Reptile Fight Club - Frank Payne debates Husbandry Practices

Episode Date: November 26, 2021

In this episode, Justin and Chuck tackle the topic of husbandry practices with special guests Frank Payne.Follow Frank hereIGWebsiteWho will win? You decide. Reptile Fight Club!Follow Justin Julander @Australian Addiction Reptiles-http://www.australianaddiction.comFollow Chuck Poland  on IG @ChuckNorriswinsFollow MPR Network on:FB: https://www.facebook.com/MoreliaPythonRadioIG: https://www.instagram.com/mpr_network/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtrEaKcyN8KvC3pqaiYc0RQMore ways to support the shows.Swag store: https://teespring.com/stores/mprnetworkPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/moreliapythonradio

Welcome to the MGR Network. all right welcome to another edition of reptileile Fight Club. I'm Justin Doolander. I've got the Wicked Brothers' Chuck. How you doing? I'm the other people, Chuck. What's up, people? All right, well, how are things? You good? They're good. They're good.

I'm excited for this fight. I actually just got my first couple of eggs of William's eye, so this is a fitting, you know kind of a fitting fight uh so yeah um very good very good yeah nice yeah i've just been uh plugging away at the book we got i got the splota uh chapter laid out for figures so that should be nice i still see nick like i need this picture i need that picture yeah he's like he's like we don't have any pictures i'm like dude i've got a folder you have access to that just look in the folder so yeah we'll we're getting there we'll get it done but yeah a few yeah few fun changes at the last minute to to revamp things and and uh so that's required a

little bit of uh effort in the always, right? Like, I mean, yeah, yeah. Always a delay. So yeah, I apologize again, but anybody looking forward to it or waiting for us, we're, we should have it, you know, pretty soon. Let's just leave it there. All right. Well, without further ado, we'll bring our guests on.

I'm, I'm excited to have him on the show here. And, uh, uh, I guess to, to bring it into context, Chuck was talking about William's eye. Frank Payne is kind of the master of William's eye and a few other species. He's kind of taken those projects on and done very well with them and, you know, shared some information and, you know, educated us on how to keep these animals in a productive manner. And so, yeah, we're excited to have with us Frank Payne. So welcome to the show. Welcome. Hey, guys.

Thanks for having me. Happy to be here. All right. Why don't you take a minute or two to introduce yourself and kind of how you fit into herpetoculture? Sure. So like you guys said, my name is Frank Payne. I've been involved in herpetoculture for pretty much my entire life, as long as I can remember. Since I was a little kid, I've been keeping and breeding reptiles since I was in the single digits and catching lizards in Houston, Texas. Sounds very familiar. Everybody starts right. And I was extremely lucky growing up to have a mom that encouraged that and fostered that passion. And I had a bathroom, we had a spare bathroom and that I converted into my lizard room. And there's an old claw tub in it that I built a wooden rack around it and had, you know, aquariums all over there and screen cages and everything. So that was all through high school, or it was mostly just like the keep two of everything.

Read a few things, but mostly just keeping stuff and enjoying it. And did it through college a little bit. And then right after college, I became a zookeeper for Clyde Peelings Reptoland, which sounds like a little roadside attraction, which it used to be in the 60s, but now it's been an AZA facility for many years, and it has one of the top five reptile collections in the country. Clyde Peeling and his son are some of the most important people in the AZA

when it comes to reptiles. So I was lucky to work with them for quite a few years through college, after college, and then even after I transitioned to being a science teacher I worked with them in the summers and vacations and stuff and I have been a biology teacher for the past 15 years and it seems like every year the hobby increases more and more to the point where it isn't now a business where my wife works full time, you know, for the family business at home. And, and yeah, it's, we've been really lucky the past couple of years and it keeps expanding and doing well. And so, yeah, I'm

just super lucky that I get to, you know, teach kids about science all day and then come home and work with the animals that I love and share that with everybody. Nice. Was she always into reptiles or is this something that you kind of brought? Yeah. It kind of came as a package when she married me and you know, like when we were dating and everything, of course I had plenty of critters and she always thought they were interesting, but, and she's definitely an animal lover and has not,

is not one of those people that dislikes reptiles at all. So she always found them cool but not like something that she would personally keep. And then just like more and more year after year, she grew to appreciate them. And now that it's turned into a full-fledged family business, she's really into it. She really cares about the animals. That's great. Yeah, I was a senior herpetology keeper for a number of years and I've trained over a dozen people and, and she's one of the best people

that I've ever trained, um, which is just absolutely awesome. Um, so I'm super lucky. Yeah. That's a, that's hard. That's a rare gem, right? Yeah. Very sure. Very cool. My wife is kind of a similar thing. She doesn't do too much with the reptiles, but if I go out of town for an extended period of time, she's prepared to go feed or water and things like that. That's great. Yeah, it's nice having a supportive spouse in that regard. Yeah, I've heard horror stories of the opposite. So, you know,'m super lucky that we have you know the opposite especially being a teacher right frank i'm sure you come home just

spent i know oh i'm dead yeah yeah yeah i think i was talking talking to you guys about you know like picking a day for this and i'm like you know basically basically any day but Friday because I come home on Friday and I'm just, I'm dead. Yeah. I taught high school for 11 years. And then when we moved to a different city, I had to take a middle school job. And so I work with 12 and 13-year-olds in an inner city school. So by Friday, I'm done. I'm like, let me sit on the couch and leave me alone until Saturday morning.

