Reptile Fight Club - Is the Reptile Industry DOR or AOK? with David Levinson and Will Filipek

Episode Date: February 9, 2024

Justin and Rob tackle the most controversial topics in herpetoculture. The co-hosts or guests take one side of the issue and try to hold their own in a no-holds-barred contest of intellect. Who will win? You decide. Reptile Fight Club!In this episode, Justin and Chuck tackle the question Is the reptile industry DOR or AOK? with David Levinson and Will FilipekWho will win? You decide. Reptile Fight Club!Follow Justin Julander @Australian Addiction Reptiles-http://www.australianaddiction.comFollow Rob @ https://www.instagram.com/highplainsherp/Follow 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

all right welcome to another episode of Reptile Fight Club. Guests are back, people. We've got a couple good guests today. I'm excited to have these guys on. So, Dave Levinson, welcome to the podcast. How are you doing? Doing well, man. I appreciate the invite.

We wanted to do this for a while. Yeah, man. I appreciate the invite. We want to do this for a while. Yeah, yeah. It was kind of, this was kind of prompted by Dave sending a message asking if I'd seen this topic on Facebook or something. So it was a good topic and worthy of a fight. So we got Dave on and also with Dave is William Filipec. How you doing, Will? Pretty good. Glad to be on.

It's been a while. I've been bugging you for a while about these, uh, Justin, but I just, it's either been busy or just forgot about it. Just life, I guess.

Yeah. We, we had kind of a, a mix up or lull in the podcast a bit with, uh, yeah. With the change up. You start hitting a lot of the topics I told you about anyway, so it's kind of like,

well, you've hit them, so it's all right. Yeah. No, but yeah, I've wanted to have you on for a while, so glad we could get you on. So this will be great. Well, what's new? What's going on with you guys? You want to introduce yourselves? Maybe tell us a little bit about yourself a little background let's go ahead and start will well i'm will uh i run a company called tjw exotics and i work with a lot of different things and getting parents stuff up working on a building that i'm currently in right now. So yeah,

real busy. Yeah. Really impressive building too. You sent a couple pictures the other day. It was pretty, pretty sweet looking. I appreciate the facility. Yeah. Appreciate it. So if you can build that, build that kind of the ground up and. Yep. Yep. It was, uh, I tell you what, I, I, I posted a picture I cause I'm not on social media hardly now because of this, the whole building is taken up because we had the shell and the, uh,

skeleton of it put up, but we pretty much did most of the inside. So just, I mean, been busy for, for probably most of this year, you know? So, and it really screwed me rodent wise too oh my god horrible i we had to cut our collection in half put them in a small smaller shed that isn't insulated didn't have any way to cool them down this summer got super hot killed another half of the rodent collection so we it had stuck with almost no rodents. And I live close to Dave and Dave couldn't save me either.

I'm disappointed in you, Dave. Kind of close. I had to save myself, buddy. Rodents can be kind of make or break in some instances and it's hard. Just finding people with them. My God. It was like like it almost made me go like why do i do ball pythons they're the only thing that eats life

yeah i'm i've been breeding mine for you know 20 plus years so yeah it's oh yeah yeah it's it's hard when you have to go out and source them so i just kind of said i'm gonna do it but but yeah things get rough when it gets cold or too hot or too cold and you're right oh it was brutal like dave and i man i don't this is gonna sound bad but i can't bring myself to do what dave does dave drove down to like texas to get like 3 000 mice or Dave? This was a while ago, I think. Yeah, it was a shortage locally. We produced a lot of babies that year, and I couldn't find enough anywhere around me. And I could only do so much with frozen thawed. So, yeah, we did the round trip down to Texas. It was our only option, our cheapest option, to be honest with you, when I started calling around.

But I want to say it was probably like around 2020 2021 right around that time it's been rodents been short ever since then i mean i rodents have been short for 20 years i don't know it seemed like they were easier to get 10 years ago for me i mean great well yeah i mean my collection's gotten bigger but it's really just the ball pythons that are eating live rodents everything else i just i get frozen thed, and it's not too big of a deal. I get that. I prefer my frozen thawed species. Yeah, especially in times like this.

And I neglected to mention that we've also got our faithful co-host here, Bobby Rock. Rob Stone, how are you doing, man? Oh, how are you doing? Perfect. All right. Well, this lovely echo is a wonderful thing. Okay. Yeah, now it's gone.

Thank you. That's perfect okay so uh yeah well um i don't know how how are how are your breeding seasons going you guys uh in the thick of things you pairing stuff up or long past pairing up yeah just been pairing stuff up not not getting a whole lot i mean a little bit of breeding here and there but uh we'll see i i after last last year breeding wise was just so bad that i got hit with like the trifecta like we got we had a really warm winter maybe just a handful of days i got cool enough to cool my room down and then with the ball pythons they had such a rodent shortage that i just couldn't feed them that much so you know like the old saying if you don't feed them they don't breed so yeah and they

they didn't get fed as often as i usually would and i'm i'm kind of more like you guys though too with the feeding i don't i feed my ball pythons very seasonally so i try so i don't usually run into that you know issue with feeding wise with them so yeah yeah they can be a headache those ball pythons you treat them like anything else like i don't feed them for months at a time i tell you what they you maybe every once in a while you get a few that are still like, no, I'm dumb enough to keep going. But, uh, other than that, most of them usually go, he's like, Oh shit, I may not get to eat. I better take a chance while I got or got it. Cause I think everyone else's ball pythons get so used to, you know,

constant week or two week feedings that, you know, they can afford to go fast for a while. Yeah. If you make them fast before that well then they just they don't know then it's more like what they would see in the wild yeah i think uh ryan young called that purposeful neglect that was you know i've heard warren boost say too that calculated neglect yeah i mean it sounds bad but it's i mean it's true it's I mean, that's what they experienced in the wild. Why would you not go with a more naturalistic regimen?

Cool. Well, what are you guys excited for as far as production this year? Any projects got you foaming at the mouth? Well, hopefully I have better luck with pygmy pythons. I have one more female that she's had She's the one that's still yet to breed I've told you about my other two

I was having issues with their, not them breeding But fertility-wise with them So I'm trying this other girl and we'll see how this goes Mr. G-Ler saved the day with hitting you up because there's literally only maybe two people I could think of hitting up for pygmy pythons

and you're obviously on top of the list. They're a challenging species in a lot of regards but I don't think they're that extremely challenging. I hear a lot of regards, but I don't think they're that extremely challenging. I mean, I hear a lot of disparaging remarks from our good friend Owen, but I don't think they warrant those. You know, they're paying to get starting on food, but no worse than a black-headed python or, you know, whatever. It's like I've heard, it might even have been you that mentioned this but i mean it's like well you

were just not it's not that they're horrible to you know animals just we just don't feed them the things they should be getting fed you know and honestly i was talking i've been talking to a lot of people i've been like man we get these big companies for rodents and stuff i'm wondering maybe eventually someone might decide to do feeder lizards or something i mean shit ball pythons are bred to such an extent i mean why don't we just do feeder ball pythons and this might lead into our conversation later by the way but i'm gonna bring something along this this up later on but yeah uh yeah i don't know that's just what i i it's been in my head for a while you know fixing because something i've been meaning to ask you, Justin, about antheresia, you ever noticed

with the constipation problems with some stuff, maybe, you know, where like just the back end, you could tell they have the poop, but they're seem to have trouble pooping. I've seen it in a few like, uh, neonates, you know, like young animals, but typically they're pretty neonates yeah it's not not adults okay rock solid once in a while they'll have you can see the like the the the urate pellet the white pellet kind of stuck there or and and usually i just kind of help them work it out but it's i think that's probably because of uh you know like um feeding them rodents instead of lizards right well i'm wondering i was kind of wondering too is it well like rob knows i was preaching about this was like the python part or python when i

was on is uh we're feeding them pinkies and chances are we're just grabbing pinkies out of the bin or we get them from a rodent source that probably picks them out of pinkies and chances are we're just grabbing pinkies out of the bin or we get them from a rodent source that probably picks them out of the bin so chances are these animals still have a gut full of milk and i can't imagine that that going through the python system with a python that already doesn't eat mammals well neonate or baby mammals to begin with that you know when it does end up eating them that that causes issues as far as constipation and bloating or diarrhea and some you know like we hear i hear a lot with like the green patterns and stuff you know having prolapses and stuff you know to me it just it just sounds like a

i think it's just broden issues but we won't know unless someone starts feeding like geckos or skinks to their tinier species. Right. Yeah. I know Casey Lezik was telling me when he first bred the pygmies. And he said, like, he tried and tried and tried. And then he threw in a house gecko or something and just nailed it, you know, just right off the bat. And he fed it geckos for a bit until it got to a certain size.

And then it took rodents no problem. I mean, adult Antaresia eat rodents in the wild. We found a DOR children's python up in Darwin area and it had a bolus. And so we squoze it out and it was a big rodent of some sort, you know, some sort of mountain rat or something. So with the diet, I was talking to nick a while ago and uh nick was saying the pygmy banded pythons are typically lizard eaters even to adult size is that true i i would think they'd be the same like it's whatever yeah yeah i think they probably start i was just curious i remember him saying something about it.

Yeah. They do come from a little bit more of a harsh environment, I guess you could say. So maybe there's less rodents available in their natural area. So maybe I'm sure adults will take a lizard if they're given the opportunity. Right, right, right. Yeah. Right, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

Yeah. That's, uh, those are cool. I got to see those out in Australia a few years back. The piggy bandits. You lucky man. Those are, those are cool. Those are, I'd have to, I'd have to say those really, as far as the different looks I've seen of them, well, not different.

