so he, he, he's been super helpful, but yeah. So, um, I, I haven't started a wait list. I probably should,

but it's mostly just that, um, I don't want to deal with the hassle of keeping track of people. Yeah. Um, people tend to tend to back out too do. They have to wait. And then when I inquired, I had the money, but now I don't. Exactly. And so I don't know. I'm thinking about maybe taking reservations on like half of an upcoming clutch and trying that. And then it gives them more time to pay since they're more expensive animals as well. Um, but I don't know, I have, it's so far I've been having people like knocking down my door for animals. It's been, it's been incredibly, incredibly easy to place them.

So that's been really nice. Yeah. Well, one, one more question on kind of your background. I'm, I'm curious, like your research process to get into monitors. Um, I mean, that's kind of one of my favorite parts of getting into research. And so what kind of, uh, what, what, what avenues did you chase to learn about? Yeah. So, uh, I think I, you know, I started listening to all of the Monitor Keeping podcast and as many interviews as I could find with people who have been doing it for a while just to kind of start soaking all of that in, kind of like I did with NPR as I was getting into carpets. I read a lot of time on Google scholar and, and looking things up, um, to read about,

you know, what various zoos had done that was successful in producing and that sort of thing. Um, I chased down books, including old out of print books and, um, you know, all of that stuff is just super fun for me. Um, so it's, it's, and I'm still working on it. I chat with a lot of people, um, to kind of get, here's some of the different nuances of how people are doing things. Cause it's one of the fun things with working with a species that hasn't been, or species, multiple species that haven't been, um, you know, fully unlocked yet is there's yeah, it's, there's a lot of things that are still being figured out. And so it's, a lot of it's just talking to other people as well. Yeah. Yeah.

That's cool. Yeah. But it's my favorite. It's it's you're right. It's like, it's, it's one of the funnest parts for me. Yeah. Is really diving deep. The biggest thing for me, I think was, uh, visiting Frank Reed is because I, his, his, you know, I can only, he's kind of a, an interesting guy, not very, I don't know. How do you describe him? He's kind of like an alpha male gorilla or something, but I mean, really nice guy, but also kind of like a Riddler or something, you know, trying to make you figure out, but seeing things like firsthand,

like kind of seeing his setups and, you know, that kind of thing just helped a lot more. It's almost like, you know, the, you know, picture's worth a thousand words kind of thing. Seeing it in action was really helpful. And yeah, I mean, he has more knowledge on his little finger than I'm ever going to end up with. And so it's, but yes, there's also that Riddler kind of characteristic to it as well, where you're like, I don't know what you want from me. Exactly. Yeah. So yeah, it was, it was nice to, to see, you know, other people be successful that would maybe be more forthright with the information, but I mean, it was kind of fun to be quizzed or try to figure things out, but you know, he didn't want to give you all the answers, I guess, but yeah, that was cool. I still, I still really want to keep, uh, Gil and I, uh, the brand Gil and I are very

cool. Gilman's monitors are really cool. They really are. There are, there are, there are so many little cool Adatria out there that aren't there that still aren't super common in the hobby. Yeah. Yeah. That's right up there. One of these days, I guess.

But yeah. You stop going on so many herp trips. This is the problem. Yeah. I've got this friend named Rob and he just invites me and all these trips. What a jerk. It's horrible. It's terrible. Well, cool. Well, um, I think it's time to fight. Let's let's do it. Yeah. So we're going to be

talking about kind of that, uh, having a niche market, kind of like the, you know, having, working with, you know, tree monitors or something where not very many people are working or not very many people are successful at producing a lot. And then versus something like ball pythons where everybody works with them and everybody produces them pretty successfully. So, and, uh, you've been on both sides of that coin. So, you know, we'll, uh, we'll go ahead and flip a coin and let you pull it and see, see which side you want to defend. Heads. Heads. It is heads.

All right. So you pick your side. I'm going to, I'm going to pick the niche side, Justin. I'm going to make you defend, defend the more mainstream stuff. All right.

We'll do. All right. Yeah. I've kind of been on both sides a little bit too. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And as the winner of the coin toss,

you get to either defer or, uh, you know, you want me to go first or do you? Yeah, I'll, I'll defer. I'll let,

I'll let you go ahead first, Justin. Sounds good. Okay. So I am a niche person at heart as well. And, you know, I love kind of the stuff that,

I mean, I guess maybe you wouldn't call carpets niche, but. I think it still countsets niche, but. I think it's still kind of niche. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe not quite as broad stream as some, some groups, but, um, fairly popular. And even then, like I, I kind of abandoned carpets when they were being imported in large

numbers from Europe and everybody was more obsessed. I just kind of stuck around and bred my inlands and kind of kept quiet with the on Antaresia, which you're kind of niche. So that's beyond the point, but most of my time at reptile shows is, is teaching people what Antaresia are because most people have never heard of it. So yeah, definitely something is niche if nobody's heard of it or very few people have heard of it. So, um, but at the same time, my, uh, I was business partners with Ben Morrill of, uh, rare genetics Inc. He lived in Utah. We, we partnered up and some projects and our first project that we bought together was a pair of pet pied ball pythons back Oh, wow. Back when they were fairly pricey as the, the pied version.

