Reptile Fight Club - Should you have a big Herp Collection?

Episode Date: January 20, 2023

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

The Reptile Fight Club. Here we are, 2023. Not much has changed. Still me, Justin Julander, your host. And with me as always is the bruiser himself, Chuck Boland. What's up, buddy? What's up, man? The bruiser.

When I was a kid, there was a wrestler and he lived in our neighborhood but he fought like he did like i don't even know it wasn't like wwf but it was smaller his name was dick the bruiser it's like what a horrible name what a horrible wrestling name oh no yeah yeah that's rough yeah right oh man well it's a new year. New year. Here we go. We'll see, see who's got the, yeah, same to you. We'll see who's got the luck this year in the coin tosses. We'll see. I, well, I feel like it's waffled so back and forth for me that uh i do not i do not believe in yearly luck i think i think my luck is way more evan flow than year to year yeah yeah well we're we're having a bit of technical difficulties here i my my internet's

been crap the last couple weeks so hopefully this works out i i'm just kind of talking after i hear you say something so hopefully it's a coherent stream and and things work out but yeah i'm excited to have a new year in front of us i i found out something kind of sad rough now um i have this project and i hatched out three individuals and they i all i popped them all and they were male and then um you know a couple years later i went back and i checked and and wow one of them was a female and so i put him in with with with uh or i put her in with the male you know one of the males uh the other two males. And, and, uh, and like at first they kind of were wrestling a little bit, same, same thing that happened to the Inlands. And then, um, they were just fine. So I'm like, Oh, maybe that's, they were just

getting to know each other or something. So today I'm like, I haven't seen them lock or even really hang out in the same spot. So I pulled the supposed female out and probed again and tried to pop, and I got a big sperm plug out. So I do have three males, so that kind of sucked. Oh, that sucks. Yeah. Doesn't that stink when you – oh, go ahead. Yeah, so I –

Doesn't that – go ahead. I'm done. Nope, nope, not going to do it. Go ahead. So I put the, so that one was bigger because I thought it was a female. So I've been feeding him up. Um, but so now I put him in with the, the adult female. So hopefully I've had another male in there with her and I haven't really seen much from him. He's a little on the smaller side. So maybe this larger male after having been in a cage with another male for a couple weeks, will go for the female. So we'll see, but what a blow.

I'm really – this project is kind of kicking my butt. I was really excited for this year, but we'll see what happens i feel like when you pop them young man if you you do a good job you double kind of confirm it when they their muscles really haven't developed and they're really young you're you're pretty good because i feel like when i try to go back like after they're a little older but not mature uh and try to try to probe them man sometimes they're just strong enough to kind of cinch on that probe and keep it from going it far enough in. And it just makes it hard. And, you know, sometimes it fools you.

It sure does. Because I double and triple checked. You know, I was like, I was really excited because I thought it was a female. So I checked a couple times. But unfortunately, you know, I hope this doesn't put a damper on the project or i just really hope that female can get another clutch out you know give me another clutch because that would be uh that would be the best thing i could get this year so i don't know sorry for all the kind of um veiled i'm not ready to announce what the project is, but hopefully I'll have some this year, but we'll see.

Well, it sucks to have so much consternation over something that I know is pretty cool. It's just sucks, man. Sorry to hear that. I got confirmed locks this week from that inland, the male that I thought was a female. Man, it's just plaguing me this year, I guess. You'd think after this long, I'd know what I'm doing, but apparently I don't. I mean, well, I don't think you should take it that way. I think the lesson is that no matter how much experience you have, you know, you can still, you know, you know, I don't take it like it's you that's like, you know, it's,

it just happens. And I think, you know, some of that bravado of like, well, if you can't properly sex a snake a hundred percent of the time, you're an idiot kind of stuff is like, it's not true. It's not fair. Like even, you know, some of the best, uh, miss sex a snake like it happens it happens yeah yeah so for sure yeah um it was just a bummer for that project i was really hoping that oh yeah gonna be the case but what do you do for sure yeah i don't know i i mean i've i've seen i i threw a one of my craziest uh eastern stems uh, that I hatched out a couple years ago. That's got a really weird pattern.