It's, I love contrast animals like that. So like the pygmy bandits with that bold pattern that's most of them seem to have i mean it's really cool that's why that's why stimson eye is by far my favorite as far as antheresia they're just you know uh that's i think that's why i thought it was appalling when they think that children or children's pythons are the same as stimenson's yeah i'm just like oh yes i agree i like how that i like how they they uh those two species are identical but like uh all the the curtis complex is all like 1.5 percent divergent from each other but they they deserve four different species you know or something like that and yeah i don't sorry i don't mean to rant about this i'm sorry no no you get me talking about australian pythons we could go

all night i'm sure but yeah yeah well dave likes australian stuff too yeah i think we could have a good little threesome there you go we'll have to save it for another day yep Well, Dave, you got any really exciting projects this year? Well, we're waking all the blue-tongued kinks up in a couple weeks. I'm always excited about that. Every year I try to do something a little bit different, see if something weird pops out that makes me want to pursue another project. Got all

our other little pythons downstairs. Our woman's been breeding really well for the last month and a half. I think we have one very close to an ovulation. Everyone else is building. Ball pythons downstairs. Like our woman has been breeding really well for the last month and a half. I think we have one very close to an ovulation. Everyone else is like building. Ball pythons are kind of hit or miss. I've got gravid females out there. I've got females with no follicles. I have females that are developing. It's kind of all over. And the bows aren't looking too bad. I think we're pretty close on our first ovulation of the year. I just had a litter two weeks ago for an off-season litter with a female. So there's kind of all this stuff going on. And then corn snakes, I get all the colubrid stuff woken up in a couple of weeks also. They usually come up the same time as the skinks. So in about

a month, it's going to be hell here because every day is going to be what's not breeding, what needs to be breeding. And you know what it's like breeding skinks. And when you got a lot of them, it is a lot of time of your day just getting rolling. Yeah. Now do you have a big facility with like different rooms for different species types or groups or whatever? So what we have is in the house, we have certain rooms that we keep certain things. We have a lower level to the house. So we kind of have that broken up for a few different things, whether it's grow out animals for boa constrictors. We got a room, we have a lot of our Australian stuff. I got the other room where I honestly keep my clubrids and

my blue tongues in, see, and I cool them all together. And then in the main warehouse, one half of the building is all boa constrictors. The back half of the building's all ball pythons. Now, of course, air can sneak from side to side. There's nothing really stopping it. But for the most part, everything kind of has its own little space. I, in the past, when I've had no space, have had multiple species in one room and we're still successful to an extent. But I know when I first got in the hobby, I bought a little bit of everything, which was too much. Jammed it all in a little room.

It really wasn't successful with anything. But then when I really started to make my focus on boa constrictors, just figured it out that I was able to breed something, produced that first litter, and that was it. But yeah, a little bit all over the place. I'm breeding children's pythons for the first time this year. Just nothing crazy. And I got some striped spotted downstairs I'm pairing right now, and they're building and they're getting into it pretty good. So, you know, every couple of years I try to get something new that I haven't worked with just for fun, like rosy bows. I've been slowly building up on for a couple of years, but, um, yeah, I just, I'm a little

addicted to everything. So I try to have just a little bit of everything. Yeah. I don't know. It's funner that way. Too many cool things out there for sure. Yeah. We don't know. It's funner that way. Too many cool things out there for sure. Yeah. We had a discussion. I think it'll be released here this coming week. Last week, Rob and I talked about different species that should there be species that you just don't

work with like Draco or something, you know, or they just don't do well in captivity or, or can we find a way to make them, you know, make them work or find a way? Cause ball pythons used to be the same way, you know, they were kind of the untouchable species. Nobody could get them to breed and they were very difficult. Now they're the most like commonly bred python in the world, you know? So it's kind of one of those things i guess no i agree with that with most species um go ahead i'm sorry oh no i was i was just

gonna see if you guys were ready to fight but didn't want to catch you ready okay well uh let's do this thing uh so we'll go ahead with the coin toss I believe David is going to be calling the coin toss So let me introduce the topic here We're going to be talking about the reptile industry So there's kind of a bit of doom and gloom From different sources online Saying the reptile industry is dying And it's in its final stages of death and we should all abandon hope and give up.

But I think there's a good debate to be made on either side. So we'll go ahead and have that fight. And I think we're going to do a little tag team here. So Dave and Will are both going to pick one of us to fight on their side, and then they'll pick which side they want. So I guess whoever wins the coin toss can either pick the side or their partner in the fight, and then the other one gets to pick what side they defend or vice versa. So, all right. Well, go ahead and call it heads. It is heads.

So, all right. Do you want to pick your side or pick your partner? Um, damn, I didn't think I was going to win this. Um, I'm going to go with,

um, the hobby's not dead Okay Alright So Will who do you want to team up with Oh Man You know Rob probably has

I'll go with Rob Rob has a pretty good insight on the industry I think from working with Pro Exotic, so I think he might have a pretty good insight on a lot of this stuff. So I choose Rob. All right. Okay. And then as the winner of the coin toss, Dave gets to decide if he goes first, leads it out, or if he has Will go first.

Will and Rob. I'll let Will start. Okay. Let me start. Okay. Well, I think for me anyways, I don't know. I'm more picking

certain parts of the industry that I think we're slacking in or we should change or look at a a little bit differently, unless Rob wants to go ahead and start with something, which I don't mind. Well, I think, yeah, from my perspective, this is good. This is sort of the form of the thing because it's, I guess, it's going to push me in a way that isn't necessarily my natural predilection on this. So I think the way that I would start is sort of by defining the terms, right? So to the extent that when people are talking about this, what they're talking about is saying sort of the days of the pyramid scheme almost, or it could be negatively categorized as sort of the pyramid scheme atmosphere and either get rich quick or sort of selling a dream,

that I think maybe some of that is dead in the sense that people are seeing through some of that and saying like, OK, what's the real benefit to me from just buying into something that you've already produced, right? Because invariably, as we've seen with all these projects, right, there is a natural tendency on new people to go to the people that actually made it famous in the first place, right? And the only way, at least over the course of the last 20, 25 years, that people that aren't the person that is known for that entity, right, the person either, if we go back far enough, right, with the Reptiles magazine ads and Terry Dunham, right, selling his enterothristic Hondurans for

$1,500, you know, $1,000, whatever it was, if we're viewing it through that lens, if you got them from Terry, okay, that's the price, right? And sort of creates this idea in your mind that this is a real thing. But if instead I got it from Dave, it doesn't, even intrinsically upon receipt, it doesn't feel like quite the same thing, right? It doesn't come with the stamp of having come from Dave. And I know, heck, I mean, well, you've seen it with the Bloods and Short Tales, right? A problem that's happened sort of throughout time has been like if it's a Barker-approved project, then it has 5x value than if it's something that is equally, if not more cool, but isn't something that they're working with. That's been a thing for 20 years. That's not new, but maybe people are more aware of that now. Maybe the, quote, industry has expanded enough that we're getting people that are more open to that reality and just having more insight into that. And heck, I mean, shoot,

if people are going to a reptile show and you go and see, and even people who breed ball pythons are invariably walking by the tables of people who breed ball pythons because all of it is just replication. We're not at a point like 10 or 15 years ago where amir could be at his table and everything he has is stuff out of wild caught stuff that is nothing like what everyone else has right we're not that's not where we're at right now right right yeah i think i've got some stuff out there yeah okay. Okay. I was going to say there's a couple. A little feeders for you, Will. Yeah. I was going to say a few things I'd like to, you know, point out that you said, too, that I think on just the, I don't know, like the, like you brought up the, what was it? The kind of betraying yourself in a certain way. And I've noticed, I wonder if that's getting to become more of a detriment

is some of the top tier breeders in the industry showing off this flashy lifestyle. And then it just creates this false sense of, I don't want to, I hate to say hope because I think some people look at it more realistic, but then you just got people, when you're talking about animals, who start getting this wild dream. Well, if I had this many animals, maybe I can get this kind of lifestyle or something. Because I've seen a lot of people, especially during COVID with the big boom and everything the covid breeders coming in and looking to uh you know plunk down their 401k and all that into this or you know taking loans

out on their house and try to get into this and i i just that's a dangerous game to play man especially if you had a snake and you want to go from a snake that you had 10, 15 years ago to I think I want to have 50 or 100 snakes. You know, I think one of the craziest things I remember ever hearing was and it's probably still happens. But I remember a while ago I was at a reptile expo and um this guy i never saw at a local show before i just started talking to and he um he goes yeah i had my first season and he said he had 25 clutches his first season i go holy shit you know some people might not you know apparently boutique is still two or three hundred that's crazy but but you know but 25 i'm like geez your first year and you're 25 clutches i get about 30 clutches and i'm i'm like no i can't do that we're speaking to someone like

dave though who has like 200 boa litters you know 500 ball clutches and he's gonna laugh mentioning this but i think though i think though these are people too that just they go from zero to 60 like i mean really quick and you know dave knows i mean ball python people are doing this really quick there is no such thing as slow growing anything and when it comes to ball pythons that's something i've noticed too with the market is that it's shifted a lot more to where people don't even care to buy a neonate anymore they'd rather buy a sub-adult or adult or nearly adult animal for you know for be the same as a baby's price range but bigger animals so there there is no such thing as patience in this and i i i think that's that is

we're going through this cycle again that i'm sure all of us have seen where you know first it was the new genes and then every new gene it was you know top tier and everyone wanted to produce a million of them well then that faded away. Then Kevin did the whole combining stuff. And that's when, all right, now we combine these genes. Now it doesn't matter what it is for $10,000 and it's still brown and black, right? Or whatever it was, it didn't matter. It could be like a spot,

this you guys may not know, but it's like a spot nose, well, spot nose, hinge, and woma. So it's like two of the lethal genes you put together in the super form. So you get a super wonky snake and, you know, that would still be worth $10,000 then. And so then that steadily went away and then it became how many genes we can add into a snake. And then eventually the recessive thing became a thing. Now it's multi-recessive things. And you start seeing these trends and I can't help but wonder, like, are we getting to the end of it?

You know, I only see one other route we could do with ball pythons. And that's every route that every single reptile has taken and that's selective breeding you know pick a rot you like in a mutation and be like jnd or not jnd jd uh uh you know with these antics you know be known for one particular thing and be really good at that one particular thing you know rather than trying to chase some multi-recessive clown project that, you know, and that's something I remember hearing back in the day too, where a lot of people were talking about these eight or 10 gene incomplete

dominant combos being white with specs, but these four or five recessives combos are starting to look the same too. Like I don't people are telling themselves a sunset clown pied and it looks fantastic i go it looks like a mojave pied just no pattern and kind of dingy colors and stuff don't get me wrong i like the i like all three of those jeans but together they probably should never be put together in the first place. But I don't know. I might have went off on what Rob said.