And so we both went in on the pair together and then we, uh, you know, raised them up and bred them and produced two pides in the first clutch out of three eggs. We got two pides. So we got really lucky. That's really great. And, uh, kind of went down the rabbit hole with ball pythons, bought a bunch of different morphs and kind of chase the, played that game back when there were not very many morphs, you know, um, bumblebees were a big deal back then. It's about, you know, so, and then, um, you know, I had, I had a bunch of, uh, kind of projects left over from that. And then I've actually moved all my ball pythons to a friend and kind of on breeding loan and he's been producing them and such. And so I'll, you know,

get half the babies out of it, but then he has the other half. And, but I guess my point is, so all that background, but when I go to a reptile show, what do I sell the reptile show or the ball pythons? I'm selling a lot of, uh, Antaresia, you know, even though they're really cool and really underappreciated, you know, people just that, you know, when people think I want to buy a snake, they want to buy a ball python, boa constrictor, you know, the corn snake, it's all kind of the major big, big name groups. And if you ask somebody what reptiles have you kept all by boa constrictor corn snake, you know, they kind of live list off the top five or 10, um, species that are commonly bred in the hobby. So I wonder sometimes if people even realize

the breadth and depth of how many cool reptiles are out there, but I think it, I mean, for me, it took years to kind of slowly unpack all of it. So yeah, it, it, yeah, it takes time for a lot of people, especially people who are coming at it from a not, you know, really deep background in rep in, in reptiles, people who didn't necessarily grow up with it and dive deep and nerd out all their childhood. So, yeah. And I mean, I did, I spent a lot of time thinking about reptiles and different kinds and, and I still, you know, had a boa constrictor and although my first snake was a rubber boa, so I wouldn't necessarily call that mainstream, but, but there wasn't a lot known about them. So that didn't fare too well. So I guess that's the other, you know, big side is there's a lot of people who know about them, a lot of people who are interested in them, and then a lot of people

have worked with them. So there's a lot of knowledge known. So, you know, that kind of works in favor of you if you choose to do the mainstream species. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, I think that the flip side, the flip side of that is that I have really liked about niching down more is that it's, I don't know, it's given me an ability to kind of develop a little bit more expertise and kind of more rapidly become someone who people look to, you know, and associate with a particular species. And whereas that was a whole lot harder to do back when I was working in ball pythons, because it was such a crowded sea of people that it's, you know, it was harder for any one person to stand out. Yeah, for sure. I just went and did a, you know, that fun little quick search on morph market and ball pythons. There's 36,537

available on morph market right now. Yep. I did. I did a similar search last summer and there were like 60,000 ball pythons and 16 tree monitors. Yeah. And I was like, okay, I think I'm, I think I'm moving the right direction. And even with carpet pythons, there's 162 available. So, you know, yeah, 6,000 less. It's a big difference. Yeah. It's a big difference. And I mean, granted, you know, there's a lot of diversity in the different morphs and all that kind of stuff. And, you know, I think there's still a lot of interest in that, even though everybody says the sky is falling every other year, you know, everything's going away. But ball pythons seem to be pretty mainstream and pretty stable for them. So you're always going to have, you know, something, but

at the same time, you know, you got to kind of chase what's, what's cool and what's, uh, in fad for the, the year, the season or whatever. So that more of a, I guess, Pokemon thing rather than a reptile thing. And I think you probably, it sounds like you're in the same boat. I guess, Pokemon thing rather than a reptile thing. And I think you probably, it sounds like you're in the same boat I am. I want to, you know, get into the natural history. I want to learn about them. I don't just want some formula and have different paint jobs that make them cool. Yeah, absolutely. And it's one of, you know, one of the things I like about the particular direction I went in that doesn't necessarily apply to all niche species. But, you know, a lot of times with all pythons, it's really just throwing a couple of snakes in the box and they're going to make babies and that's about all you got to do.

And it requires just a lot more thought and attention and really, really observing your animals and learning their behavior and learning the particularities of each individual female and what she likes and what she doesn't and what's normal for her and what's not and all of that. And so for me, it's just, it's so, I like that it's a little bit more complex. It's like, it's more, I don't know, mentally engaging for me. For sure. Yeah. Yeah. I do like a little bit of, I don't know, mentally engaging for me. For sure. Yeah. Yeah. I do like a little bit of a challenge.

Yeah, same. Yeah. Yeah. So back to what you were saying before, you know, you were talking about how, you know, the more mainstream species, people kind of already have a knowledge base and know about it. And, you know, I will say that kind of the flip side for me has been, I spend a lot of time just educating on my animals. I vended a couple of shows recently, no animals to sell, but I brought various species of, you know, proscenous complex animals to, you know, show people, this is what an adult looks like. This is, you know, the difference between a green tree monitor and a cordensis or, you know, all of those kinds of different things. And yeah, it's, it's,