Yeah, my wife is a seventh grade teacher in a low-performing area. Oh, she knows. Very challenging. Yes, yes, absolutely. And she wouldn't have it any other way. But yes, by the end of the day and the end of the week, she is done. I am incredibly proud of what i do um i it's a lot of people look look down on it especially when it comes to like middle school as opposed to you know high school um but

man i am extremely proud of what i do but man it takes a lot yeah it takes a lot of energy absolutely that's cool yeah chuck and i both have both have daughters around that age in middle school. And, you know, I my daughter just kind of got an interest in reptiles and she is just full in. You know, she's awesome. She's going to the shows with me. She's selling stuff. She's learning all she can. I mean, she's just a sponge and it's been really, really fun. So I imagine, you know, teaching that age can be really rewarding in regards to, you know, they're they've got a lot of energy, but they're also looking to learn. People always ask me, what do I like better, high school or middle school? I'm like, well, I like the behaviors of high school better. High school is easier. You can have grown-up conversations with them for the most part.

But a lot of them are very apathetic at that point especially like junior senior year but like the seventh graders they're not apathetic at all um and one of the things that i do um is every friday as a reward as a positive incentive i bring in a different animal from my collection at home and we we call it zoo fridays and i bring an animal in that they get to see you know like sometimes endangered stuff sometimes stuff that you would never see in a pet store you know and sometimes a blue tongue skink that they can hold. Yeah. So that's, that's a nice thing.

Oh, that's very cool. That's very cool. I would have killed for a T. I guess I did have a teacher like that in high school. My, my AP biology teacher was fantastic. She actually led a junior high science camp in the summer that I was a part of. And we were hiking along a trail and I found a little baby. The group found a little baby rattlesnake and I had the bright idea to pin it and show everybody the fangs. Genius move. I love that.

Well, she came up to me and this is how I knew she was so cool. She came up to me. She's like, you might hurt the snake. You better put it down. I'm like, she wasn't worried so much about me. I'm sure she was, but she's like, she was worried that I was going to hurt the snake, you know? So that was pretty cool.

And then I had her in high school for AP biology and she was just fantastic. She let me set up like a science project looking at the effect of like acid rain on frog eggs, you know,, just cool. So help me just further that, uh, interest in, in, in scientific research and, you know, in, in biology in general, but, um, specifically in reptiles, she was supportive of that. So, and I, I was lucky like you, I had a mom and dad that were very supportive and let me keep just about anything I brought home, including different rattlesnakes and stuff. Oh, wow.

So, yeah, that's a rare group to be in, especially when you're in shows and you see all the kids that be like, I'd love to have one, but my mom or my dad won't let me. Yep. It's kind of rough. So, yeah, we got to count our lucky stars or blessings or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. Well, cool. Well, we since you're an educator, we we thought a good topic would to be to discuss, you know, methods of educating people specifically in regards to caring for reptiles, you know, uh, I guess the, maybe two sides of the issue would be, um, do we give them kind of the basics, uh, let them figure it out from there, or can you have successful learning from like, uh, I guess for lack of a better term, like a care sheet or, or a guide, you know? Um, and, uh, so if you, if you're game to,

to discuss that topic, I think we'll, uh, we'll think we'll flip a coin to see who gets to fight you. And then we'll go from there. Well, Chuck, you feeling lucky this week? I don't know. We'll find out. We'll find out. All right. Here goes. Heads. It's heads. You got one, man. All right. Well, you get to to choose you want to fight the great frank

pain or i absolutely will fight all right of course of course well yeah i'll be mr moderator today all right feel free to jump in okay well we'll let our guest call the next coin toss on to decide who gets which topic so um check one one so you probably got a good chance that you're gonna win the next one okay go ahead and call it tails all right we got heads chuck this is a monumental occasion here i think i don't even know i was i was preparing to lose this one i didn't i don't even know. You haven't even prepared a response. So man, I mean, if, if I'm, if I'm choosing true to my heart, um, I, I think I will go with the, um, the, the kind of the, the giving less information and letting people figure it outside. I think I definitely align that side a little bit more.

And, um, you know, I think, I think as far as like debating somebody who, uh, kind of, I don't want to say does the care sheet. Uh, I think if, if there is the care sheet, nobody does it better than Frank. So I feel like this is, this is a fair, this is a fair thing. All right. Sounds good. Okay. okay well you've each got your topics and chuck is the winner of two coin tosses in a row we're gonna let you decide if you want to go first or defer to our guest uh i'll let i'll let frank go first okay okay yeah all right yeah if you want to kind of give us an introductory uh statement or you know kind of start us off. Yeah, that'd be great. Okay. I'm glad that you won the coin toss actually, cause I would have had a hard time picking

which side because I kind of do, I have feelings both ways. But so my, my thing is, is education. You know, the, from the beginning when I was a zookeeper, my favorite aspect of being a zookeeper was doing the shows every day. It was doing the lectures with the public. And then eventually I transitioned to public education, working with kids. You know, like I love education. It's something I enjoy. I think it's vitally important. So with my experience and with the experience of others, you know, I don't think that should be kept. You know, sometimes we work in silos and sometimes people hoard their knowledge. They don't want to give away trade secrets.

They're afraid that, you know, it's going to hurt them competitive wise, you know, competition wise. But I take the opposite viewpoint. I share literally everything that I learn and I try to do so as much as possible. I write, you know, care sheets or articles that I post on my website for free. Uh, you know, quite a few of them have been published in reptiles magazine. I've had a couple of international ones like, and I do podcasts like this as often as I can because I like, so for two reasons, I like talking about it from a selfish point of view, um, and, and writing about it. And, you know, I want people to have as great of a chance of success with these animals that I love, especially animals that I breed.