No, you're good. So the one thing I want to toss out there just because I do think it's so intrinsic and a problem and probably something that we won't focus on being mostly snake and lizard but, Dr. J notwithstanding, maybe. The leopard gecko market is the one that I see most violative of what you mentioned, where everyone goes from zero to 60, right? Like, it's almost like, oh, I have a pet leopard gecko. And then it's, oh, I want to start breeding them. Whenever I hear about that, invariably, the answer is, oh, I'm small time. I only have 50, you know eggs and it's like that's a hell of a lot of geckos for someone that is going into a market where there's definitely

the market to uptake those but not necessarily at that price point especially in the absence of the infrastructure to support it from that person right and it's just i see that so much and it really uh makes me sad to be honest is it's like that is intrinsically a problem that there's very little middle ground where it's like legitimately leopard geckos talking about selective breeding. There is huge potential for that. And there are people that are doing it. newcomer would be far better situated to spend more money and get one excellent pair to take in their own direction and their own mindset. And it would be much easier to cultivate interest in that one select thing that was maybe what six or eight babies over the course of a year. But invariably, it's, oh, I have this handful of, you know, handful of pairings or whatever

that easily turns into 50 or 60, uh, babies in a year. And there's, it's not a surprise in light of that, that almost invariably the life quote, lifespan lifespan within the hobby as an industry person or whatever of a leopard gecko breeder is a year and a half or two years. Yep. Well, I think you guys came in hot. That was some good punches there. And I mean, I guess I'll maybe throw in something real quick and then let Dave take over. But I think while we're defining things, and I agree, I think this thing is cyclical and we see this rise and fall of different trends, different, um, and, and they all seem to circulate around making money rather than the passion for the animals. I mean, I believe they start with the passion for the animals. I mean, I, I look at people like Kevin or Brian Barczyk or whatever, you know, they, they love the animals.

There's no denying that. And they, and they're very excited and passionate about them and they're, and they're great, you know, at promoting their, the things that they work with. But I think, like you said, a lot of people get in for the wrong reasons. They see, oh, I'm going to jump in this pyramid scheme and I'm going to make lots of money. And then when they realize that's not the case or when the people have less superfluous money to spend on pets, then that kind of goes away. And I think it's kind of a, it actually strengthens the real hobby, which is the passion for the animals, wanting to share that with other people, wanting to show people how cool these animals are. And when those, you know, car salesmen that got

into this as an investment opportunity, get kind of cleaned out from the, the lull in the market, then that's when we can strengthen and go back to kind of the roots of the thing. So I don't know. That's how I kind of respond to that. I don't know if you have something to add to that, Dave. All right. Well, I'm going to start from the top and work my way down really quick. So first off, so pyramid scheme. There's no doubt that you can make a comparison to everything being a pyramid scheme in life whenever it's money exchanging hands, especially in stuff like this. I'm not going to say it's kind of like a dirty way of talking about a hobby because when

you start saying things like that, it does kind of, I don't know, it's a dirty word in a lot of things when you're talking about business. But I want to start from the people coming in and what the difference over the years have been. So we talk about people coming in and spending their 401k, putting everything into this. Here's the reality. People open bars, people do a lot of things with their money if they believe in themselves. And some people believe that coming into this could be something that is beneficial for them, maybe from a financial end and also maybe beneficial on a, I'm enjoying what I'm doing end of things. Now, I will say that the shelf life on people, I've always said it's around five years because if you buy babies,

it takes about three years to get your collection up to size. One year of breeding, maybe you make some mistakes and usually by the next year, you got to figure it out. And if you can keep it together for five years, you might have a fighting chance to get a decade out of it. Now, for people that come in and fail, maybe from bad advice and things like that, you can give 10 different people $10,000 and they're going to all be in different places in the hobby right now. So you got to keep that into one of the reasons that this just doesn't work for everybody. I know a lot of people that came in with nothing that are very successful. I know people that came in with a ton of money, half of them are gone, half of them are still doing it.

And I do think that selling success is not a bad thing. The reality is, is from the outside looking in, people don't want to think this is just a labor job, but the reality is this is a labor job. You're constantly cleaning, you're constantly doing maintenance, you're constantly trying to figure out ways to do better. And usually the people that don't, again, will fall off and fail. I think it's individual cases. And I think one tough thing about this conversation too, which establishing the ground rules leading up to it, are we only talking ball pythons? You know, when I look at different species in the industry, they're worth a lot more money today than they were eight years ago. And they're worth a lot more money today than they were

eight years ago. And they're holding pretty steady. And one thing I had noticed in the industry over the years is where gecko species like leopard geckos will bring people in because it's easy. Now that we have ball pythons figured out, people can come in easily and work with those species. Usually when the sales slow down on that species that was their training wheels, they tend to go to all these other species, rhino rat snakes, smaller pythons from Australia, maybe a lizard species that they like. I don't think it's always the best idea for someone to jump in the hobby and go after a very difficult species because that can be very discouraging. Think of all the people that bought bullens in the 2000s and failed with them either killed them or just weren't successful breeding them um i feel like it's only been the last like five to seven years that there's been success and it's only because we've actually looked at the function of the animal how they are in the wild and now that we've actually paid

attention we're like oh well this is what we've been doing wrong and there's a lot of people that are doing it we just had the clutch in kansas city missouri that a breeder um had william will name drop him in a second. I always forget names. But again, it was a difficult species that a lot of people gave up on. But no, a couple of people paid attention. Ari did a lot of really great research in the wild, figured out some stuff that made it easier for people. But as a whole,

I think this hobby's always had the up and down. I think ball pythons are usually the one thing that gets the most attention. And I always say that the highs and lows of the ball python usually affect the rest of the industry. Now in a positive way, when us ball python people stop making money, we put it into other parts of the hobby. And I think that goes a long way. And honestly, a lot of the sales I'd make on different species I'm working with a lot of times is funded with ball python money. Same thing, I always argue with shows,

you know, we argue there might be too many shows right now. And, you know, we don't have to get into that argument on this one. But, you know, a lot of these shows exist because of ball python breeders, which gives opportunities for other breeders to sell anything that they want, any rare species, so on and so forth. One more thing, you know, again, going back to, you know, the strength of the hobby right now um you know let's just say woma pythons i feel like four years ago five years ago woma pythons were very difficult to sell um price was pretty low on my table a lot of times or 150 online and then during covid when we had all these new people come in and want to be a part of the hobby

they went after these rare unique nostalgic animals nostalgic animals in the hobby, like Womas, like Dumeril boas, and there was none available. So the price shot up and that market stayed there for a little while. And there's always going to be a different factor on what's going to bring a market up and down and economy could have something to do with it. But again, I'm looking at a lot of these more rare species or more random species that you just don't see a lot of anymore. And they're still holding very true. They're still selling very regularly. I think that, um, when we get on Facebook and social media,

my opinion does kind of hurt this nowadays compared to what it used to, but on social media, when there's all the doom and gloom posts all day, um, 2007, 2008, we pretty much would go on fauna and see seven new collections up for sale. Um,

same thing on Kings, take their recollections up for sale. Again, we're not always going to succeed at this. And the reality, and I'm sure Rob will agree, if we all did succeed, we would overproduce for what the demand in the United States are for animals. And then hopefully, maybe you're clever, you're able to export certain things. But the exportation of stuff too has to be a factor in this. Black milks went up to hundreds of dollars after being a under $100 animal, but that was because the Asian market took onto them. So even with blue tongue skinks, when we had the surge in the United States and people in Hong Kong were buying them, that brought the price up. The demand was

there. So there's always a lot of factors, but I will say that outside of maybe boa constrictors, crested geckos, bearded dragons, ball pythons, and I'll say corn snakes too. There's still enough of those being produced. Those are the markets I feel like you're going to see the most of a roller coaster in. In a lot of these other markets, I find that the roller coaster has been pretty steady for you guys, if not really kind of better for you guys right now. So, you know, I don't know if the market's dead and, you know, when you bring up ball pythons, you know, you kind of made the point I wanted to make. You know, first it was chasing imports and that was the main thing. We all just wanted that brand new project to develop ourselves. Then it was okay, cool. Well, look what happened when new project to develop ourselves. Then it was, okay, cool.

Well, look what happened when I put these three together. Wow, reduce the pattern down to nothing and look at the white up the side. That was exciting. Then there was a new norm and then there was a new norm and then there was a new norm. Every few years we decide a new direction that we're going to take ball pythons and sometimes it's guided by either one force in the hobby, that one guy that everybody looks up to that maybe does something that you couldn't think of yourself. And I don't mean that in a bad way, but I think more people in a market is better because you get more directions to go in. I can't always know what I want to do for breeding, but when somebody does the right breeding that I like, well, now I have a direction. And a lot of this is kind of copycat stuff. And sometimes we get lucky along the way to make some cool animals.

But, you know, again, too, with these discussions, I really think it all starts with, you know, mainly ball pythons and how that market's doing. Because, again, the reality is that ball python money spreads its way all over the hobby. You know, everybody gets a taste of that, whether they believe it or not. And I think that's something to keep into consideration. But, again, other market species right now, I'm not really, I'm seeing hognose flying off the shelves. My buddy Junior is killing it every show. I'm seeing a lot of people sell a lot of stuff. I just think that we're hung up on ball pythons right now, like we always are.