I spend a lot of time educating and it's, it's, you know, it, it's, it's, I, I spend a lot of time, um, educating and it's, you know, it, it's, I guess it's how you look at it, right. Cause it's on one hand it's, you know, you're kind of the master of your own destiny there, right? Like you can kind of the amount of effort you put in and all of that, um, it, it can have a more direct result in what you see, but it is something very different that I have to do now. I didn't used to have to do a lot of education in the same way. I'd have to talk about morphs and carpet subspecies and all of that sort of thing too. But it's, yeah's, it's, yeah, there, there's a lot more education. Yeah. For sure. That goes into it now. And I, you know, I think that's, um,

and it probably goes either way. I mean, because if you're working with the mainstream stuff, you can just be a face in the crowd, you know, and I've seen a lot of people, uh, handle that differently. You know, you got your Ralph Davis, who's like, you know, making Ralph Davis thongs and, you know, having people fight it or fighting people at reptile shows and things like that, you know, and calling people out and causing drama and all that kind of nonsense. And that, that definitely is not my, you know, my, my area. And then you've got people like, uh, um, Jay, what's his name? The, one of the bigger names starts with a J. I don't know why I try to bring up names on the podcast. Justin Kobilka. Oh, Justin Kobilka. Yeah. Yeah. Where he just, uh, sorry. Yeah. My,

my, uh, brain doesn't work so well as I approach 50, but Justin Kobilka does a good job at like making some really crazy looking mutations and really kind of getting his name out there, you know, getting his image, getting people excited about his projects and just having basically, you know, that, that corner market of the ball python industry, you know. Oh, yeah. And doing it in a positive manner rather than a drama manner, you know. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Yeah, I think a lot of us can follow that model. Yeah. mainstream or more, if you kind of need to, or sorry, mainstream or niche, you've got to, you know, get yourself out there and get people to know who you are and see you as somebody who, who knows and is competent and knows what they're doing and not just some flipper that's buying a bunch of things out of Indonesia or something. So, and, and I, I, you know, with the, the mainstream that can be challenging when there's 36,000 available ball pythons, how to make yours stand out. And that takes effort and work, especially if you're competing with somebody who is full-time, you know, if you're an obvious breeder, you know, what do you do with, you know, you can wholesale them, but then you're not really getting much out of it, you know, as far as the monetary side, but, or you can give them away and,

you know, make somebody's day or whatever, you know, that, that is not the worst thing in the world either. It's, it's a hobby after all for most people. And so. And so that kind of, I guess, takes me to one of the other things that I had kind of thought about coming into this. And that's the issue of overproduction. Yeah. And, you know, you're just by nature of things going to see a lot more overproduction in things that are very common. And that ended up being one of the things that kind of pushed me away from the ball python stuff. You know, I didn't really love, you know, breeding a clutch of largely garbage pet quality snakes for that chance of maybe getting the majority of these animals that you're making. Like,

where do you, like, are they, you could be wholesaling them, you could be selling them as pets, but are they really going to people who want them and need them and are going to care for them appropriately? Um, and that's part of why I ended up going the direction I did to, to going a little bit more niches. I wanted to make sure that if I was reproducing these animals, it was, um, you know, animals, there was a real need to make more of. Um, and so, yeah, so that was for me, one of the, one of the big things there was the overproduction issue. Yeah. And that's, I mean, that's always been kind of a challenging thing. Anytime you

start putting a bigger price tag on a paint job, you know, I, you almost think nobody should be keeping a ball Python morph that doesn't appreciate a wild type ball. No, that's very true. Have a wild type ball Python. You know, it's like, um, most people may not even know what a wild type ball python you know it's like yep um most people may not even know what a wild type ball python looks like anymore you know i remember back in the day you know people would have all their normal males out you know for 20 bucks or something out on the table and you know that's that does a disservice to the animal for sure because then it gives it the appearance of garbage you know right it's right it becomes just a living thing garbage, you know, it becomes just this thing. Yeah.

And, you know, maybe if, uh, if they were used for like King Cobra food or something, I mean, maybe that's an appropriate and reasonable use for them. I don't know. You know, like if people are going to devalue them anyway, and they're going to languish because they're not worth as much as this other paint job ball Python, then, you know, maybe, maybe that's what, what the point we're at. So yeah, that's, that's a hard and a tricky and ethical, you know, absolutely.

But I guess that really kind of grinds my gears when somebody is only into something for a paint job or a price tag, you know, that doesn't sit well with me. So no, I hear you. And it's one of the reasons that, you know, I, I, I, you know, I, I'm obviously working with tree monitors and there's a relatively high price tag associated with them. But I also have a few species that are weird niche species that, you know, like I have Guatemalan spiny-tailed iguanas, like they're never going to be like, you know, this big, huge thing in the hobby, but I love them

and they're fun for me. And that's why I have them. Yeah. And, um, and I think that, and I guess fun is a part of it too, right? Like you gotta, you gotta keep yourself interested and keep yourself excited. Yeah. I think, um, our, our mom, uh, herp time, he's done a really good job at, uh, kind of getting people excited about the, the micro geckos. Oh, absolutely. Also kind of taking, fulfilling, you know, the cage requirements. So sell you a cage with your gecko and things like that. He's really kind of created a market in a lot of ways for, for those

small geckos and made them kind of mainstream and popular with his really, you know, adept, uh, social media accounts and things. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. I, you know, that, that goes to both sides. You've got to really make yourself stand out. Even if you work with niche species that everybody wants, I guess maybe you might have to do that a little less, you know, because if you're one of the few people that's producing them and a lot of people are interested in them, you're, you're okay. If, especially if they're difficult and you have success with them. Yeah. Yeah. It's not, not too hard to, to find people who are going to share in that excitement. Yeah. And it's hard to beat a tree monitor too. It's hard to beat a tree monitor. They're so cool. They're just, they're so much fun. I remember going into zoo herp when I was like 12, 13 years old, somewhere around there. My dad drove me down to Salt Lake to go see. And this is, uh, Louis Porras, who's, you know, a pioneer and a really, you know, great, great guy out there. And, um, he had this reptile facility, you know, warehouse where he'd bring in all sorts of stuff. And where I first