I want to write something and give as much education as possible, what I breed, because I care about these animals. I want, I want them to be successful. I don't want them to start off with a poor quality care sheet or a starting point. I want them to start off with as good of information as I can provide. Awesome. Yeah. Well, Chuck, you got a response to that. That's a pretty strong opening statement. It is, and it is good. And I, you know, for that part, I agree. You know, and I think that definitely, you know, when you're trying to help somebody who's just starting to keep a species, there's definitely a good place

for that. And I think, you know, giving people a solid foundation. And, you know, I think as somebody who started out not knowing anything and moved through a progression, I found that, you know, learning that natural history and taking that and then applying that natural history to my keeping was something that was hugely informative. And I needed that starting point. But, you know, I think the, the pit, the potential pitfall of, you know, just giving somebody the care sheet or just giving them the, the formula, so to speak, is that they stop at that point. And, and, and, and not necessarily everybody, I don't want to put everybody in a box, but you know, if, if, if, if, you know, you just kind of say, this is,

here is the four walls that you need to operate in, people don't look outside those walls. And maybe what works for Frank in Pennsylvania may not work for me in San Diego. And so people need to be kind of tracking on that and be articulate about what they're doing outside of that informative care sheet that maybe they start with. So I think, you know, kind of having that base, but also, you know, being experimental within reason and using good sound judgment and logic is probably, you know, going to serve people. And I think, you know, we see that now with a lot of the way we keep, keeping has gotten better because I think people have started to do some of that.

Yeah. You know, and that, that's, that's all true. You know, that's all good stuff. You know, nothing wrong with any of that. But I, there are a couple of points, you know, that I will counter there is, you know, that's all good stuff. You know, nothing wrong with any of that. But I, there are a couple points, you know, that I will counter there is, you know, 30 years ago, 25 years ago, when I was just starting, you know, it, it wasn't from scratch. Like, you know, Philippe de Vajoli was, was a childhood hero of mine. You know, I mean, like, I was a reptile nerd as a kid, you know, his little manuals, his little vivarium series books and, and magazine articles, you know i mean like i was a reptile nerd as a kid you know his little manuals his little vivarium series books and and magazine articles you know like i devoured him i read him again and again there was you know i'm a chameleon guy and there was a couple of good chameleon books um out of europe out of henkel and schmidt and i still have them and you can barely open the things because they've been read so many times. And, you know, you look at those things now and like, I hear people say all the time, like, oh my God, that's so outdated. The information is so bad. I'm like, well, no, not really.

That was just what we knew at the time. That was the best we could do at the time. It was a great starting point. And I think that anybody that's being honest with themselves that writes or that, um, that educates in any way when it comes to captive care, it's not whatever we produce and put out there. Like it's not etched in stone. It's not a stone tablet. It's a living document. It's, it's progressive. You know, I based my entire reptile career, hobby, whatever you want to call it, on being progressive. I'm trying to improve myself every single year, get better and better and better. You know, I need to go back and rewrite some of my care sheets that I wrote five years ago because some of this stuff doesn't apply anymore. So that's the one point. And the other point I'll say is I do agree that

learning the natural history of the animals and visiting their habitats, especially if you can, is important. It is very useful. But what I'm starting to see now is people using theoretical knowledge and applying data from nature and trying to make strict husbandry recommendations out of it and husbandry you know reptile husbandry especially indoor keeping is not what these animals are experiencing in the wild and we are not even going to remotely come close to it they aren't the same thing. And I think that what I'm starting to see too much is like, you know, I think that there's very much a place for understanding nature and where these animals actually come from. But I feel like people are

starting to put too much emphasis on that in that there's no, no allowance for the captive environment. And it's just like, make it like nature, make it like nature. I'm like, well, yeah, that's great and everything, but we're not outdoors yeah you know i'm in my i'm in my basement in pennsylvania that's not physically possible you know and there are certain things that we can but certain things that we can't and maybe some things that we shouldn't can i jump in and just kind of ask yeah an example of how you see it you know maybe an example of a disconnect between natural history and and how you know you might keep something or um sure so chameleons for instance um some of the chameleons you know everybody thinks of a chameleon as a

tropical animal and that's not always the case right that's very very often not the case um and one of the things i'm seeing seeing a chameleon husband is like well these are the climactic conditions in nature we have to recreate that in the the hobby and so for instance like a species like first for lateralis the carpet chameleon you know they might be exposed to extreme temperatures seasonal swings in the wild that you know i've played around with these animals outdoors in different conditions inside in some of those conditions which they might experience in nature i've found them to not do well with in captivity temperature wise humidity wise moisture wise you know like i I think, activity, temperature-wise, humidity-wise, moisture-wise. You know, like these animals, some like probably live a season, probably live a year. You know, they hatch, they're born, and they're laying eggs within four, five, six months.

I always call them the insects of the reptile world, you know. Oh, my God, yeah. Yeah. And some people, that turns some people off. but for me, it's just so rewarding. It's just a fast thing, and I enjoy that. That's one particular area. Yeah, that's a great example. That's what I hear the most about.

We talked a little bit about the whole calcium thing, leaving calcium dishes in with geckos, you know, I, I've heard people say as well that that's bad for them. That's, that you shouldn't do that. But you know, like my counter argument is like with the William site, the Ligodactylus William site of the electric blue geckos I produce, you know, I've produced over a thousand of those animals and every single one of them, the breeding pair has a dish of pure calcium in it. And when I people message me all the time to troubleshoot for like a doctorless William sigh, my females not doing

well, my babies are dying, etc. And, and my first question is, like, has the female had access to pure calcium 24 seven? And in so many cases, no, they haven't. And then they switch over to that. And all of a sudden, the babies are doing better. The moms don't crash and burn after a few eggs. Is that natural to have a dish of pure calcium later on? No, it's not. Of course not. But what I'm doing in captivity isn't natural either. know i mean i have to you know i'm obviously missing something that they're getting in the wild sure because they're

not getting a pure calcium dish you know 24 7. of course not of course but you know there is something that i'm missing even though i'm providing high quality uv light automatic misting systems you know i mean like mean? Like bioactive terraria. But we're probably not replicating their full, um, you know, dietary intake from the wild either. Of course not. Yeah, of course not. Like I'm, you know, give them the high quality gecko diets, as many feeder species as I can give them. That's, you know, size appropriate. I do all that, you know, I gut load as best best I can of course that's another topic too right and I dust and everything but it for me that's like

there are safety nets that you can give in captivity that maybe aren't natural mm-hmm but may and maybe will be harmful in certain circumstances yeah but in most cases provide a little bit of an extra padding for people that maybe can't read their animals really well, don't have the experience to do so. That's a, no, that's a great example. One, sorry, Chuck, I'm going to jump in. No, you're good. Run, roll. Just kind of ask another question. So just as a, you know, a practical question in regards to the calcium bowls, how do you keep it from clumping or from getting bad really quick? Do you have to replace it frequently or especially in a humid environment?