I think that we got away from making certain pets and we've neglected the fact that the pet market's always going to be there. We need new animals for the pet market now. And to make new animals for the pet market without making some of the old classics means what you thought was investable is no longer investable. And that is the truth. So sometimes in ball pythons, I think that fads happen. And I think fads will affect the species as a whole until somebody creates a new fad that we all need. And like William said, recessive has been king for a long time. Everybody said recessive was safe. Recessive is not safe anymore. Everybody has a collection completely built around recessive. So all they have to do is add one

codon and machine into a recessive and it's treating a codon like bringing it to your normals back in the day. So that's also affecting the market when we're all chasing the same thing. So again, I always have a lot of faith in the ball python market because I've seen so many crashes over the years. We saw bananas go from $15,000 down to $1,000 in just a year or two. We saw the GHI follow it and I didn't even think it should have. But at the same time, simultaneously, they went down in price. And then we've also seen a lot of projects and Desert Ghost is the best example that was in the industry for over 10, 20 years. Nobody wanted it. Kevin McCurley did some cool stuff. A couple other guys stuck with it, made some combos. And it was just kind of like,

eh, now literally if you don't have Desert Ghost in your collection or Desert Ghost Hypo or Desert Ghost Clown Hypo in your collection, you don't even have a relevant collection in the modern day alt Python world. So I always think there's a lot of factors in all this. You know, I hate to show on the market because I've seen it come up and down so many times. But I will say that I do think there's going to be a pretty big correction in ball Pythons based on some projects that just aren't what they used to be. And the fact that there's so many new people in doing similar projects right now that the assumption, like Rob said, that you're going to create

something that somebody are created and somebody is going to want it. Sometimes that's not how it works. You know, sometimes, you know, that'll give you a little direction, but if you're always copying somebody else, you're not going to be successful. So in my opinion, don't follow the trends. You need to be a trendsetter and trendsetters always have a moment in ball pythons okay now i got something to say about that so tons here just say what again there's a ton here yeah we'll have to go for a while okay so dave what you said about the species i get that but the thing is i think the species is just going to be a delayed market well market dip i won't say market crash but a lot of the miscellaneous stuff is going to take longer

because generally speaking a lot of the people getting into this miscellaneous stuff or at least people who are getting either larger quantities or bigger groups of them are typically ball python people or people who do other common species that are like well maybe in their head if i get some something rarer or something different that'll help me out so a lot of times that'll be a lot a little bit of a delay and most of the time what happens when people do that is especially if you come with the mindset of a ball python, you know, a male breeds in five months or a female breeds in 12 months, you know, and people want to take that same mentality and try to bring it over to a different species. And frankly, you end up wrecking a lot of those species. Or sometimes it's delayed because you do have people who listen. So

some people, it's either going to take them longer or they're going to kill them all by getting them too fat or just you know just wrecking them so i think a lot of that other species is going to be a delayed you know and you're seeing some of it dip down now it's not that it's not it's just it's more steady because i think a lot of that rush were ball python people who are getting that stuff you know now it's starting to peter off and a lot of them already have it because the thing is with the species and i tell people this you know it's not a species that's gonna help fix the market the problem is with the species when you start putting too much emphasis on one species and everyone produces that one species you're gonna crash your market a whole lot faster because the harsh reality is a

savu is a savu a white lip is a white lip a scrub python is a scrub python well obviously different species but there's not different morse and that's what's given the ball pythons and so many of these other animals you know longevity and the hobby and so much more financial gain is because of the morse let's face it you can get a lot of one species, just some different paint jobs. You know, a lot of these other species you can't. So if, you know, if I bred white lips and 10 other people bred white lips, well, then the market's probably going to go to shit relatively quick. So and that's, you know, any species like anteresia would be another one. You know, you know, people would

want to get Antaresia till they have to feed a bunch of Antaresia babies. And they're just going to be like, well, this isn't a ball python. Why would I do this? You know, or something, something along that line. And frankly, you know, a lot of the problem I, I have with a lot of times the ball python people getting a lot of this stuff is, you know, a lot of times it ends up becoming, you know, they'll treat that kind of stuff as one species, right? And that's what I think complexes are interesting is why all these different animals evolved to become what they are today. But a lot of new people who get into them, especially with that ball python mentality. Just like the boas, Dave, they just fuck it up. They go, there's only one boa, or they just don't care, and they breed it all together. That's why in some ways, I'm kind of glad the anterosomores aren't here, because guess what?

They would magically all become one species, and everyone would breed all of them together. And then you got people like Justin, who's dedicated 20 years of his life to that species going like wow we had such a prime opportunity to do some really cool stuff and everyone goes and fucks it up you know pisses in the punch bowl if you will so i i don't necessarily think that getting into different species is gonna save you unless you're i wouldn't even save you and you're passionate about it but if you like a certain a different species makes it easier to sell because you speak differently when you're excited about something compared to something you're just you know trying to just get rid of

because you're tired of it you know i'm sure all well i'm sure justin and uh rob you've been on the phone with nick or something like that you know when, when he gets talking to you, he, you know, he gets you excited about whatever species it is. You know, there's a reason for it. If you're passionate about it, it makes it easier to sell. But the thing is, if you just go into it with the mindset of these, the morph aspect of it, when a lot of these, no, no other species has morphs like ball pythons so they're you almost can't equate them to being the same you know and like i said i think the markets will dip even further with other species i just think it's going to be a bit more delayed for a few reasons either people get them and wreck the species or the people who do listen it's just

going to take longer because it's going to take them a while to get them up to size uh-oh do we lose dave i didn't mean to piss you off, Dave. Well, so, Will, the the first thing I'll say just just for clarity and, you know, to be on the same page with this, I'm the only person in the world that Nick doesn't keep on the phone. So now I've talked to him, I think I've talked three or four times for a combined like 12 minutes. So I'm the one person in the world that has that situation. So I can't relate. Sorry. It's amazing. You tell him to shut up. I don't even like pythons. I'm a colibrid and bone guy. Yeah, I don't know. Maybe that's it. It's intrinsic in there somewhere. I don't know. So I guess we'll continue a little bit in the interim. I know how that certainly I feel for Dave on this. It's happened to me.

I guess the thing that I would first say is that when you mentioned, okay, if there are actually 10 clutches of white lips out there, that they might be, quote, less cool or whatever. I think there's something intrinsic to that, too, where the fact that they're no longer as unattainable or as like, oh, I'll be seen as the cool guy. If 10 people in the U.S. produce them in a given year, then maybe it seems easier. So there's less of that appeal that it's this challenge and I'll be special for having done it. Right. And that's obviously not everyone has that viewpoint, but I do think there's some aspect of that. And certainly. So there was a ton here from what Dave said, and mostly I'm aligned with them. And I think actually until the end when he gave us our big critical point. So I agree with Dave that the whole situation with people dipping into 401ks or putting a mortgage mortgage on their house to buy reptiles isn't new.

I mean, shoot. I think the first time I saw it was in 2004 at Daytona, talking with the guy who'd just gotten a second mortgage on his house to buy ball pythons. And who knows? Maybe if he'd picked the right thing, maybe that would actually have turned out really well. And maybe it did. I don't even know the specifics or how it went for him or whatever, because he'd be on the very front end of all that stuff. So definitely, yeah, not unique or new, but I do – so I take that point really well. I agree with Dave totally that both reptiles and, heck, you were mentioning the trouble with rodents and all that stuff, all of those things, it's like being a farmer it's it really is the labor it's showing up every day it's really a test if you have success or not is going to be defined by whether you can have that mentality of showing up to work every day because that's really what it takes it's not that it's hard i mean you have to maybe have some intrinsic sense of it or at least be open to reading your animals and say, hey, what is it that you're telling me?

As opposed to, you know, it's not I would say baking a cake, except I live at altitude. So that doesn't even work. You just follow the non altitude recipe. It doesn't work. But it's really the test of your own perseverance and your willingness to put in that labor. So I think that's a great point from Dave there. I also totally agree that there's still interest in different things. And so fundamentally, I think what we're talking about now is sort of these, the big ticket items and the question of, quote, investment and that sort of atmosphere. I mean, heck, people have been keeping reptiles for a century in captivity, more than that, I'm sure. But in terms of like, easily recorded in the United States,

this is what they're doing. And there's an interest in different things or more difficult things. That's definitely the case. And I do think, to Dave's point, that when someone sits there at the reptile show with their table full of ball pythons, and even the people who love ball pythons don't stop, the natural incentive is one of two things either to dave's point right either you're going to get out entirely or you're going to go into something else i do think that's that's totally the case and there has been it's been fascinating over the last 20 years like 20 25 years ago just based on the content that was available it was far more common for people to sort of be

exposed to a breadth of things and then pick a narrow lane and go forward in that, right? So it would be, I'm aware, Kevin McCurley is aware of all the snakes in the world, or at least, you know, I mean, heck, read O'Shea's book. There's a heck of a lot of them, but aware of 40% of the snakes that are in the world and chooses a lane and goes down at Brian, same way. So that, you know, there's that path. Subsequently, because of the success and sort of, as Dave talked about, sort of the lifestyle of some of the really notable or successful, you know, successful, particularly in a business sense, folks who are selling it as

a lifestyle. There have been a ton of people who joined the reptile hobby who only know those sort of common items. They didn't come from a breadth and then narrow down. They came from this super narrow exposure. And then maybe when they're either based on success in that, causing them to spread their wings into different things, or the lack of success saying, hey, I love reptiles, but this clearly isn't working. Let me try something else. You have these people who have come in from narrow and are only now seeing the broad universe, right? potential there because again there's you know what 5 000 different uh snake species or what it's squamates and then it's 1500 serpents or whatever it is right um the i really this is the second show on a second show in a row that i've mentioned that i really should look and define that figure so i can reference it appropriately um something to note for next week. Okay, cool. Um, but, uh, yeah,

no, I agree that, you know, social media, doom and gloom, full of doom and gloom. That's sort of its intrinsic nature. That's not unique to reptiles. That's sort of how people are on there for whatever reason. Don't love it. I mostly avoid it, you know, cultivate your exposure for sure. Um, and I, I agree that, you know, failure with the hard stuff is part of the allure. Right. Dave, another great point. You know, I totally agree. And I think the heck. So two more things. The you said, Dave, that the investable is no longer investable. Totally agree. There are definitely different things out there. It's just the if we're approaching sort of this discussion of saying, like the things that are known to be the quote investment quality animal. Yeah. I think

that's the stuff that we're really questioning here because as I say, people have kept reptiles for a century. I've, you know, all of this has no bearing on whether I will keep reptiles. My ability to sell reptiles will not affect whether I keep reptiles. Not at all. And I'm definitely not unique in that. Finally, some of this stuff, if we just talk about it, say like bananas. You talked about the market situation with bananas. That's a cool snake, man.

That is, someone just walks up to the table. There's no sales pitch. That thing looks cool. A pied, same thing. Someone who doesn't know reps out, that's a cool looking animal. And that hasn't changed. It's just sort of all this extra baggage that we're bringing with it. Finally, I would just say there's definitely a market if you like what other people don't like.

In the sense of there's less competition if you're out there in this space doing doing your own thing. And that's really, I think, maybe the the part when we say or if we're talking about is the industry having a problem to the extent it means doing what everyone else is doing. Yeah, probably. But if people then have opened their mind to all these different things and are willing to like what other people don't like, I think there's a ton of growth there. Yeah. I want to jump in just with an example from my own experience. You know, about 25 years ago, I really got into carpet pythons, kind of discovered them, you know, as I was looking into the Australian reptiles and just fell in love with them. When I was buying my first jungle carpets, you know, they were a couple hundred bucks, but nothing too terrible.