saw a bearded dragon, where I first saw, you know, a black tree monitor. Yeah. I just sat and watched it. He had like this big, you know, cage out front, uh, you know, before you went into the reptile room kind of thing, like in the lounge area or whatever you want to call it. And I just sat and stared at that thing. I just watched it crawling all over the, you know, just constantly moving and constantly interesting, you know, and I'm just like, wow. And then, you know, over next to some crocodile monitor in a giant cage. You know, you're seeing all this stuff you've only heard about or read about in books. Yeah. And I, and I think, you know, the, the more animals that we're successfully working with in the hobby,

that it reduces, you know, the more people are working with these niche things and the more they're actually seeing success in breeding them, hopefully that also means the less demand that we're putting on wild populations. Um, and, and, you know, for animals that are already pretty endangered and not necessarily well protected, um, that, that means something. No, I, I totally agree. And, you know, I guess you can do that with the, the mass produced stuff too, to some extent, because, you know, if, if only, if people only want morphs, then you're not going to be importing a ton of ball pythons out of the wild because they're not morphs. This is true. So I guess that maybe has a similar effect, but, um, and then, you know, the we're, we're kind of people in a lot of ways. We like to follow the crowd and do

what's popular and that kind of thing. At least a lot of people are that way. I tend to be a little bit of a rebel and, you know, I never got into wearing the right clothes or, you know, liking the right things. I guess I was a weird kid with reptiles and, you know, so I think, you know, when we, we, uh, that's that, you know, that's another plus, I guess, about the commonly bred stuff is that a lot of people want to follow the crowd and have the same things that their friend has or whatever, you know, if they, yeah. And you see that a lot, like people that get into the ball Python morphs get really excited and bring their friends into it or. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's an entry point for a lot of people and niche things are never going to be that entry point. Yeah. And they're, they're more difficult by typically by nature. They're a little more, a little more difficult than the common stuff, but yeah. So, uh, yeah, but I guess

that's what makes it fun. You know, I I'm like you, I like a little bit of a challenge and yeah. Um, I guess the, maybe the other, uh, another benefit of working with something that's worked with by a lot of people is that, you know, the community, and sometimes that can work against you too. You know, sometimes the communities are not very welcoming of newcomers or, you know, I remember one time I was talking with a, um, big ball Python boa breeder and, and, uh, he said, it's people like you who are ruining the, the mark, the hobby or something. And I'm like, people like me are the ones who are buying your overpriced pretty, you know, paint job snakes. Like we're not doing anything for you or your

whole market, buddy. So start, you know, kissing the ring here, but yeah, it was a little weird. And to say that directly, like, well, and I guess his point is you're buying my snakes and then you're breeding them and then you're underselling, you know, you're undercutting me. So, you know, if you're the big man on, on top, you've got to be ahead of the game or else, you know, you can't complain about if, if they're getting there. Cause if you've bred to be ahead of the game or else you know you can't complain about if if they're getting there because if you've bred them already and they're buying them from you they you have at least two years head start on them and so you know and that's if they crank them out as early as they can you know and which usually doesn't happen so i don't know you've gotta you gotta stay stay up

with the game and I guess that can be a pro or a con, you know, because if you do it well, if you're like Justin Kobilka and you stay ahead of the game and keep producing things that make people go, wow, I need that. Or tell me the, you know, the recipe to make that then, Oh, I just happen to have all the ingredients. Here you go. Buy, you know, five or six snakes from me to combine the genes together. No, I mean, and I mean, then that just, that goes to the whole morph thing as well. But, um, in terms of, you know, the stacking the genes and though I need, you know, now I suddenly need a collection with 10 snakes where I might've only needed to, um, because I've got to stack all these things together and, and all of that. And that,

and it gets, it gets really big, really fast. Yeah. Yeah. And, and I guess that's, that's another, you know, benefit of that large market is yeah. If they do have all those things, then it does make people have a larger collection of that species or that type, you know? And so, you know, if you're, if you're just breeding wild type animals, you need a male and a female and then you're making more of that wild type look or whatever. Yeah. I mean, obviously like line breed and you could work for different looks and that sort of thing, but it's a much longer, slower process. And it's, um,

there's still, you know, there's still still wild type. At the same time, those longer type projects also hold their value longer and it's not like it goes to the bottom to hurry before somebody else, you know, tries to sell you the exact same thing. Cause there's 20 of them, you know, or 150 of them on morph market right now, you know? Yeah. How to make yourself stand out from the

crowd or how to get people to buy your stuff when you have the exact same stuff everybody else has, but that's more to your side. So I'm just, but, uh, yeah, so I, I think, uh, but, um, you know, getting people and, and I guess, you know, looking at reptile shows, you know, you go to reptile shows and you really see kind of a lot of the same stuff. Sometimes you don't know when one table ends and another begins. And so I think it's kind of interesting, too, because I'll have, you know, the niche Antaresia or whatever, and they'll stop and go, oh, what's that? That's a weird looking ball python. Yeah, exactly. What morph is that? And then, uh, you know, you, you educate somebody and they're like, wow, you know, it's kind of refreshing to see something different or something new and yeah. So, but at the same time they keep walking and go over and buy a ball python or a crested gecko or something.