Yes. There's two basic things that I do to make sure that it works is so a it's in a dish that is placed in a location in the terrarium that is not hit by the automatic misting system so location is important if it gets hit by water it's going to turn into a brick right way high i put it up high that way it's yeah i tend to put it honestly i you know because i don't have like suction i don't do like the suction cup thing i'm getting kind of lazy, I guess. And I just shove it in the corner, like where the misting nozzle is on the bottom. So it's directly underneath the misting nozzle.

The misting nozzle is pointing forward. So it physically can't have water on it. So I usually put it there. And then I do change it like twice a month. But that's it. You know, no big deal. I just dump it out, replace it. Um, and as long as it doesn't get wet, it stays reasonably powdery, um, for that length of time.

Cool. Thanks. Yeah. Just kind of an aside. I was just curious about that. Yeah. Cool. Yep. All right, Chuck. I forgot what I was going to say. You sidetracked me. No, you can blame me anytime. But I just I just did. So, yeah, I all excellent points. I mean, I think, you know, why I'm I like the side of kind of, like I said, the natural history, but yet letting people figure it out. And, and, you know, I think all three of us, I mean, I would like to hope I have more of a scientific mind where I, where I try to take all of the factors that are at play, um, you know, in nature and then bring them inside because at some level they do exist inside, but, but they're not the same. You don't have the same biotic factors happening, even inside a, you know, a bioactive enclosure as you do out in nature. You may have some of

the same governing effects, but, but they don't operate necessarily the same way. So if you keep it too moist or you, you know, you're not kind of really engaging in what's going on. And I think that's kind of where I would, I would say, you know, the, the being articulate and, and really thinking through, whereas like, you know, if you were to, like I said, just take that four walls of a care sheet and stick to that where you will definitely run into trouble. And I think that people who end up doing that eventually end up walking away from the care sheet because they're not thinking through stuff and they're not watching what's happening and making changes. So when things do go awry, they're like, ah, this is bad. What happened? And they have a bad outcome. And then that forces them to do that. And that bad outcome reinforces, oh, I can't just think about the care

sheet. So it's, it's, you know, it's learning, it's learning that mistake in that painful way. No pun intended, Frank. And, and, and my first name's Chuck. So, you know, I've heard quite a few of them at the expense of myself, too. So, you know, just kind of that idea that certainly you have to start somewhere and you have and kind of, you know, we talk about being a student of the serpent since we, you know, we all kind of started as carpet python guys. So, you know, just kind of really engaging with what's happening with your animals. And I think, you know, for me, that's the biggest part of it. But undeniably, you have to have a base to kind of start from. And if you didn't know, you need somebody. And I think I 100% agree with you that that base education and somebody there who, and obviously, some of these things you didn't come up with, you learn from other people. So I think we all stand on the backs of giants and we all learn from each other.

And, you know, what was in books 10 years ago, people look at it and say, well, no, we don't do that anymore. Well, yeah, that's that's right. We don't. But we learned, you know, from that. Right. And you have to get, you know, like any car ride, you have to start somewhere and you end up somewhere else. So I think that's kind of what I would say, you know. I mean, I think that's like a great argument for my side. So I appreciate that. Because like, again, like I stood on the shoulders of the giants, of the generation before me, I stood on Philippe's shoulders.

I stood on Henkel and Schmidt's shoulders. And now I'm already seeing a new generation of keepers standing on mine. The fact that I've given this education, the fact that the generation before me gave me an education, I was able to take that and make progress and push forward. And now I'm already seeing – I have a friend, Michael Nash. He's taking up carpet chameleons too, and he's figuring out stuff. Now I'm learning from him, but he started with something, you know, from keepers that came before him. And if there wasn't that free sharing of knowledge, whether it is just a care sheet or a YouTube video or a podcast or whatever. But without that, you know, this is the current state of our understanding. You know,

this is the best of what I'm doing. This is a great place to start. And then yeah, people were gonna start off with, you know, the strictures of that the four walls. But like that, again, that's the starting point. And that's a place to go forward and make progress. And if there weren't people, maybe kind of handholding a little bit, maybe kind of spoon feeding information like I do, you know, I'm a teacher at art, you know, and I may be a little bit too, you know, too free with it. But like without that spoon feeding of knowledge that they wouldn't have a place to go from and then there wouldn't be as much progress. Like, yeah, there'd be progress people would figure things out on their own but again like you know that's the course of human

history right um you know the a jet wasn't you know invented overnight you know there was like the wright brothers and you know there was horses but you know i mean like it just that's the way progress works it's not just one person figuring it all out. We have to teach each other and share and go from generation to generation. Sure, sure. I mean, I don't think we're, I actually don't think we're really disagreeing on that at all. You know, I think just in, you know, where I'm coming from is more the idea that you're right. You do have to kind of put that knowledge out there so people, you know, and it's more of like how the process works or how the