But as I found out later, they were just coming off of their huge wave of popularity and kind of hitting that trough. So I kind of got them on the downward curl. And by the time I raised them up and bred them, they were kind of surging again, you know, coming up on the, on the wave. And so I was able to sell them very easily, very quickly and, and, uh, for,

for good money, you know? So it was kind of like, but then, but then a few years later, I saw that they kind of dipped in price and they weren't selling as quickly and things like that. And I think anytime you're in, in this, uh, working with something you love because you love it, not because of its market value, you're going to see that peaks and waves, and maybe you don't breed as many that year, you know, that they're in the trough and then you breed more when they come, you know, they're riding that wave. But I, I do think that it's, it's very important to have a champion, you know, for that animal. And I think if you're kind of behind the scenes and you're quiet and nobody knows about you, you know, the animals you're championing probably aren't going to get the limelight they deserve.

Whereas if you put yourself out there, make YouTube videos, hype them up. You know, I think about all the benefits I've gotten from Morelia Pyth's radio talking about how cool inlands are. When I first saw inlands, I thought they were kind of ugly coastals because I'd just seen them in pictures and I saw some in person. I'm like, this is a completely different animal than I thought it was. And then I got them in hand and I brought some over from Europe. They were fantastic. Calmest carpet.

They're the perfect pet carpet Python, in my opinion. And, and after, you know, 10 or so years of, of Morelia pythons radio kind of singing their praises, they've kind of become a lot more popular. And my waiting list for inland carpets is, you know, quite long right now. So I, you know, I think that championing and sticking with the project, even when it's in its trough, you know, it's, is, is worthwhile as well. And I think, I guess my, my kind of point on this is that's kind of the true hobby. And so I don't think that will ever die because there's going to be some kid that just loves reptiles, just like we do. They don't know why.

They just do, and they love what they love, and they don't care what's popular or expensive or not expensive. And some of the coolest reptiles are not expensive, and they're looked at as trash species by people trying to make money, but they could be the coolest species in the world, and you can get a lot of benefit out of keeping and breeding those. And and who knows maybe if the imports stop those things will shoot up in price and that kid that just had that passion will all of a sudden make all this money because of something they love but you know i think like rob said we're going to keep them whether they're worth

anything or not you know it's just kind of the the in this. Go ahead, Dave. Do you hear me okay? All right. Here's the thing. Again, when you're working with anything that's alive, there's not a passion there. You can't put it in the closet and forget about it. Where some of us do make the assumption or the stereotype that some people come in for the money, again, those people never make it, in my opinion. If they can't do the day job, they're not going to get the paycheck.

And, you know, again, the toughest thing about these interviews or these conversations is there's always so many different variables in every species we can talk about. You know, it's kind of where I'm like, man, we should really just focus on maybe like the ball pythons and their effect on the rest of the industry a little bit. That's what I'll probably argue through this. Did we just lose him too? But yeah, so here's the thing. So first off, well, you made the comment about morphs coming into a species and you don't want anybody muddying up the waters based on morphs. And I understand that, but also you don't really have any control over what people do after an animal leaves your house. And when it comes to mutations, and the Australians have proved it, and I always make blue-tongued skinks as the example, the crossing of Easterns and Northerns in different mutations

is common practice over there. And I'm sure in other Australian species, it's probably pretty common practice to undercross things so they don't look at it as a bad thing. Over here, where those kinds of things are sought after, you want it to be pure. Same thing with like dwarf boa constrictors. I know people that want pure Costa Ricans, pure Hondurans, like everything's got to be pure. And then you get some people that are just very morph motivated and say, man, if I put this T positive Argentine with this other animal and then maybe breed it back again. What am I going to get? And again, they're mutations. I don't find it a problem when people are mixing mutations. In book instructors, it's just common knowledge that most stuff is going to be hybrids, especially if you're in Colombian mutations. And when people buy into it, they don't really

think about it that way. So every one of these projects, every one of these species, it's always going to be treated differently. You know, that's, again, up to you as management on your own projects in your own business. But again, you know, even, you know, like Justin said, man, people want your stuff that you're producing. You got a waiting list and that's not going to change. And, you know, me with skinks, you know, I got into skinks because I thought they were an amazing animal. I thought they were a good alternative than a bearded dragon as a beginner pet. Easier diet, more extreme temperatures.

In my opinion, I think they handle a lot better too. And for a long time, they were $75 and they were $125 and they were $150. And then the variable. Our chick goes to Australia. He goes to Joe Ball's house. We see all these mutations we'll never have, but we always assume we'll get everything. We then all of a sudden see Brian talking about him on Snakebites weekly. Everybody wanted skinks. And you remember that market, people were selling normals for $450. Some people were marking them up to $800, $900,

and people were buying them. It all came down to a supply and demand. A demand was created overnight unexpectedly. And for people who had stuck it out with that species, Fenn, Ray Gerge, guys that put in 25 years, were so fortunate for those 20 years of nobody giving a shit about what they were doing to suddenly selling out to everybody. And they had a couple of really great years. And then I hate to say things leveled out and there was a lot of variables again within that species. But like I said, I think the most followed market in this whole industry will always be ball pythons. I think ball pythons are always gonna have

these crazy extreme highs and lows. It's gonna be stressful. I think some people are gonna find it comical because they think they're right because they said things were going to crash. But again, it's all supply and demand. And again, that market, again, reinvents itself. That market never says, okay, it's over.

They say, cool, well, I'm going to try this really quick and hope for the best. Or I'm going to try this really quick. Or hey, I'm going to try this and even though it doesn't look good, I'm going to talk about it so fucking much, you're going to want it anyways. So like I said, a lot of variables and all this kind of stuff, a lot of specie variables and all this. And I really think everything comes to supply and demand. And again, I mean, there's a lot of other correlations within the economy you can put against what we're doing in our industry. When the stock market's strong, our industry is strong. When the stock market's weak, our industry's a little weaker. There's so many different things, again, variables that are going

to put this market in a bunch of different directions. And another thing that maybe it's a whole debate in itself, what have we been saying for 20 years? What's the next ball python? What's the next ball python? What's that next species? Everyone thought it was going to be blood pythons for a while when you saw Tracy Barker in her galleries every day showing new mutations. Other snake-wise boa constrictors had a chance, but that is a species that is larger. Not everybody can work with. Again, variables.

There's a million mutations in retics. They are beautiful. Can everybody handle a retic? No. So even though that is a market that has a million mutations, it's not a strong market because of it, where other species give them a lot of mutations. Crested geckos the last five years of the hobby are everything ractodactylus. You gave crested geckos true mutations and you suddenly saw Crested Geckos selling for $37,000 for two simple mutations put together and people bought them. I watched a guy make over $600,000 at a single show selling only Crested Geckos.

I called Pete Callup and asked him what his best day ever in Boas and Ball Pythons were. I hit up everybody thinking there'd be like a number close to it. A third at best on a best weekend ever with a customer come over to their house afterwards to spend a lot of money. So again, you know, morph motivated for sure. Other markets overseas will affect what's going on here. And, you know, if you look to and you know what the world market's like, you know, it all kind of all starts with the United States a lot of times. You know, and that's why I always argue that

Europe has some of the best looking of everything because they cherry picked the best things we made for years, brought them in and only bred the best of the best. And that's why you saw some of the better leopard gecko projects over there being done. That's why some of the pastel lineages of boa constrictors and purple sharp albinos look better there. Nothing compared to what we're making here. You know, they had good ingredients and they made better stuff. And again, the Crested Gecko market, it's because the Asian market, the Korean market went nuts. They got them, they have them now and they're not buying them like they were. So, you know, like I said, there's always going to be a roller coaster and there's always going to be a variable. And, you know, sometimes you can make guesses on markets.

The reality is if you focused on the Madagascar market and when you knew it was going to shut down certain species, if you had those species laying around and maybe held onto it for five months, they're probably worth five times what they were when you first got them in. Monkey tail skinks in this industry. Every time they rediscover a new island with monkey tail skinks, the price plummets because there's all of a sudden monkey tail skinks everywhere. Then we can't, I don't want to say take all of them, but take so many that suddenly we can't take them anymore. And then all of a sudden you see monkey tail skinks for $1,200 to $1,600 to $1,800. So like I said, this market

just always finds a way in my opinion. I don think this market will fail but i do think people within the market will fail because that's just what business is okay so you let me down a bunch of rabbit holes i kind of want to chit chat about um so this might be something rob might know but more about so um first of all i think we should be more concerned about what we're crossing into what because you know with a lot of these legends you know the laws and everything you know bands and all these different species and um you know like burmese pythons you know being banned in georgia and stuff like that it was because of i guess they were worried about the worm that's in their lung, killing and harming native species that, you know,

when a 18 foot berm has a worm and it goes into a, or gets transferred into like a 12 inch snake, then it's a little bit different, you know, or something like that. But with that is my question more towards rob because you might know more about this and probably any of us three but like so if we just you know like bob clark for instance crossing a bunch of ball pythons with retics and burns what happens if you you can't

sell it to georgia at that point right or you can't send them to florida because they're at least half what happens if we start getting all these crosses? Well, then we're going to crash a market if we can't send them anywhere because we decided the willy nilly, this is becoming a hybrid talk, but I promise it could crash a market pretty quick if we can't sell these animals because, oh, it's three quarters berm or it's half berm. So let's just band it all then, because we just can't, we don't know what it is. We're going to be safe than sorry.

Right. At least I'm sure that's what those States are going to think when they, you know, look, if they look into it, can I say one thing on that really quick? Yeah, go ahead,

Dave. I'm sorry. So, and you're breaking up a little bit, but, um, so here's the thing. I don't think anything in government will ever be like, Hey, look, this is a 95%. This it's banned.

My biggest concern with that would be when they say pythons are banned in every state and anything that falls under a Python category falls in that category. So, I mean, I keep that in consideration because, you know, I think that, I mean, you remember the papers that were wrote on green anacondas that broke it up into what, three species? And that was one of the arguments made when we had the Lacey X run us the first time around. And two with Burmese pythons, you could have said that market was dead, but when they got limited to only selling their animals within their own state, a normal Burmese python was whatever that guy in the state wanted to charge because he had no competition anymore. I saw albinos at the show for $4.50, $6.50 in Tennessee.