Yeah. Yeah, it's a little bit frustrating. But at the same time, over time, you know, I've kind of seen that change a little bit in my local community. Now when I ask people, they're like, yeah, you told us about them last year. You told us about you. So they're starting to get the picture. But, you know, there's always new people to bring into the fold, I guess, or to get excited about different things. But I guess, um, even though I'm kind of trying to fight for that, uh, mainstream thing, I would like to see more diversity in the hobby. And I think

it used to be much more diverse, you know, you'd go to a reptile show, but at the same time, it was like also more imported stuff rather than captive bred stuff. So I do appreciate the, the kind of that mainstream move towards captive breeding and producing all these morphs and all these things. That's obviously they're all captive bred and, you know, you're not, you're not bringing a lot of stuff out of the wild, but the same time. And I, and I do see kind of a, you know, these movements towards other things and other species and you see a lot of ball Python breeders getting. That's what I was about to say as well. You know, over the past year, a lot of my ball Python breeding friends have found, you know, another species to get into. Um, and that's great for

everybody. Um, you know, whether it's like, you know, Asian rat snakes or, you know, some weird obscure gecko or whatever it is, like a lot of my friends have, have been branching out and, you know, they might still, ball pythons might still be their bread and butter, but people are starting to see some more of what's out there and then that means more things at shows and all of that. And that's a big deal to me. I don't know. I think it's really cool. For sure. Yep. I do love going to a show where you

see something new or weird. Just like, tell me about this, you know, even if I, I will probably never keep it, you know, it's, it's exciting. I was listening to the Craig Trumbauer and he's told this story on a number of podcasts, but where he was, see, he saw some kids sitting at a booth with some smooth green snakes or rough green snakes or something. And that's all he had at his table. And he's like, you know, this is kind of the coolest thing at the show because nobody else has them, you know, they're captive bred, you know, that's good job.

Keep it going. You know, that's fun. Yeah. You know, you never know when something's going to take off. Like, I mean, for crying out loud, crested geckos were thought to be extinct. And now they're, you know, over, overrunning reptile shows and very easy to care for and very easy to breed. And, you know.

And a lot of that has to do with, you know, the powdered diets that's made, that's played a very huge role in all of the new Caledonian stuff. Yeah. Alan Rapaci is a very smart man. Good businessman. Absolutely. And a fun guy to be around. He's a, he's a, yeah. He took me out in his, uh, side by side, or I don't even know if you could call that because it was all souped up in, you know, and he took me out, you know, just cruising through the desert and over these big bumps. But it was like, you were just riding on a cloud. It was just, but man, that guy knows how

to drive. It scared the crap out of me. My daughter was in the back, just like this huge smile plastered on her face. And I'm up front, like white knuckle, like, are we going to flip? We're going to die. I asked him like, how many times have you flipped this? Never. Like, why would I, I spent all this money on it. Why would I flip it? I'm a good driver. What are you asking me? Sorry, Owen. Yeah. It's, it's, it's, uh, he's a smart man. Yeah. And, you know, I, I guess, uh, in, in, you can make a niche species become a mainstream species through that process. That's true. I think that's kind of the, the point with the crested geckos is they were very niche for a while. And, and actually some of the species still are niche. Some of the ones that are a little more difficult to breed that are maybe smaller, you know, that are just as cool, but it's easy. And so, you know, I think anytime you have something that's more of a challenge,

more of a risk, you know, more of a, you're not going to make your investment back, you know, that gives people pause. You know, if you have a, if you have a, a recipe and a, and a surefire plan, how to breed this thing, um, then you're going to make your money back and you're going to, it's not as much of a risk and it's not as scary. And so, and I think that that speaks to a lot of people who, you know, if they're spending two or $300 on an animal, they don't want to risk that. They don't want to be a throwaway pet. And I think maybe that that's from some of the more dismal past that we've had, you know, or, you know, we had a lot of throwaway pets or a lot of imports that just died after a couple of weeks of being in your care. And so that can be.

You know, I'll also, this kind of cuts your direction, but one of the, you know, if you're relatively new and you're getting started, you don't want to invent the wheel. You don't know what you're doing. You want to, you know, you want stuff that's tried and true. You don't want to, you know, put all of this money in and then lose all of your animals. Like, you know, and so there's a lot of reasons that people, when they're starting out, go for these more common species. And then having been through the process of totally changing my collection, that's not a thing that a lot of

people are going to do. And so, you know, and so, you know, I wouldn't have gotten into tree monitors from the very beginning. There's no way that I was competent enough to even take that on as a project until I had had several seasons breeding other species of reptiles. And, you know, I'm not a huge fan of the whole starter reptile concept because, you know, I get what you like and what, you know, as long as you're willing to put in the effort to learn and that sort of thing. But, yeah, it, anyway, I don't remember where I was going with that. No, that's a great point. You usually stick with what you start with. Right. point is you, you, uh, usually stick with what you start with or, and there's probably a reason

you liked it in the beginning, even if it is kind of a starter reptile or, you know, or, or they're at least commonly available, lots known about them. And so it gives you confidence moving forward with those, those species that you're not going to mess it up. And if you have trouble, there's going to be a lot of people that can give you advice or help you out or things yeah absolutely yep and then it once you do well with one you're probably going to buy a mate for that or yeah that kind of thing and then it just kind of balloons out from there but i i do like you know the idea of i i don't know i heard, I think it was Yasser. Um, what's his last name? Musafir up from Washington. But he, he made a post once that said, everybody should work with a species that is worth nothing that you love just because it's cool, you know? And yeah, I, you know, I think there's