process should work. Right. And I think, you know, the idea that somebody has to be the teacher, somebody has to impart what they know and give people a place to take, you know, that starting point and move out. And, and, and hopefully they come back and they're sharing what they experienced and, and, you know, like to, to, to the, to the whole calcium thing. And, and, you know I think it all started, you know, Justin was talking to somebody who said, no, actually that they've seen, you know, animals OD on calcium or something like that. And so, no, that's actually not a great practice. And, and, you know, animals OD on calcium or something like that. And so, no, that's actually not a great practice. And, and, you know, I think the, the question came up,

like, has that been studied? Is that scientifically tested? What, where's your backing for this? And, and I think, you know, I mean, although anecdotally, I think you have great backing for that because how, you know, you've been extremely successful with William's eye and you, you give it to them. So, I mean, well, well, like as a human being, if we can quantify it with science, it's better, right? But don't results always speak for themselves. I mean, you know, if you can do it and you don't see ill effects, does that mean somebody won't have an

ill effect? Does that mean that that ill effect was directly resulted from the calcium or was there something else going on that they mistakenly associated with that? So again, it goes back to being articulate and thinking about what's really, what's happening. And sometimes you'll never know, but, but also being careful not to rush to that judgment, staying open to the idea. And, and like you say, you know, sharing, I think that's one of the huge parts of this is if you're not sharing the insights that you've had, then, you know, you're missing probably the best part of, of what we all do. Yeah. Can I jump in again here? I, uh,

I was pleased because I agreed with literally everything you just said. So I have no counter. No, we, we go from fight club to mild disagreement club because a lot of times we end up it's, it's, and this is a hard thing to, to, you know, find things to disagree about when there's so much agreement in the conversation. So, you know, it can be tough. Sometimes it even goes to kumbaya club, but we're kind of pointed that way. Chuck, so, you know, I like, you know, what you're talking about in regards to, you know, sometimes we get misinterpretations. And so maybe, you know, the calcium OD thing was not truly just calcium calcium maybe it was calcium and vitamins and they were giving them too much you know so of one thing or another so so yeah like maybe i'm sorry it was just like the calcium thing like like yeah maybe

they autopsied necropsy the animal and there was a calcium overdose maybe it was in fact but then maybe that animal wasn't getting the heat that it needed. Maybe it wasn't getting enough UV light to process that calcium into D3. Maybe it didn't have enough water to hydrate itself. You know what I mean? Yeah. So just, uh, there's a lot of, a lot of things in. So, so I guess my question, my question for Chuck was like, how do you vet, uh, you know, that information? How do you know what to test, I guess, is the question, you know? I mean, that's kind of tough. I, you know, I mean, it's one of those things where there's so much going on all at once that that's kind of, isn't that kind of the tough spot, right? Where you, you know, you almost kind of never know. And I mean, in, in, in, even in a scientific study, um, you can do pretty well, but even

still, I mean, you see scientific studies that are absolutely done exactly the same way and they get absolutely different results. So even reproduction, uh, under identical standards does not always work out the same way. So I'd say that's tough. You know what I mean? And I think you have to do with the best you can, but reproducibility and consistency. And I think probably Frank would agree with me that he works in a very consistent and a very reproducible way and gets very good

results. When I tell people, yeah, I completely agree. So when I tell people and why I say, okay, why should I listen to you? But when I read this other care sheet that says something completely different. And the most important thing in herpetoculture, and you mentioned this already, Justin, I think, is results. Results is basically all that matters. Results trumps theory. you know, results is, is, is basically all that matters. It results, Trump, Trump's theory results, Trump's, um, you know, natural conditions where the animal comes from. If you're producing hundreds of a species a year that very few other people are producing and with near a hundred percent, uh, success rate, like what, what's, what's the argument there? You know what I mean?

Like what's, where's the debate about whether You know, I mean, like, what's, where's the debate about whether you should or shouldn't use do something in that way? You know, like, that's what it's all about is the fact that if you can do something like that year after year after year, you know, with a very high success rate, well, then that's really all that matters more than anything else more than a new study that's come out that says this you know like reptile lighting is is obviously you know something that's evolving and is obviously very important but it is it's a tough pill for me to swallow when you know somebody that's usually significantly younger than me tells me that you know know, this lighting is where you lighting I'm doing is wrong,

that this lighting, it has to be this way, that this is the best lighting. I'm like, all right, well, I got a thousand endangered blue geckos that won't necessarily agree with you. Yeah. Well, and I feel, you know, and I, I wrestle with the idea that this is a hobby or a community as well as a business and an industry. And so lighting is – and we're getting better with lighting. There's new lighting technologies that are coming along or people are trying to develop these new technologies. And along with these new technologies comes the mantra of, oh, you got to use this because it's better. And so, you know, everybody's doing their work in quotes to say, ah, this is what we need to do because it's the best. And everybody may come out with a different result. And then are left to be like well wait what is i don't i don't you know i don't i don't know and it that's kind of like

i feel like that it's a it's a good way to kind of express where we're at with with a lot of uh lighting right now is is um there's just and and you know it's all hey, new technologies are great. And I think that the more we can push forward, the better it is. But sorting all that out and making some real insights as education as much as I can is your results may vary. I say this is what works for me. This does not guarantee you success. This is what I have found to work. I'm not saying it's the best way. I've never said that about anything I've ever done with these animals or anything that I've ever put out there. I've never said this is the best way or this is the only way, because we all know there is no only way,

especially when it comes to dealing with complex biological systems, which is basically what we're doing. There is no one way and maybe there is a best way, but man, it's so hard to pin down. Like you said, so many times we don't know what the actual answer is. We can get our best guess. We can narrow it down maybe, but we really don't know. It could be a million different things. And, you know, that does drive people nuts. Sometimes that asked me for help was like this, my animal died, my animal is sick. This issue is occurring. What is it? And then my answer is usually, I don't know. And they don't like that. They're like, well, you're the expert. You're supposed to be able to tell me these things. I'm like, I don't know. I'm sorry. And I mean, I always just tell people like, well, this is what has worked for me. This is my experience. This is my understanding. And I've had stuff that I felt like, oh, I made an insight. But if other people don't have success with it, is it an insight or was it just what worked? I don't know.