Before that, you sell them for $125 on a table. So laws will, of course, affect us, but it doesn't necessarily move. How long will that actually last? That might be good for one season, but then you're going to cut your market quick or fairly quick by doing that. So that's a good short-term resolution, but it's not something that's going to get you by for the next 20 or 30 years. That's only going to work. And then obviously, state by state, it's going to vary too because certain states, there's probably going to be less people who are interested in that stuff than others, you know, compared to like Missouri to California or something like that. So I don't necessarily think that that's true. You know, that it'll, it might work for a little bit, but it's certainly not a long-term thing. So let's just say that guy in Tennessee that decided to stick it out in his own state, he might not have realized that his animals were worth as much as they were. And I can say that based on the fact that also a lot of those big constrictor breeders

ran to Texas because their biggest market was in Texas. There was a lot of sales coming out of that state for these animals. And then when they all got down there and their market was so oversaturated, there was a failure there. And they went out of business and a lot of them did. And honestly, too, if you look at the burn market, just with what that roller coaster has been, so you had them get banned, you thought they were gone forever. You suddenly were the only guy in your state. You made a fortune because you had no competition. Yes, probably over a five,

six year period after that, you would have competition and then it'd be a different game. But the laws got changed and they didn't have to worry about that. But if you go back to 2008 or even nine and say, hey, did you know there's going to be pied berms someday and we're going to charge $15,000? People would have thought you were crazy because they would have thought they wouldn't be able to sell that animal if they had that animal.

But everything changed. And the thing is, is laws are always out of your control. Try to find things that you think might slip through the cracks. But again, they could say Python and and man we lose all our pythons well yeah i could see that i don't know i i think it's just if ball pythons i think it'd just be harder to go after and so that's why i'm wondering, well, if they're hybrids, wouldn't it just be easier just to get rid of it or just stop it there

compared to just, you know, banding? I just, I don't know. I guess I don't see the ball pythons. I see that being more likely than them banding ball pythons outright, you know, at least in my mind. But as I said, I think Rob might probably be able to speak more on that than I would. It was just something I had, I would came to mind when I was seeing Bob putting like a berm ball back to a berm or back to a ball pipe on or something. I was like, kind of curious how that would play out. Like if you were to send that animal to Florida,

you know, I probably would assume you couldn't, but. Yeah, that's an interesting legal question, right? And it's going to presumably vary by state, where it's both in terms of legally and in terms of enforcement, for sure. The interesting thing is that if you're talking about things that are End species listed, hybrids of endangered species that are listed so you can't sell them across state lines, those actually are not protected because they're hybrids. So they're no longer the endangered species. So the most common context for that that you see is the Cyclura lewisii, the grand cayman iguana hybrids. So some of those that are actually sold as hybrids are actually not. So there have been various projects over time where folks have been able to take blood samples. Then it turns out, oh, actually, what I bought as hybrids are actually not hybrids. They're pure grand cayman iguanas. And at least one person then alerted the Federal Fish and Wildlife about that, and they gave and took them. But in the endangered species context, the way the law is written, it's actually legal to sell something that would be illegal if it wasn't a hybrid because of that.

But in terms of what you're talking about with state-by-state legislation in terms of banning different forms of animals and things, yeah, that's going to be hyper-specific. So I couldn't give feedback on that. But it definitely made me think of it when you just mentioned sort of the legalities of hybrids question. Yeah, that's an interesting one from the record book. Galops kind of fall under that too, right? The Galapagos tortoises, they could have them because they were hybrids. Yeah. Yeah.

So if they are hybrids, then you can sell them. Yeah. Yeah, so if they are hybrids, then you can sell them for free. Does anybody know how it works with tegus? Because that's definitely a species that those rules are starting to bleed into the neighboring states of Florida. Is there any rules in and out with hybridization with those? So in that case, I think probably it's going to be like what you mentioned, Dave, where that for the most part, and I don't know the specifics, you know, either in Florida or across those states as to how the legislation is written. But in general, I would assume that's probably more likely to go to the general level or even above that in terms of saying what that ban looks like, particularly in local municipalities, right? I know Chris Bainshob is not the first reptile keeper who lives in Corpus Christi, Texas, and they have some pretty egregious, at least from a sort of captive husbandry side law in terms of particular.

So I think all Boyd snakes are prohibited within the city of Corpus Christi, which is pretty crazy. And Gus Renfro used to live down there, and that actually caused him to get out of keeping reptiles. A famous boa breeder was living there, and either that law changed and he wasn't aware of it or whatever. But there came a day where there was awareness around that, and he had to get rid of all of his animals because of that, not even state level, but being in Texas, otherwise an open state. But that particular municipality has a pretty draconian view of the whole thing where you keep colubrids. So there's a handful of colubrid breeders down there, but that's about it. Houston is the same way. Houston has an eight-foot rule.

Anything that can exceed eight feet is illegal in the county. I don't remember what the name of the county is, reptile industry as a whole is all the supporting products. You've got your paging manufacturers, lighting, feeders, all sorts of different aspects of the support industry. And I think, honestly, that helps strengthen our industry as a whole and makes it harder for legislation to get rid of it because when they see the amount of money, not just on the reptiles themselves or money that's being made in the sale of caging or food feeders or whatever. I think that really, really shows that this industry is not going away. It's only becoming stronger. You keep seeing new innovations, new, you know, the new lighting systems that are coming out where you can have, you know, a gradual light appear, you know, the Arcadia lighting stuff and, um, just different innovations and different, uh, things coming products. I mean, you've got the whole crested and other, you know,

rachidactylus type geckos being surrounded by the, the feed, you know, the, the food and several different people manufacturing crested gecko food and just really speaks to that, I think. Sorry, I kept hitting the button. It didn't go. Yeah, again, you know, I look at prices on certain things and I think people are doing better than ever. I do think there's a lot of really great new products coming out. I do think that, you know, another thing too, like even talking Patreon groups, there's a lot of people that are active in a lot of Patreon groups that are

members of a lot of Patreon groups. I mean, you know what it was like back in the day. If you wanted a one-on-one with the breeder, you got to hope they either answer the phone or you go down to, and are you good on the Daytona and go to the BOA conference and hope that Jeremy Stone, all those guys that are hanging out, whatever it should happen to be. So I do think that we're always finding new ways to make it a little more, like you said, modernized. We are no longer backyard breeders like we might have been in the beginning. We're no longer just taking melamine and building racks.

And don't get me wrong, some of us are doing that. Nothing wrong with that. But the caging is getting better. The rack systems, if you choose the rack systems, are getting better. The polycarbonate tubs on rack systems that look like they're just aquariums in a sense. There's just so many things that just keep on fueling the industry and keep on showing it's expanding. Now, I will say the professionalism might not be good enough when it comes to government. I remember we used the argument back in the day, look how much of this we spend money on. Look at FedEx, look at betting, look at all these things that are going to get affected when we're gone. I don't think that's ever going to really matter. I have a buddy that's in politics and he had made a comment while talking to one of those bigger hedge funds.

He said that the biggest issue that our industry is going to have is that you don't have a side. Democrat, Republicans, you don't have a side. One of them doesn't go with you. They both hate you equally in a sense, or they both like you equally in a sense. So not necessarily having a side to hold on to, I think is always going to hurt us on that. And again, I think when it comes to laws and regulations, that is just a variable when it comes to the strength of this market that we cannot control. But again, it is something that blue tongue skinks are back to my example. When we were able to export them, the market was stronger.

We can't export anymore. As far as I'm aware, I keep on hearing that some you can, some you can't. But for the most part, I hear skinks are a no-no. So with them being a no-no, hell, knobtails is another good example. I'm sure you understand that market. Those can't be exported like they were before. So that market completely changes because that market was being propped up by the overseas market and the Asian market.

So regulations are that one variable when it comes to this market crashing, you have no control over and you will see price fluctuations in species based on regulations that are coming into play with government. last October where he talked about that very thing, you know, where different countries and their, their, uh, I guess buying strategies or, or the stuff they were interested in and, and how, you know, shutting down or, or different countries slowing down on their orders from, from stuff from the U S affects the market and, and affects, uh affects how the pricing on things here, because if you're all of a sudden not allowed to export, then all of a sudden you have a surplus in the U.S. because most of that stuff was going elsewhere. So that does definitely impact it.

But also those things kind of ebb and flow, too. So, I mean, it could naturally slow down, but it could also slow down because of government intervention. And, you know, if you, if you're in this long enough, you see those cycles and you see somebody get into the whatever office or whatever decision-making area and change the rule and say, no, we're going to go ahead and allow this export. Or you have a champion that's going out there and saying, Hey, you're impacting my business. We need to be able to export these. These are all captive bred. There's no illegal activity going on.

You know, we need to make this happen. And they change the rule or, you know, make it allowable to export again. So, um, again, I think, you know, when we work together and we band together and we, you know, I guess another great example of that is the U.S. ARC and some of the other organizations that are there to kind of help fight for our rights and represent us in a respectable and professional manner. That definitely helps. I think where we fail is when we're divided, you know, and, oh, I'm a, I'm a, uh, Python guy. So I don't care about the gecko guys, or I'm a tortoise guy. I don't care about the lizard people, you know, that kind of thing. It can definitely hurt us when we band together and we have bigger numbers, uh, we're stronger

and we have more of a voice. So I think organizations like USARC really help us come together with a kind of coherent strategy to prevent some of these bad things from affecting our industry so uh justin and oh even you uh brought up a good point so when like uh certain species get um you know there's no longer imports or exports even of certain species like um i think it works up to a point but i think the problem is most reptile people don't understand or don't not understand but i guess they just moderation they just keep wanting to go bigger and bigger and they want to keep growing. You know,

it's not like most businesses, like there's only so many people that are going to be able to keep or want to keep blue tongue skinks. It's not like something you have to have. And I, you know, I, that was always something I was never a big fan of was when people equate this to the farming, because these are animals you keep as pets. These aren't animals that are going to become food products or something. Rodents I would consider more farming. Reptiles I don't think you can consider it the same thing because you're talking about an animal like a ball python, for instance. The St. Louis Zoo has one that's 62 years old, and that's just a snake.

That's not including tortoises and turtles you know that live twice that or more you know so i i feel like we just like my question i have kind of a question i wanted to ask you do you think in this day of age do we really need big breeding facilities like you know i know gourmet rodent isn't a thing anymore, but like some of these other places, you know, these big franchises like that supply the Petco and PetSmart. Cause I remember the talk back in the day was, Oh, Petco and PetSmart would get people into the hobby.