something to that. Yeah. Yeah. And, and even if you don't have success with it, or if you have a hard time learning, you know, how to breed it or how to keep it well, and just get to that point and just have it just for the love of, or this is a crazy concept too. We don't have to breed everything we keep. Yeah. And I think there's kind of a movement towards that, you know, thought process and, and, and it doesn't gel well with the thing where there's 36,000 available, but it does gel well with, you know, a little more difficult or, and you know, if you, if you can keep one tree monitor happy and healthy and alive for a number of years, then that's a reward in and of itself.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. Once you start buying more and more animals, trying to make a big breeder, you know, make yourself a big breeder, you usually do worse than you do with just one or two animals. No, it's very true. You can keep up with easily. It's very true. And it's really easy for it to scale way too fast and way too big.

For sure. And one of the things I like about being in my house right now is I've got a very limited amount of space I can work with. And that kind of keeps me a little more contained, which is a good thing. Yeah. Well, I'm curious about that too.

Cause I, you know, in my research and learning about monitor lizards and things like that, it seems like they would go gangbusters and produce and produce. And then all of a sudden they would just stop and stop producing. And you'd almost have to hold back, you know, quite a few animals just to keep the production moving. Do you have kind of a plan or thought process for that? From what I've heard, that's particularly common in the Australian dwarf species where they'll,

and it's kind of what I'm experiencing with my King's monitors right now, where they had a really successful period of breeding and then they just kind of flipped off. Okay. And I got them when they flipped off in the previous person.

It reaped all the rewards. And then I got them as proven animals and only they were proven animals that had kind of shut down. And so, yeah, I mean, I have one pair of Ackies that they've given me one clutch and they've only been, you know, I've had them for quite some time and they've only been interested in mating that one time. They're an older pair. And so I'm keeping a number of those babies just so that I have that blood to continue in my project to mix with other, other pairs. But yeah, I mean, it, it,

it definitely can become a lot like, um, and any animal that you keep, that's a whole lot of space that you've got to be able to plan on. And yeah, so that's definitely a tricky piece. And it's something I'm constantly running into and trying to figure out as animals are growing up and needing to move into different cages. And I originally thought I was going to keep all of my first clutch of black tree monitors. And as they've been growing, I'm like, well, maybe that's not such a good plan. Um, so yeah, it's, it's, that's definitely, um, a thing. And part of how I'm handling that is by having empty, empty enclosures.

Um, but yeah. Yeah. That's, that's hard to plan for too, because yeah, you're like, uh, you get excited about it. You never know who's going to produce and how many they're going to be. And yeah, a lot of yes or questionable things. And three monitors are pretty, you know, they, they can be really great. Like they'll be um pretty much once the female starts cycling all things if all things go well i mean she'll be pretty much every

three months on the dot uh my black tree monitor female um you could almost set it, almost set a watch by her. He's really consistent. And again, I don't know at some point she might shut off or who knows, but yeah. That's interesting. And they have kind of smaller clutches. They do.

Yeah. So black, I've, I've never heard of a black tree monitor clutch bigger than four eggs. Okay. So kind of like a gecko type thing. A little bit, a little bit, a little bit more, um, like four to six is pretty common. You'll have, I think I've heard in blues, there have been outlier bigger clutches. Um, but typically four to six is about what you're going to get per clutch, but you can get three to four

clutches a year. And so it ends up being a pretty decent number of eggs. Yeah. I like that idea of, of spreading out, you know, I'd rather have, you know, four clutches of three eggs than one clutch of 12 eggs. Yeah. So you're not quite so inundated with babies all at the same time. Yeah. Then you kind of spread out over time, different sizes, different. Yeah. The downside is they're incubating for five and a half months. And so that's a little bit nerve wracking to, you know, wait half a year to see if you had babies.

Right. Yeah. And that's, uh, um, I imagine, you know, I guess there's ways to kind of go get around that, like larger incubation chambers and, you know. I mean, you can only play with temperatures so much and then things could potentially go wrong. And a little bit, you could probably mess around with it a little bit, but I haven't heard of people shaving significant amounts of time off of tree monitor incubation. And I tend to, I tend to incubate a little bit on the lower side just because I'm more comfortable incubating longer. And, um, I think a lot of times you get a little bit better yolk absorption and that sort of thing when, when they incubate a little longer.

Yeah. And I think too, like, I guess I, you know, with, I have one, I, I have a little bit of experience with, with one species that had the veiled chameleons where their eggs take several, you know, six months to incubate and you'd almost forget about them. And you'd be like, oh crap, I got to take care of those eggs. And so I lost a few along the way and, and, you know, pressure changes like I'd container and then all of a sudden the eggs start popping like, well, what is going on? You know, hurry and close the lid. And, you know, so, you know, I think like a bigger, bigger incubation chamber would be, you know, more consistent or stable rather than, you know, having a small one that's going to dry out or something to constantly be it's valid. Constantly be adding water or things like that. Yeah. That's a, that's a fun problem to have, I guess. It is a fun problem.