Craziest looking or craziest acting? Looking, yeah. Really nice, thin bands. Almost like a zebra stem. Nice. Still. Really reduced. I don't know that it's a simple genetic trait.

Yeah. Reduced pattern compared to siblings. Yeah. So really beautiful. Would you call it reduced or busy? Yeah. I don't know. I, you know, those terms kind of.

Yeah. Yeah. I know. Right. Yeah. You're like probably have probably more along the lines of of reduced busy nod yeah right like you're kind of like because like i think when i think of zebras i think it's like i mean it's a it's a busy pattern

it's much more busy um but you know yeah know, yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I, whatever, whatever, whatever. So, yeah, but she, she was, she had some pretty good size and I thought I'll throw her in with the mail and they were locked up a couple of days ago. So that was nice. And then, um, those are the only two confirmed locks that I've seen, but you know, yeah, for, yeah, for, uh, the amount of time I've been out there, like, I don't know. Yeah. I've seen a few locks and through, through the blackheads back in together, I think I'm pretty sure I got an ovulation out of the female blackhead. So nice, nice eggs on the way. All right. So round two,

round two for blackheads fingers crossed. Um, you got, did you, well, uh, round five or four. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. Fair enough. Round two for hopefully hatching eggs. If we're starting from the beginning, round five.

So did you make changes this year from last year? Or you're – Did you make cage changes or breeding changes or are you are you trying to make your changes kind of in the in the incubation stage well i kind of thought that might have been the problem is that i just wasn't introducing the male early enough and that she was you know cycling and everything but he wasn't getting in there and getting, you know, getting a lot of good confirmed locks. So I thought maybe that was part of the problem, why the eggs were so wimpy. I think still my incubation, missing something, you know, so I need to have some more conversations

with my Australian friends who seem to have no problem, you know, hatching out blackheads. I don't know what my deal is, but, you know, I think, and talking to Steve Crawford, like, man, that guy's really knowledgeable. He's bred just a ton of species. I think he has all of the Australian pythons at least. Yeah. He's over there in Australia. And, um, but he's, uh, that he uses like 30% uh, water to, um, you know, substrate by, by weight. And I mean,

we use like one-to-one over here. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so I was, you know, I was backing it off a little bit with the blackheads, but not 30%, you know, it was like more like 80% or, you know, and where, and where in Australia is he, is it pretty dry where he is or is it pretty humid where he is? Yeah. And in his words, he lives in the driest state in the driest country in the world. So, you know, it doesn't get much drier than that.

And so, yeah, you think, well, oh, if he's in tropical Queensland, but no, he's in like South Australia where it's very, very dry. So yeah, I think, um, you know, I might, I might try that and see, you know, reducing that moisture level. Um, and you know, I, I need to ask him a few more follow-up questions. I have a hard, I have this terrible thing where I ask a question and then I don't pay attention to the answer very well. And so then I have to ask it again and again until it sinks into my thick skull. But you know, that's the way it goes. I suppose. Whatever it takes, man. Repetition is the, uh, is the builder of, of, of, uh, you know, of habits. So for sure. Yeah. But yeah, it's interesting. Like, you know, I don't know. I mean, obviously, if he's in a really dry place and he kind of keeps his media pretty dry, I'd be interested if he doesn't ventilate it. He still has a huge gradient. his hydraulic gradient from his moist media to the air is, you know, it's not coming in, it's going out, you know what I mean? So he's even probably losing moisture unless he

runs a completely sealed egg box, which, you know, to me, I don't know, you know, maybe not, but to me, it's like you want air moving in there because, you know, even in a little bit of moisture in a stagnant environment tends to mold up, you know, that it can get kind of moldy pretty quick. So you vent your, or you exchange air in your egg boxes, yeah yeah i mean i i had a hole i drilled holes and i thought maybe that made some of the difference why i got some to hatch but i don't know yeah i i i got a little more thinking to do on that one yeah yeah yeah a lot of a lot of a lot of factors and you know you look at like who's doing good with with blackheads and like where are they what are their you know what are they doing what what environmental conditions do they have what