I mean, I have a really hard time giving advice to people who ask me anything because I feel like it's such a subjective thing. Now, obviously, I have not produced a thousand Williams. If I had done that, I would feel a little more confident about the words that I speak. Certainly, you have quite a bit more experience under your belt than I do, but I definitely think that you're always learning and things are always changing and you're, you're, you know, if you're napping on your keeping, you're going to have problems. You always have to be engaged every day, all the time. And, and, you know, the bigger your collection, I think the harder it is, the more diverse your collection, the harder it is. Cause you're, you know, you're trying to do so many different things. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, and I've, you know,

said I try to base my reptile keeping a progressive nature. Like if I'm, if I'm doing exactly what I'm doing now, five years from now, then I failed, then I have not, you know, even if I've, you know, still continue to produce animals, like I've, I've still failed in a way. So yeah, absolutely. And kind of, well I'm going to kind of like switch gears a little bit because something just occurred to me about like, in terms of the education side of things. And so in terms of a positive for putting that information out there, and I'll be honest, it's strictly selfish.

It saves me a ton of time. So I write articles on the things that I breed and that I sell so that when it comes time for someone purchases it, they get a link to an article. They get a link to a YouTube video. This is what I do. And so when somebody, and then if somebody asked me a question, which I'll get dozens of questions about certain animals a day or week, whatever, here's the link to my article. Read it. You know what I mean?

Instead of trying to answer, it's a strictly selfish thing from a breeder's point of view because I physically don't have time to answer the detailed questions. I can't teach someone one-on-one how to care for these animals, which is kind of my responsibility to do as a breeder. I'm responsible for the animal and for their hopeful success. And so by having something prepared ahead of time, that saves me a ton of time. Yeah.

It's like kind of putting everybody on the same base of knowledge so that if you do have to spend time, it's not, you know, going back from square one and trying to, you know, trying to inform people. And I, and I think point, if you're having success in an area, AZA organizations, they don't care unless you're published, right? They want to see that data published. They want it out there. They want other people to have that success.

And then they're like, oh, that's credibility. That right there. So there's definitely a place and a need for people to do. And care sheet is such a, I don't know. I don't necessarily consider a lot of what you're doing, Frank, as care sheet, right? It's certainly education in a written form, but I mean, education is in a written form sometimes. That's one of the great things about being a human. What's the zoo term for the care sheet? Is it like species operating plan or something like that? I mean, I know I know the term, but yeah.

SSP is species survival plan. That's for like obviously endangered species, but that's not usually, I mean, publication, i think is what they would say because like a lot of a lot of well most zoos for for species they keep right there don't they have to have kind of a document that says this is how this animal is cared for and this is so i mean absolutely i would imagine there has to be a standard a uniform standard of care you know that's agreed upon that's a successful way to to and and again those are probably uh moving targets to some extent but for the most part they probably remain the same uh over depends on the species for certain and the species that's yeah in the zoo for sure but like

like there are certain species like there are there are documents you know that are shared like this is how we do it um and you know i i've read quite a few of those um you know, that are shared, like, this is how we do it. And, you know, I've read quite a few of those, you know, for animals that I've kept privately, then, where, like, for instance, phrenosoma, aseo, you know, like, when I was keeping those for a little bit. Yeah, yep. Like the giant ones. And, you know, there is the only good information I could find was, uh, in a zoo journal and it was great. It was, but here's the thing. I mean, it was no different than what I write or than, you know, what any other, you know, educator writes about taking care of animals. Yeah. But yeah, so that's, you know, they, I think they just call it publication. I don't know.

I, well, I know, uh, um, I was talking to Alan Rapashi and, you know, kind of figuring out like, how do you do all this? Like, how are you, how do you have this, you know, crested gecko empire type business type thing, but then you're going and doing all these other things. And he said, he basically worked out, you know made the, the care guide clear enough that they could care for them properly. And then he'd come in, you know, periodically to check on the animals and make sure that things were being done properly and makes changes or adjustments. And, and, and he said it worked fantastically. He's like, one of the things I never do is hire a reptile person because they, they, one, they think they know better and two, they're not going to follow, you know, your plan and two two they're not going to follow you know your plan and two that they'll oftentimes try to take animals home with that you know or eggs home or

something kind of steal from you sometimes so yeah that was i believe that interesting so like the counterpoint to that is you can do that with crested geckos you can't do that with a lot of stuff yeah right yeah you know i mean like you could come up with a simple protocol that a non reptile person can follow for a crested gecko for a leopard gecko for a ball python, bearded dragons, you know, a handful others, I'm sure. But you can't do that with you can't do that with a carpet chameleon. I mean, those darn things throw me for a loop every once in a while. You know, first of her minor, a related endangered

species. I produce more of those than anyone in this country, a while you know uh first of her minor a related uh endangered species i i've i've produced more of those than anyone in this country i may be in the world and i had an awful season this year man they kicked my butt you know i had all sorts of female reproductive issues like you know it's and i'm and i'm just like limping through right now hoping to pick things back up where but for like several years i i had to stop breeding them i was producing too many where i wouldn't be able to handle it anymore you know so that's for some species you know like the more common stuff and the hardy stuff like crested geckos leopard geckos ball pythons but yeah you can't do that with everything when i try to do like with

my wife who's now um the primary uh caretaker of the animal so like you know she takes does the feeding and the cleaning and whatnot i wrote protocols that she follows like i write out a check i wrote out a checklist um that she follows i'm doing consulting work for someone else right now where i'm i've gone through their reptile room and here are my recommendations this is what you should do Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, you know, and set it like, so that somebody who is not very experienced can go through and do the basic stuff. But like,

you still need somebody like a supervisor that comes around, like, you know, like Alan said, that comes around and says, okay, this needs to be done a little bit differently for this animal needs this special treatment, you know, or at the very least a husbandry personnel that is willing to learn that and take that on. Yeah. It's definitely, you know, difficult with some species, like you said, you know, I'm curious on your minor chameleons, you know, what did you attribute that kind of change or, you know, the things that you'd been doing didn't work so well still, it wasn't individual animals. It was like a slew. It was like the most depressing thing that I've ever experienced in this hobby, in this industry. It was, gosh, it was awful. And it's, I'm starting to, I think I've kind of correct course, correct it a little bit.