There are worse problems for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Do you use the, like the overwater method or what, what do you, the sim container? Yeah. So I use sim containers um i typically i've been doing um water crystals instead of just loose water sure um and that's worked out pretty well for me um it over hydrated my ackeys a little bit and so after i they hatched

and did fine but after that first clutch, I'm doing those on, uh, vermiculite, but still in the sim. Um, but, but, you know, suspended over damp vermiculite and that's working pretty well for them. Um, yeah, they just, you know, need a little bit, a little bit less humidity. Um, yeah. That kind of goes into our discussion last week. We talked about, you know, the support either breeding animals versus producing like feeders or products and things like that.

And Sims is a great example of that. You know, making an innovation that you came up with, you know, a business model. Oh, yeah. Let me tell you how much money i've spent on wood for enclosures like my wood guy is doing pretty well yeah yeah i always so i visited uh the san diego zoo back in the day and and brett baldwin was kind of pioneering the tree monitor caging and using like these shower stalls and then oh you know, having like a front. And so it was basically a shower stall and then they attach a nest box to the side.

And that's cool. That is ingenious. Like that's a great idea. And they were being very successful with them and very well with the tree monitors at the San Diego zoo. So I thought, well, if I ever keep tree monitors, I'm just going to get a line of shower stalls and throw them in there and plants and lots of branches and stuff like that. Yeah. I'm just, I'm just now starting into the whole planted enclosure thing. And that's like a whole other world of, of, of, I had fake plants up until recently and now I'm starting to plant

them and it's like a whole other world of things to learn so it's super fun how are the i mean a lot of monitors are very destructive yeah so it's the plants and you got to be there are some specific hardier species to look for like money trees tend to do pretty well because they're a little bit more dense stalks and um but yeah you don't want the live plants where like the monitor is going to be like trampling all over it all the time so you kind of also need to plan you know plan see where what parts of the enclosure the animal uses maybe put it over here where the animal doesn't spend as much time do you also have the really intense like basking spots like with the... So not as much as with, not as high as with Ackies.

Tree monitors are generally a little bit more, a little bit more temperate temperature wise. I'll get, I'll do a basking spot, maybe a little bit over a hundred, but not like 120, 130, like you might do with an Aki. Okay. So that's probably more conducive to plants as well. Which is also more conducive to the humidity levels that you need. Like if you had, if you had to have temperatures that scorching, it would be really hard to keep humidity where it needs to be. Sure. Yeah. And humidity is like the, in Texas, i'm sure it would be worse in utah but like it's the thing i feel like i'm constantly fighting is humidity right that can be a challenge for sure

yeah well um any other topics that you've got in yeah i think i think we hit all the stuff that i had kind of thought about heading into this. Yeah. It's been a very productive discussion. Rob, I'm sure you're chomping at the end of the day. I know, I'm smiling. Yeah. Do you have anything you want to throw in there as well?

No, beyond saying that I think this is fantastic. And, Corey, I really appreciate all the great, I think you went into super detail and a lot of podcasts to me fall short in terms of not diving deep. It kind of brushes the top of the specific, but I think you went into a lot of that real specific there. So I think there's a ton of great stuff here. Thank you. All right. Well, thanks so much for coming on. And this has been a really nice discussion. Thanks for having me. Yeah. I'm sure our listeners got some good stuff out of this.

So I kind of like to finish out the show a little bit talking about things that we've seen over the last week or month or something that have been cool in herpetoculture. If anything's got you excited or anything like that, um, that you want to share, uh, I'm, I'm focused mostly on like, you know, where I'm going herping and you know, what, what potential things I'm going to see. So I've been spending a lot of time, uh, going over, uh, iNaturalist and other things, but, uh, what are you, what are you hoping to target on this upcoming trip? Milk snakes, Utah milk snakes. And, and that's pretty much the, yeah, the focus. Yeah. So I'll be flipping rocks again. So yeah, my back and my thighs are not going to be thanking me this weekend,

but that's the way it goes, I guess. Yeah. And I, yeah, we, we flipped or, you know, looked under, I guess we don't flip them. We just look under them and put them back how we found them. But, um, looked under a lot of rocks, uh, on Monday and my, my thighs were pretty, uh, beat the next day. I've got one calf. That's just like a knot. I don't know. Yeah. It's kind of a fun. My, my dad, he's, you know, 20, 20 something years older than me. So he, he was, uh, he's in his seventies now and he, he was getting a little lightheaded. He's like, I got to sit down for a minute. I'm like, dad, please, you know, don't overdo it. You know, you don't even have to flip rocks if you don't want to. Yeah. Like you can be the lookout.

You just watch, see this runs. Right. And so it was, it was fun to go out with him and, you know, that's really cool conversations and stuff. You know, it's really fun that he,

he has, you know, he's interested in going out with me and stuff. That's really cool. Good times. And he, you know, it's kind of,

hopefully I get a payback a little bit. Cause he would always take me out backpacking and things. And I always wanted to go to the desert. So he would take me there and I think he likes the mountains better, but he would take me to the deserts. Cause I really liked, and there was, you know, I thought I always, I always thought there was a better chance of finding reptiles out in the desert, but man, learning about some, a lot of the stuff in Utah,

there's a lot of mountainous. Yes. You guys have of mountainous. Yes. You guys have some cool stuff. Yeah. It's a secret we're kind of trying to keep a little bit. I don't want to be inundated with herpers out here, but man, there's some really great Utah herpers that, oh man, I was just looking at a few YouTube videos, getting ready for this weekend, getting pumped up or looking at, you know, the size of rocks they were finding stuff under and that kind of thing. And there's some good herpers out there that find a lot more than I do. Uh, yeah, good times, but I don't know. Have you seen anything cool that's gotten you excited lately or so, um, nothing, nothing much herping.