But I don't know if that's true anymore, especially after COVID when everything become more digital. Like, I'm almost willing to bet I bet when you add someone like Brian Barczyk, Snake Discovery, a lot of those people are probably creating more, you know, eyes on this industry than even Petco and PetSmart are. Because why would I go out if I don't have to leave my house, I could either watch it at home. And then if i want to get a reptile i'll just get on morph market or get on some reptile site you know or for whatever reason so uh oh that was that was something i was kind of curious about and particularly day's opinion because i know he was very much so for the you know everyone having their their thing and i just i just don't know in this day and age, if it's, should we even have those big companies anymore? You know,

Capitalism, buddy. I, I, I, here's the thing. You know, if you find a way to again, supply a product in the industry and do it in volume and do it successfully, and you're putting out a good product, you're always going to do well. You know, we saw the new facility that Darian posted for roaches, man, what a beautiful facility. You know, he's found ways to do them in large numbers, not having to worry about things that can go wrong along the way because he built the right facility out to do it. And I think a lot of these other things we're talking, especially rodents, I do think there's a right way of doing it. I wouldn't say a wrong way, but I think there's

going to be people that do it in different ways. You see some of these facilities where they have the big ass fans, they have these beautiful metal racks and they're producing rats. And then you go to another guy who's literally using a chicken coop and he's got fans blowing around and he's got no way to regulate his temperatures. He's also rats as long as the product's good in the end i think that's all that matters um these big companies you're talking about i i totally agree with the insects the feeder stuff that i i think could be equated to farming i'm talking more like when gourmet rodent and all the you know pumping out was is it 5 000 ball python clutches or whatever you know i'm talking animals that would go into the pet trade it'd be different

if the pythons were going towards food but we're talking about the pet trade you know he may not be a popular guy but sean bradley had a interesting, he, he said something pretty interesting. It's like, I made 10,000 cinnamons or something like that, you know, in a course of a year or a couple of years or something. And he's like, you know, where does it go? I want to know, you know, where are all these animals going? You know, is I know, you know, they can, they do, uh, they send their local chains and stuff in the U.S. and everything. But it's like, do we really need to do that anymore?

Is there a reasoning for that anymore? That's more what I was talking about. I totally get the rodents and the roaches and all that, but I'm talking more of the reptile side of it. These people that are mass producing or whatever um well here's the thing um gourmet rodent didn't decide one day they were going to produce 5 000 ball python clutches um gourmet rodent organically grew their company to the size that was necessary to supply petco petco had their demands on what they needed and they have to meet those demands. And if they don't, they get fines. Anytime, if you get an order from five, if you get an order for 5,000 ball pythons from Petco and you supply, you have to pay for the thousand that you give

them. I think, you know, that as long as there's a demand there, I think there's a need for that. I think that's kind of the road he's going down there. If the demand leaves, then, of course, that changes and Petco and PetSmart make smaller orders or that kind of thing. So I don't have a lot of insights. I remember hearing Alan Rapashi talking about those kind of things with, you know, crested geckos in particular, where he was supplying those up with the feed and the, and produce enough animals where he kind of got it down to like, maybe more of a farming rather than a breeding program. And, um, I, I think the, the, I guess, scary answer to your question is that a lot of these animals are dying. You know, they, they're just not making i guess that's that's what i was i guess more getting at is like how many more animals can these big franchises take when like i was telling you ball pythons live in 30 50 60 years now at some point that that has to stop because yeah they're the pet keepers are only going to want so many pets you know they're not going to want to

you know well i would assume they wouldn't want to breed. I know Dave's going to say, you know, we're hoping they become breeders, but I feel like we're just adding more fuel to the fire at that point. I would probably say if, if you're, you know, talking about breeders like yourself, you know, then yeah, the industry can only support so many. But when you're talking about the kid that's bugging his mom for a snake and she finally breaks down and gets him a ball python and he loses interest in a couple of weeks and the ball python just kind of, you know, fades away or is neglected until they put it onto Craig's list and somebody tries to rescue it and it dies, you know, those, those kinds of things, I think is, and for every one of you, there's probably 50 of those, you

know, where they're just not, not really into it. And so, you know, the average lifespan of a ball Python in the U S is not 60 years. It's probably a year or two, you know, with the attention span of kids these days. But I mean, and I think that goes for any age, you know, and that's kind of the my problem with the import industry is that it seems to be like just fueling that throwaway pet attitude. And I think as we have these higher priced animals, people care more. You know, they're not just going to say, yeah, go ahead and get that. Get that $20 lizard or $20 snake. If it's a $200 snake, they're going to maybe think about it more, plan more so they can be successful. And if they lose interest, then they're going to want to get some of that money back.

So they're going to sell it. You know, they're going to keep it healthy until they can sell it. So I think, you know, as the industry becomes stronger and grows and, and, you know, we see maybe less imports coming in or whatever, and more captive bred animals, then maybe that changes a little, I don't know. That's a hard one. Well, I think that kind of leads to another discussion as, uh, you know know this polarizing you know you guys were talking about um what was it earlier um divides between species group i don't really see too much of the maybe ball python people just because their mindset's just different than other species keepers from what i've noticed i'm not saying it's bad or good or anything of the sort just different and um i see more of a divide

between the breeders and the pet sector you know the racks the cage keepers those kind of people and i i kind of wonder with both sides producing so much well i can't speak too much on the pet side but breeder side for sure so many people producing so much video content which i think is it's polarizing and it's causing issues as far as you know if the guy who probably wanted as a pet looked at the breeder and you know he's glorifying the business aspect of it well he after a while you start seeing that stuff a lot of times it'll you know convince you why racks are better or why maybe you need to become the next you know, convince you why racks are better or why maybe you need to become the next, you know, Justin or Ozzy or something like that. So I kind of wondered, is that a detriment as well? You

know, cause we, you know, I, I heard of Ryan McVay said something I thought was kind of, kind of made me think a little bit, but, um, it was, uh, cause when I, I planned, I kind of thought about maybe doing YouTube videos, but then he said, you know, for reptile breeders, if we're doing YouTube videos, you know, can we do them without having your racks, like a row of racks in the background or a whole wall of rack, you know, just showcase of different animals you have in the background rather than just showing that animal because it kind of gives that false sense that oh i can i if he could do it i could do it or something like that or someone who probably wasn't even interested in breeding and i always think that might be the burnout too is so many people are they're so they want to invest so much into this dream, I guess, of, you know, having, well, like, Justin, I remember listening to you back, I was listening to him not too long ago, but your old NPR days, you know, you know, and Eric, too, Eric had a

totally different mindset than he does now, you and it's you know your mind your your mindset can change a lot over time as well but i kind of wonder well if the if it wasn't portrayed that way would it have been different and i think burnout too is if you're only interested in one thing in this hobby and it's just breeding you know if you were going to be a small breeder maybe if you just kept things in in a few cages rather than rack systems you know, if you were going to be a small breeder, maybe if you just kept things in a few cages rather than rack systems, you know, at least for your adults anyways, you know, would it help continue or keep some sort of interest? Because I think that's another thing that gets people in trouble is if you're keeping in racks, invariably you just get bored because you don't see them like you would in a cage. So what do you usually do? You just keep buying more and more and get more,

trade more, just get more animals to kind of fulfill that desire that, you know, you would probably get if you kept them in, you know, a more naturalistic or not just, just a nice cage. You know, I won't even say, you know, cause everyone's definition of naturalistic or whatever it is will be different. But, you know, I kind of, I kind of wonder, you know, could that have, could that change the hobby in a more of a beneficial way? I think there is a push towards that. And I think it is strengthening, you know, the, the true aspect or the, I guess the, the, um, real aspect of the hobby of the love of the animals, you know, as you, as we're moving towards less animals or moving away from the rows and rows of racks to maybe each individual animal costs

a little more. We're not, you know, trying to provide, provide for PetSmart or something like that. I still think there's a place for that, but the small scale breeders that. It's a shame Dave's not on right now. Yeah. Well, what I was was gonna say is too but don't you also think say with the ball python community and i maybe because the mindset of other species keepers are are different and they will keep in large enclosures and less animals

well if we did that with ball pythons and i'm not talking saying everybody but if say 60 rather than what probably five percent of people who breed ball pythons probably keep them in cages or something so wouldn't that increase the value wouldn't that keep from these projects is plummeting to nothing i mean or at least give it a delay obviously they would still drop if people are breeding and they're going to still drop but would it be more of a gradual drop rather than an overnight you know panic oh my god it dropped half its price or whatever it is so i just i kind of wonder and i wonder if it's the fault of you know us breeders for wanting to put you know a lot of that stuff out on social media and portraying that.

But I think that's why Patreon is a thing too, right? Because then you can cultivate your own groups rather than, you know, the old YouTube way where everyone saw. Yeah. I did appreciate the move. Oh, now we got some echo from your stuff. I do appreciate the move that we watched with Brian Barczyk and his videos from the rows and rows of rack systems and getting each other bit by different snakes, moving towards kind of the reptarian days when you have big cages and a retick in a giant room size cage. I really like that move. And, you know, I think it was a nice evolution. Now, the reason he could do that was because of his YouTube presence and, you know, the clicks he was getting there. Yep.

But, yeah, I don't know. I mean, there's so many aspects of this hobby. And I think this was a really great discussion. Unfortunately, we've lost Dave and we're, we're kind of going on an hour and a half now, which is a little bit longer than we typically go. But I think there's just so many, such a rich field and maybe we'll have to have you guys back on to, to discuss this further, but yeah, just a, a really, uh, uh, fertile ground for discussion for sure. But I mean, if you've got kind of a summary or a consensus, you know, of what, you know, to kind of summarize your argument, we'll, we'll kind of have last statements and then we'll, we'll, uh.