I changed enclosures and I moved, right. I had a couple of big moves because we moved cities completely. Especially snake guys you know. You could keep them in the same rack and move to a different house and all of a sudden the snakes won't do what they've always done. That happened to me this last year. Yeah. So there was that. And then I did change enclosures enclosures which are literally perfect for the geckos and i've had or seem to be fine for some other chameleons but i don't think that i was getting i think that there was not enough ventilation um i think i think it really boiled

down to that like they just weren't getting as much airflow as they needed you know it was fine for them to survive and grow up and then you know with the breeding the females just crashed and burned either egg bound or when they laid they they crashed afterwards and this was just bizarre for me because like i worked with the species like i bought as when they were only imported into this country legally once since 1994 and i got as many of them as i could. And I had, and I still have a decent size group, you know, fingers crossed. And I was also, you know, cause I produced quite a few. I, there's quite a few out there, a decent amount anyway, with other keepers that are having some limited success with them. They are not producing hundreds of animals, but they are producing them.

So I can hopefully pick up some more. And I have some in a couple of zoos right now, and they're starting to have a little success. But anyway, I'm, I'm, I'm, I think enclosures is what, what really buggered me. So I'm gonna switch to something different that I think is more appropriate for them. And fingers crossed this next generation is better. Yeah. So do you think you could get to the point where you had a uh survival plan or a species uh operating plan to to get it to the point where somebody could just read that and follow it and have success or do you think there's just aspects of of that species that'll never be contained in a plan that's a good question that is a good question i mean i think uh

in terms of care yeah i think so in terms of breeding yeah i don't know i don't know about that that's their oh my gosh like their risk receptivity windows and like these and these are animals like where if you feed them the, if you feed them a couple too many crickets, they can become obese in such a short amount of time and become egg bound because of it. You have to be so careful with feeding. It got to the point where I was like, my wife was doing literally everything. I was like, I will feed these female chameleons. Wow. You know what I mean?

So don't feed them because i have to be able to read that animal i have to be able to look at that animal and and figure out based on my experience how many insects should this animal get how many is too many yeah and how many is too few because it is is a delicate balancing act with with some of these chameleons so so here's so here's a question for you frank and and you know this kind of goes back to one of Justin and I's friends, Terry Phillip, says there's a debate of if you put a reptile out, it will always make the best choices for itself, right? It's kind of the idea. And I think Terry sometimes would say maybe that's not the case. They don't always make the best idea, the best, you know, decisions for themselves. And, and so, you know, with what, what, what all we

said, you know, how, how in the wild, like, you know, if, if, if what you've seen is they're so sensitive in certain areas and, and you see maybe that they're not always prone just like humans or any other animal to always make the best decisions when left to their own devices what where is that regulation or do you think do you think it's other factors that maybe kind of um are are coming in on that yeah i think it's the environment that's regulating these instinctual behaviors it's like a self-regulation thing or environmental regulation thing so for instance like the the instinct of this animal is to gorge itself because, you know, food may be scarce. They may not get food for several weeks.

So I'm going to gorge myself now because maybe I won't get food for a week. Maybe this is an insect hatch that's only going to occur once or twice in a season and I'm going to live off of this forever. Chameleons will burn themselves on a bulb. You know, they will bask, they will cook themselves even though they have plenty of room to escape that bulb. They will cook themselves. They'll burn themselves. Um, because I think maybe because they have more extreme temperature swings in the wild. So like they're,

they're taking advantage of a perceived resource that for them would in in the wild would be much more limited maybe that heat would only exist for an hour a day but like here we have like a constant heat lamp on for 12 hours a day and they just don't understand that like i've seen chameleons bake themselves i've seen them burn themselves um and even though they 100 could escape you know monitor lizards i've seen that people have the basking bulb too close you know and again it's also like partially because it's unnatural conditions you know what the when i feed a chameleon this insect that's been gut loaded that's been or full of stuff that's that's literally like

in prime condition this insect you know like it's had all the food it could eat all the drink it could it could want you know and then it's coated in in vitamins and minerals and there's as many of them as it wants to eat you know so like that's not that nutrition bomb is not going to occur in the wild don't see that. Yeah. Yeah. No, they're not getting that. They're getting insects that are half dehydrated and yeah. Parasitized. Yeah, for sure. So I think that, you know, what we see with stuff like that is we have, you know,

a very instinctual creature, you know, doing stuff that's advantageous to them in the wild. That's deleterious and, uh, in captivity and in certain circumstances. Yeah. Yeah. Green trees are a great green tree. Pythons are a great example that I was thinking. They're always like in, in ambush position, waiting for food.