am i doing what environmental conditions i have you know and then i think the other part of it is you know a lot of gecko people and a lot of monitor people really say, well, the condition of, you know, the female has a lot to do with the, the strength of the eggs and things like that. And I, you know, I, I think we as snake people, as snake you know, vitality of the eggs even before, you know, deposition. So I, you know, definitely like, could, you know, it could even be, it could even be factors that you know are you know even before uh eggs ever hit the ground you know yeah that's true lots to think that's uh lots to think about it's never uh done and dusted you know with with rebels there's no way man to learn and oh always an improvement you

can make and unless you could teach snakes to talk english uh you're you're you know you're guessing bro you're guessing trial and error yeah for sure well um i don't know how what are what's going on on your end with the reptiles you you got the diamond enclosures built are you still working yeah oh yeah diamonds are done they're they're outside i mean just so i have not put in any secondary heating for them they have been out they have been i mean it's been raining and probably you know upper 40s to mid 50s and they're just out all the time they're not my coastals are all out like they're you know um that they're not bothered by you know 40 to 50 degree weather uh at all and you know i was a

little concerned with the diamonds at first because of the wet weather and you know um you know some of the suggestions from from uh one of the aussies that that you know they do fine just don't let them get wet so i would you know i've got a nice big roof on on top of their enclosure so you know it's got a good overhang so they're not getting direct moisture onto them or anything and you know knock on wood they've been doing great man so we'll see i think, you know, all goes well, things look pretty good with the coastals again. So they, they may go again this year. Um, which is, I gotta get my budding gear and see if anybody wants last year's clutch. They're starting to color up and look pretty nice. So, you know, I just, I just been holding on to him. So I just, I don't know. I just like, I just like the idea of giving, you know, showing people like,

I don't want to hold onto it too long. Cause it's like, Hey man, part of it is raising your own snake. Right. But the other part of it is like, Hey, you know, like I want to kind of know, I want to kind of know where this is going. And I think, you know, some, you know, guys have been breeding carpets for a while. Like, Oh, that's going to be a nice snake. But, you know, people who don't, maybe they're not quite as, you know, maybe they haven't seen enough of them color up to know like,

oh, that's going to be a nice snake. So having something that's a little more colored up is kind of nice. So I don't know. Anyway, I always do this crap and now it's winter and I can't really ship and I've got a bunch of snakes and now I'm like, I should have, what was I thinking? But,

um, but yeah, once, once it warms up, I'll, I'll get those, um, you know,

get those up and, and see if, we can get some snakes into people's hands. Um, yeah. So, and, uh,

that's the, we'll see how the Tracy are doing there. Um, things, things are good. They're things. Things are good. I kind of took Shane's cue and have been kind of spraying and spiking their humidity levels and letting them drop off and spiking their humidity levels. And it's kind of interesting. I've seen more activity. So you'll kind of spike the humidity level. And then the next day they're all hanging out together. So, you know, I don't, you know, again, like the other times that they bred, most of the time they were, you know, the male and the female would not be visible visible in the cage they'd be in the nest box

or something so i don't i didn't really see what was going on now it just seems it seems like their cohabitation is more correlated to you know high humidity stuff so means anything don't know but just kind of this year's observation and um yeah we'll see fingers crossed with those and yeah yeah lots of tracy a stuff going on growing growing up you know um the 19 clutch and and uh they're they're getting pretty decent size i need to buy some more food to keep throwing at them but um i don't know we'll see maybe next i don't know i don't know if if uh maybe next year's um they'll go yeah i'll try to run them um so yeah that's about it here man you know um cool same same too many geckos talking about the you know the diamonds and rain i uh

i hope you guys are okay out there you're not getting washed away but you guys have been getting a lot of rain but i was listening to to scott and ty eiper on project herpetoculture and uh they were talking or ty was saying that she doesn't go hang up laundry if she sees the diamond pythons out because it means it's gonna rain like they come out when it's gonna rain that's really interesting they said that i i took note of you know and thought about when you're talking when it's warm or when it's cold i yeah that's probably uh probably more when it's warm i'd imagine when you know when they're it's weird because they're out i mean you would i don't know maybe i mean i don't think the snakes are like, oh, it looks like rain. I better, you know, it's cold.