Okay. Well, I feel like I have to, after, after challenging a lot of this stuff or saying, you know, making it sound like a negative Nancy, I don't i don't dislike ball pythons i have a lot of ball pythons and um i don't think the market's you know obviously dying or gonna go away i think i think we have to worry more about legislation and all that more so than just you know than anything but other than that i'm you know markets always seen stuff like this i think we will get hit harder because the market blew up so much so i'm sure it'll you know it's going to hit a little harder than it has before since we've had so many people breeding now you know at least with like ball pythons and stuff you know but aside from that you know i'm because i feel like

i have to emphasize this because if you don't people just assume you hate ball pythons and i always tell nick i go you know why you always had trouble selling ball pythons because you talk shit all the time you know but it's yeah i have to clarify that as it's not that i think that the world is ending and ball pythons won't have a presence i i will admit you know i all the species of python i keep ball pythons still they're really hard to beat and i'm not just talking about morris i'm talking about just personality wise you know they're just and i i didn't mean to just attack ball pythons in this but they're just such a big part of the market it's i felt like they were just the obvious choice to you know in general talk about you know but it's like i said it's not that just like ball pythons or

anything like that i think they're there's a there's multiple reasons why they make such a good pet you know rather than just over just the colors and you know stuff stuff. So. Well said Dave, you want to, uh, kind of summarize the, the, uh, pro. Um, well, I think it's always been, um, the hobby to rag on ball play fans. Yeah. Well, that's the, the, uh, technical issues are always a, you know, challenge, especially when we have four of us on at a time, but, um, well, I would have rather have had dave talk about the podcast because i yeah i know very little and i'm i'm always skeptical till you know till we got a couple till we get a couple episodes then because you know like i said he chose three people i'm not

familiar with ryan though he has another guy i wish I told him we need to do a like an introduction podcast so we can get to know each other because we all have weird different sense of humor and just get to know each other so we don't rub each other the wrong way because you know I've seen I've listened to plenty of podcasts where it's just the host you know you know even Eric and Owen their humor was different at first but then they kind of settled in and they got they got into the groove of things yeah i kind of was like well maybe we need to at least get to know each other because i'm not i know junior but i don't talk to junior that often so it's not like we are that friendly with each other or anything uh but yeah it's

oh my god i don't even know damn it's day if he had to be gone i'm trying to think of the name was it the nope drawing a blank can't think of its name but this is the podcast with me dave jr from jmg and then another fellow named ryan and it's just going to be the four of us we're not going to all be on at the same time but it'll be like interchanging you know between i'm sure dave will be on most of them though. He's a pretty interesting guy who has some, you know, good insight on just reptile stuff in general, you know, all for one reptile podcast. There we go. That's sad.

Didn't even remember what it was, but yeah, no, I just, uh, it's, uh, hopefully we can get nerdy like NPR, you know, I like, I'd like to have both of you guys on, you know, Rob and Justin, cause we got some interesting topics we'd like to talk to, uh, just about, you know, just all kinds of things, you know, Eric and Owen, I've been, I've been telling them we need, we need to get them on. Cause they're the, you know, shit. If anyone can tell you how to find heirs and just people who can you know tell you how you how you can deal with or handle the

longevity aspect of podcast podcasting you know most people you know they do it for a solid year or two and then they you're three even and then they disappear and falls apart you know because yeah so like how did they i don't know i think there's a bunch of cool stuff we could talk to them about you know along with you guys you know because you know yeah i i don't know i think i i mean i i really we were talking about this before we started the podcast but uh dave had a podcast before and the names of course failing me i. I'm, I'm terrible with names. Yeah. I can remember that one, but I can't remember what you actually once mailed. Yeah. They, they did a great job with that one. I really enjoyed it. And I mean,

Dave is just a great character, you know, he's just, you know, got some, he's, he thinks in a, in a really cool way. And so I think it's going to be really a successful podcast, you know he's just you know got some he thinks in a in a really cool way and so i think it's going to be really a successful podcast you know just that longevity is the he's a very open minded guy you know i think that's what makes him and he just asks interesting questions yeah yeah he's always curious willing to learn you know so i think that's why it'll be good to have him on it because he's i i always blow him and tell I was like, man, you could really do some damage in the podcasting world if you decide to do it. But we'll see. We'll see how it goes, because it's failed tonight. So I don't you know, I'm a little nervous that this may not work, you know, unless he's willing to go back to the Walmart parking lot. Yeah. That he was doing with the other ones.

Yeah. That's the, the challenges, those technical issues really can bog you down. I think, I mean, Nick's a great example of that where he announced his podcast and recorded a bunch of issues, but they had technical issues and he wasn't pleased with it. So we haven't seen an episode yet, you know? So it's like, Yeah. What a slacker. Cause I I'd love to hear, I mean,

I've heard some of the guests that they've had and I really want to hear those interviews, but I don't know that they're going to be released or not. So yeah, I, I, I, uh, I'm looking forward to it. So hopefully you guys overcome the, the technical hurdles and, and get on, get, get that going. And, you know, I think maybe for, for, uh, hosts could be a benefit because if somebody's not available, you got three, you know, two others to choose from. So, you know, there's always going to be two of you that can get on there and do it or, or one, you know, And then we can, we, we all keep such a wide range of species too.

So all of us can target different things. Cause I mean, there's only so much I'll be able to talk to with someone who's really into lizards or something like that or yeah you know or whatever whatever species it is tortoises turtles you know you can always tell when somebody's out of their depth when they're getting into a species group that they're not familiar with and they're asking very you know inane inane questions, you're like, oh man, this is going to be a little rough, but yeah. So that's good to have a wealth of expertise, a broad expertise, you know, cross group. Like with Rob, we'd like to have Rob on. And I think with Rob, I would do, I probably wouldn't even be a part of it because he keeps so many, he keeps species I'm just not that familiar with.

We'll probably have to have, have well anyone else with it you know rob is a wealth of information i mean i mean you heard it here he he knows a lot a lot about the industry and a lot about a wide industry and just harping i'd like that i like i like hearing you guys harping stories you guys oh yeah you know there needs to be more harping podcasts you know yeah we always do dave well we all like for us we like i mean it wouldn't just solely be herping but we like talking her you know because we are we all like dave and then don't travel but well he travels around the united states but you know he sees a lot of cool stuff you know yeah he was out here

for a reptile show and he was asking me for uh to go, go herp while I was in town, you know? So he's looking for opportunities there. Unfortunately, I didn't get out with him, but yeah, one of these days we'll have to make that happen when he's out for a show. I've been, I've been getting so many pictures of like Utah, your guys' national parks and stuff. And I'm like, good God, it looks beautiful. There's no reason i live here yeah i can tell yeah keep an eye out for all for one reptile podcast and and hopefully we'll see some episodes from you guys soon yeah thanks for uh coming on tonight it's been a really fun uh

discussion for sure so anything else you want to throw out there promote for yourself uh just tjw exotics i mean you could follow me but it's i'm not updating a whole lot because i've been really busy with this building so i haven't just social media has been the last thing on my mind and yeah honestly it just feels nice and i have to deal with social media i hear people wanting to make it into like a job. And it's just like, man, I just don't like it. I'm not like that anyway. I'm with you on that. Yeah.

I mainly just post pictures from herping trips, you know, if I remember to do it. But yeah. And like I said, I think it has something to, you know, with your longevity, you know, I knew to go to you for anteresia you know you have a name and a species or you're known for a species so i know to go to you same thing with rob if i was a good you know asian certain asian rats and you know some of the west indies boas or something i would know to go to talk at least talk to them you know so there's something to be said too about you know if you if you're truly into a species you know you will be known for that species you know and then people

will reach out to you like i don't i'm not saying i'm not nowhere near on your guys's level i've probably been in it half the time you guys have been in it but like even you know i still get messages and stuff so that's some of these newer people have to be on social media every day sometimes multiple times a day just to build a name for themselves or something like that. So, you know, I think there's something to be said for longevity in this hobby, too, if you want to, you know, make it into a business. That's another thing that we could have talked a lot about tonight is, you know, when you're getting into the hobby, you know, sometimes those flash in the pan, it works out okay. And you can, you know, build and grow really fast, but sometimes that slow grow, you know, so you build a clientele, you build, you know, people who recognize you and you, you are known for

certain group of, of species, and then you can kind of branch out and expand and stuff. Yeah. Like Eric, Eric with Morelia Python radio. I think he did, you know, it was a fantastic idea. You know, I wouldn't want to tell Nick this to his face, but I mean, dude, Eric's right up there with him as far as people, you know, when you think of Morelia, I'm not saying that, you know, Eric's writing a book status on carpet pythons in general i think of nick and eric you know because they've eric's been doing the podcast for so long now and you just associate him with carpet pythons and he's out there and you hear him you know nick's kind of unless you've talked to him on the phone or you get on the internet you know you don't have you know you're not used to just creeping on him from afar you know because we reptile people aren't very social. So sometimes we like to lurk before we start chit-chatting with people,

you know? But yeah. Well, we, thanks for coming on. I don't know if Dave can hear us or if he can chime in here or not, but. No, I'm here. Okay. Yeah. Do you want to throw information? Damn it, Dave. I'm going Okay, yeah, do you want to throw in some information? Damn it, Dave

This is pretty funny I mean, this takes us back a decade This is pretty good Right, yep, I guess there is a Price to be paid for living out You know, where you have a lot of land And a big facility, you know Dave, this is making me nervous If we get stuck with someone that I'm not that familiar with for living out, you know, where you have a lot of land and a big facility, you know.

Dave, this is making me nervous. If we get stuck with someone that I'm not that familiar with, I'm going to kill you. I might have to go. Me and him don't even live that far from each other. I will drive to his place. We can both go to the Walmart parking lot together. Yeah, there you go. Yeah. I mean, if you don't know Dave Levinson, check him go. I mean, if you, if you, uh, don't know Dave

Levinson, check him out on Facebook or, you know, the other, uh, social media. Um, and I mean, he's, he's got some really fun posts and some crazy antics and is really entertaining. So, um, even if you're not that into reptiles, you can still watch his stuff and be entertained for sure. His 4th of July posts are especially entertaining. Oh, yeah. Although you usually see his crack here and there. Really just a fun guy. And, you know, if you see him at a reptile show, go chat with him.

He's very knowledgeable and just, like we said before, just interesting and curious. Interesting is right. That's a nice way of putting it. And he, you know, is very connected. Like he knows a lot of people and yeah. So check him out. Yeah. Custom Scales, by the way.

That's his company name. Just throwing it out there for him. Yeah. Custom Scales. Thank you. Yep. All right. Well,

uh, thanks for, for being on and we'll hopefully have you back again, uh, down the road, but this has been a lot of fun and, uh, thanks for coming.

All right. Well, uh, thanks to NPR radio for, uh, being the umbrella over our podcast here and letting, uh, reptile fight club,

uh, be on their network. And we appreciate Eric and Owen and all they do. And thanks again for listening. And we'll catch you again next week for Reptile Fight Club. Outro Music