You know, if you fed them every time they look hungry, they, they get obese really quickly. And yeah, it's pretty crazy all right well um we've taken uh you know an hour of your time we appreciate it let's uh maybe have you give kind of a closing uh uh statement and then uh chuck will do the same and we'll okay end our here. All right. Sounds good. Well, it was my pleasure to be here. Our flew by really enjoyed the conversation guys. It was, it was a lot of fun. So I guess my closing argument of these kind of a rehash of some things I've already said is that, you know, in order for us to progress as a community and keeping these animals that we

all, you know, care about so much, we need to share with each other we need to provide uh education to the next generation of keepers um so that they have that leg up so that they can be successful and so that then they can then push themselves forward and push the hobby forward so that the next generation when our daughters are raising reptiles that they um you know they do better than what we're doing right now because of the foundation that we've laid because of the education that that we've given them yeah and we can only do that if the information's out there in a you know in a concrete form and not just floating in our brains you know yeah we always call it the bus effect if

if a bus hits me tomorrow can somebody come in and replace me at work and do my job, you know, and, and be successful and keep them. Man, you got it rough. The bus effect sounds rough at your work. Yeah. Well, we get specialized, you know, and you get this information and, and, and of course you're not going to pass all that on and that's, you know, impossible. But if you're writing it down and keeping good notes and, you know, writing down what your experiences are and, you know, that's the, that's one of the big reasons I decided to write, you know, some of the books just to get that, get it out there. And, um, yeah, that's, well, I mean, I think anytime you can, you wide array of research and information condensed for somebody and help them, that's a huge win for public keepers at large.

It's absolutely critical. That's the name of the game. And that's why it's, you know, so the work you're doing is so important, you know, to get that, get out there and share it and make it a collaborative effort rather than just a, it's a me thing, you know, it's my, my ego, you know, like, and, and like I, you know, writing the books, I'm not putting a lot of my own information there. It's standing on the shoulders of giants. It's, it's condensing things that have already been published and, and just might not be accessible to the general public. So. Well, and I think, I mean, to be honest, I think Frank is an outstanding example of somebody who freely shares their information has tremendous success and is, you know,

and is adored and, and, and liked for both of those things. So the idea that you need to hold onto these things as, as a selfish thing in order to be that person or that it's wrong. And, and, you know, to, to, to be that example, I think is outstanding. And, and, uh, you know, I just, you know, I, I come from a long line of teachers. Uh, my wife's a teacher, my mom is a teacher, my grandmother was a teacher. Uh, and I just just think educators are, you know, some of the most important people we have in our society. And so, you know, thank you for that. And and, you know, and and to those people out there, you know, go out and seek people like Frank or or or people who are doing great things. And, you know, measure success and longevity. It's people who are doing great things. And measure success and longevity. It's people who are having long-term success. There's a lot of people on Facebook, on the internet,

who will tell you what to do. And not all information is good information. So you have to be a discerning customer of information. And not only that, you got to be your own, you know, you got to be your own student and you got to be paying attention in your reptile room class and watching what your animals are doing, always changing, not always changing things, but changing things correctly on condition. And don't be afraid to, you know, stray from the playbook. Maybe don't stray far, but see what that effect is. Learn, you know, make, make observations and make changes. I think as long as you stay safe, most of these animals that we keep are, are fairly

resilient and can, can shoulder small amounts of change. And if you see a positive, great, keep doing it. If you don't, don't stop. So, you know, I think just, you know, like I said, you know, always be the student, always be paying attention. I think that's kind of my big, my big period on the end of this debate. Awesome. All right. Well, uh, Frank, if people want to learn about your stuff or get in contact with you, where can they find you? Sure. Uh, so I do have a website. Uh, it's my business name, living art by Frank Payne, P A Y N E. Um, so I have a website by that name, a Facebook business page, an Instagram and a YouTube channel, which I promise I'll make more videos on eventually. But it's all living art by Frank Payne. So please check this stuff out.

Awesome. Yeah, I highly recommend it. It's got some great information. So I've tried to restrict what I keep to a certain group or whatever. And then I see your site and I'm like, maybe I do need to work with chameleons. Maybe I do need. And I'm like, no, stop. But yeah, there's too many. There's too many great things for me to be tied down to one. I can't.

I love them all so much. Exactly. Yeah. And I guess I see a lot of people that have success with something and then it's kind of like, okay, I made that notch in my belt and I'm moving on to the next thing. And they, so it's, so it's good, you know, to, it is good to have a lot of experience with a lot of species, uh, kind of for selfish reasons, but also to have long-term success and to share that with others and to keep the project going. I go back to Burt Langworth a lot and his Australian water dragon production. And once he passed away, they became very, very difficult to find.

Now you have a few people producing them and stuff, but that's a tricky thing. I was very lucky when I was working at the zoo. I did a lot of our animal procurement and I was very lucky to, to have worked with Bert a few times and his Australian water dragons. I just remember the first time we got some for our displays and I was talking to him and I was like, I'd like a couple of, and I'm like, well, he's like, they're this price. I'm like, all right, well, how do you want me to get this money? And she's like, no, no, I'll send them to you. You make sure that you like them and then you can pay me afterwards okay burke thank you i would just remember what what a wonderful individual you know with uh jewel jewel lucerta's you know i'm taking i'd

take up now and you know he's a pioneer of those as well yeah he pioneered a lot of stuff and that was the thing too is i mean he would say oh you live in in utah uh you you could probably keep these outside you had to try this species or that species. And he's like, give me recommendations for stuff I can keep outside year round type things. So yeah, really cool stuff. And it seems like you're following along in that vein of, you know, similar, similar vein. Let's, let's make this better and let's, let's do, let's do better and, and keep them going. So yeah, good stuff, man. Thanks for coming on. Yeah. All right good stuff man thanks for coming on yeah all right

well thanks for having me yeah anytime we'll have to have you back this is good we'll yeah definitely topic for you yeah um well we appreciate everybody uh listening and and hope you got some uh good insights out of this i know i did and and uh enjoyed the discussion, even though I didn't get a chuck one or a coin toss for crying out loud, I guess. We'll have another episode for you next week and we'll catch you then. Thanks for listening. All right. Keep learning. so Thank you.