It looks like rain. I better go in. Like, you know, I don't know if they, but it is very interesting because when it's cooler out and their shower activity, I mean, even last year with the coastals outside, I noticed that they're, you know, they're active and they're out when, you know, climactic events or, you know, climactic events or, you know, bad weather events are happening. So it's, it's, I don't know. I, I agree with that. That's, that's a, that's a, that's an apt observation,

I believe. Yeah. Yeah. I'm thinking of the couple of times that I've seen carpets in the wild. It has been during a light rain, you know? Yeah. Well, and I mean, been during a light rain, you know, the first jungle on my first, first jungle on my first trip was, uh, like I thought, oh, we're not going to see anything. It's just too cold and too wet. And, you know, and then sure enough, you turn the corner and there's a jungle in the middle of the road.

So, you know, I, I learned, uh, you know, uh, something interesting there, and it seems like all the others have also been kind of in a rain-ish. Hasn't Eric had some instances where it was rainy weather and they thought, oh, we're not going to find crap, and they found a bunch of stuff out that they were surprised about? Was that you or was that Eric? I feel like Ericic told that sort a story similar like that yeah i mean it makes sense i mean out out here of course like you know in the west rains bring out the animals and when we were yeah that's fair arizona yeah in arizona there was that little rain that came through and all of a sudden everything was out and about that was kind of nice

it can definitely help but I guess it depends on where you are but it seems like some reptile activity does correspond with rains I agree yeah

well it'll be at least I agree. I agree. Yeah. Yeah. Well, uh, it'll be, I, I don't know this time of year. I,

I'm itching to herp, you know, I can tell and snow. I can almost, I can almost see it on you. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I've,

I am excited for, uh, when it warms up a bit and getting out there. Yeah. So it should be fun. Yeah, for sure. Well, I am excited for when it warms up a bit and getting out there. Yeah. So it should be fun. Yeah, for sure. Well, anything else on your mind before we put up our dukes? Listen here, people.

No, no, no. I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. Good. It's going to go on a Chuck tie rate, but I won't. I did hear the NPR guys on Carpets and Coffee. They were talking about if they should do a trivia.

And I'm like, come on, guys. That's Reptile Fight Club territory now. Yeah, but we can't do that because we just bit the shit out of their holiday show. So we can't, like, you know, if they want to do a trivia, yeah, we can't say too much, man. We really can't. We kind of backed ourselves into the corner there. That's fair. Share and share alike.

I think they could do. Lucas did admit to cheating. So I was a little like... Did he? Well, at least there wasn't a Mac and Wookiee shirt on the line. You know what I mean? He pretty much won... What did he win?

What did he win? He won something, didn't he? Oh, the poster. The poster, that's right. That's right. Did he get his poster? Yeah. His illy his poster? Yeah. His,

his, his illy, his illy gotten poster, his ill gotten goods. You should have just, you should have just written cheater and huge letters right on the front of the poster and sent it. That'd have been,

I'd already sent it. So yeah. Oh, so he waited. He's like, is it in the mail doc? All right. I totally cheated. Oh, he didn't tell me's like, is it in the mail, Doc? All right, I totally cheated.

Oh, he didn't tell me. He didn't admit it to us. He just said it on carpets and coffee. Yeah. Well, watch out, Dr. Loafman. You got to keep an eye on your student there. He's cheating. He's cheating.

Are you talking to Sack? Is that who you're talking to? Yeah, Sack. Sack Loafman. cheating he's cheating are you talking to sack is that who you're talking yeah sack sack loafman you can't you can say you can't even say it because it sounds like zach but it's not it's sack yeah i i think i said in in one of our we have a group chat with group chat zach and and lucas and i said something like i i referred to as sack, but he didn't say anything about it. So I don't know if he didn't hear it. And I'm sure Lucas didn't want to bring attention to it.

Oh yeah, sure. And if he has heard about it, he's like, Oh, I'm not touching that with a 10 foot pole. Yeah. Dr.