I've, I've only done a little bit of herping so far this spring and just saw that one, one diamondback. I think the thing in, in the hobby that's been the most interesting for me and exciting for me was, um, seeing, uh, my buddy Parker hatch out Bowamai, um, because the golden spotted tree monitors, um, you really don't see those, um, especially captive hatch. So that's, that's a really big deal for my little sphere of things. Yeah. So that's, that was a really cool one. Very cool. Yeah. And they're, they're kind of similar to the black tree monitors, right? They're kind of more grayish colored or.

Yeah. So they're, um, they're, they're trying to think how I would say it. They're kind of more grayish colored or yeah so they're um they're they're trying to think how i would say it they're kind of i would say they're almost like visually a little bit more similar to like cordensis where they have more of like the lacy kind of pattern as opposed to the really heavy striping um but but more of a like yellowish color to it, yellowish orange ish kind of color to it, as opposed, as opposed, but, but I can see where you'd go with the black, with the black tree monitor, maybe like a black tree monitor with, as a baby with, if it kept its spots and the spots were a little bit bigger. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I, I don't even know if that was a thing back when i was researching monitors heavily yeah i'm sure it was they're quite they're quite similar to keith

horn i okay yeah that's what i was thinking like that yeah that spotty type looking thing yeah kind of more grayish colored rather yeah yeah like a green or a yes. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Very cool. Yeah. So, so I don't know. That's that, that I thought was really neat, but, um, yeah, I don't know. I can't think of the episodes that project Terps culture had up there. And then I, I, uh, been listening to Kush Kush's corner, uh, Stephen Kush. He's,

he's been doing really good stuff. Uh, with his, there's so many people putting out good content now. It's really hard to keep up with everything. I know. Yeah. I've kind of caught up lately.

I was kind of got out of listening to reptile podcasts for a little bit, but yeah. Yeah. Every once in a while, I just take a break from it. Cause I'm like, my whole life is reptiles. I need to like do something else in my free time. Right. Have other interests. Yeah. Rob, you got anything for us? Yeah, absolutely. I would double down on the Dean Missmer project, herpetoculture grasshoppers I thought that was excellent we were just talking about that on the trip we were talking about a lot of the Kush episodes on the trip I was complaining about Squadcast on our Kush episode that hasn't

come out yet on the trip yeah all of this sounds familiar to me and it's all great yeah that's for sure yeah I'm very much looking forward to fixing this issue so we can actually have you involved in the conversation. It's been really frustrating with you not chiming in. I think our listeners are probably the worst for the wear as well, not having their Rob fix every week. So we'll get this fixed soon and get Rob back on and a more active

participant, but yeah. Well, Corey, where can people find you? Yeah. Corey Martin reptiles, Instagram, Facebook. Um, that's usually the easiest place to find me. Awesome. You went with the smart choice of your name and your business. So the amount of creativity involved was, was pretty substantial. I just, I just figured I would simplify everything and not have people try to remember a business name and a person's name. Well, and then if you're like Corey Martin's ball pythons, then exactly. Exactly.

You leave yourself the freedom to work with whatever you want. Exactly. Yeah. Well, and I always think that's interesting too, because, you know, I think of Rico Walder and everybody thinks of him as a green tree,

Python, you know, Emerald tree boa, but he was a turtle guy, you know, most of his, and when we were in Australia, he was,

he would spend a lot of time looking for turtles and looking at, you know, they, we went and swam with the pig uh, uh, pig nose turtles in, in, uh, a collection. And this guy had a huge indoor or not indoor, but, uh, uh, I don't know, an, an enclosed, uh, pond. And he had, you know, fly river turtles or pig nose turtles that you could, that were swimming around in this giant pond.

And he had like beaches that he'd built up for them to nest on. He was really successful breeding them. And, and then he had a filter pond that was, that supported the big. Oh, there we go. I muted myself somehow, but it was well-planted. This, this supporting pond was well planted and it had other species of turtles. And, you know, all of us were swimming with the fly river turtles and, you know, they're like the freshwater sea turtles. And you're just like, this is so cool. And Rico's over in the other pond, like trying to find the little turtles in the filter. And he's like seeing how it's working and all this kind of stuff. But yeah, he was really geeking out about turtles and I'm like, wait, you're a,

you're a tree, you know, a tree boa and a green tree python. Like, what are you messing with turtles? You're like, Oh no, I'm,

I'm a turtle guy. I was a turtle guy long before I was a green tree python guy. It was kind of cool. But yeah, I mean, that's the beauty of reptiles is we have different interests and change those interests over time and absolutely different things and have new challenges like you're doing with the tree monitors. And we wish you the best of success.

Thank you. I appreciate it. I expect to see great things from you. I appreciate it. All right. Thank you so much for coming on. Thanks so much. We'll also thank Eric and the crew, Morelia Pythons radio crew. And we're sure happy to be under their umbrella and be a part of the Morelia Pythons radio crew team. And thanks again for listening. And we'll catch you again next week for more Reptile Fight Club.