Sack. Yeah. That's all he needs. Yeah. Yeah. He doesn't want to see that one take root. No, that's like,

yeah, that's, that's how you get a nickname for sure. Okay. Yeah. Onto bigger things. Let's do this thing. All right.

What is this thing today? Yeah. We're, we're going to talk about, so I, I don't know. This one kind of came to me while I was listening. I think, again, it was the Ty and Scott Iper episode on Project Herpiculture, but they were talking

about how, you know, they haven't been able to go out and herp as much because of their collection. I've heard a lot of people talk about that, like, oh, I'd love to go out and herp, but my collection's too big and I can't go out, you know, and those kinds of things. So I thought, you know, is it, is it really a good thing to have? How, you know, how big of a collection do you need to have? Is it a good thing to have a big collection? So I thought, let's talk about collection size and kind of debate the pros and cons of both sides of the collection size issue. And I think we've kind of, you know, we're kind of maybe coming at it from, I think you've got a pretty manageable size. You know, you don't have a huge collection. And I don't think it's taken up, you know, a majority of your time or anything.

And I think I've maybe got a little bit too large of a collection for me. You know, I probably could stand to reduce it a bit. And I have a little bit. So, yeah, I thought that would be a reasonable topic to, to cover today. So let's go ahead and flip a coin. What do you say? See who's got the luck streak this year. Start us out with. So. Tails. You got it. I got it. Okay. You got it. Yeah. I mean,

starting out the year with a win. I will take. No, I will take. I will take. So what do we. So I'll take the larger collection side, like the pro of a larger collection side. Okay. Having a large collection is a good thing and i'm gonna argue having a large collection can be kind of a negative thing a bad thing yep yep yep okay kind of flipping the script i imagine oh yeah don't even ask

just yeah i won't i'll just start yeah you're good man go for it okay so wait i'm i'm having a smaller collection is a good thing you love the small collection yeah yeah okay um so when i when i started into this whole thing, right, back in the mid-90s. The big 1900s. I bought the mid-1900s. The mid-90s. 1990s. Yeah, I'm not that old.

I know. I'm kidding. Jokes. Jokes, folks. I'm going to be next week. Ah, that's good, though. That's good. I need to get in for mine. Yeah. I don't know how good it's going to be in a muskipy next week. Ah, that's good, though. That's good. I need to get in for mine.

Yeah. I don't know how good it's going to be. TMI, guys. TMI. Anyway, off the old man topic. Yeah, exactly. So when I started back in the old days, I got a bearded dragon that was at this local reptile shop and it was digging in the cage

and so I took it home and it laid eggs and I hatched the eggs out and I was like thrilled I'm like holy crap you can breed these things and sell the babies it can be a self-sustaining thing so I got really excited and kind of overzealous and started buying up other bearded dragons that I could find. And soon I had, you know, eight or ten bearded dragons taking up quite a bit of room.

And I never quite had the success that I had with that single female, you know. And I actually, she was getting bred when I took her in to the reptile shop because I was going out of town for a couple weeks. So they said, oh, yeah, you can just bring her back and throw her in the cage. And so, you know, she'd get knocked up every time I brought her into the reptile shop to kind of have them board her for me. And, you know, I got quite a few offspring out of that female. Now, I had other clutches from other females, but like there were other things that kind of came into that, too, because I picked up some animals that had some mites, you know, and I got my first introduction to mites pretty quick out the gate, you know, as as it tends to go. And then one of them had some internal parasites or something, you know, there she just was not thriving and not gaining weight and things like that. And so kind of slowly over time, I just sold them off because they just weren't doing much. Right.

And then around the same time, Heidi said I could get some snakes. And so that was kind of more conducive to my schedule and my lifestyle at the time. And still is to a large extent so um i would say uh you know sometimes when you have a smaller collection of only a couple of different projects um you can focus a lot more attention on those few animals and so overall you know percentage wise you're probably going to do better. You're going to have better percentage success with a smaller collection than you would with a larger collection. More animals, more problems, I guess you could say. And so I kind of lead out with that.

Like if you get overzealous and you get kind of too big for your britches or get too many animals too quickly, a lot of times it's really hard to be successful with all of them. Um, and, and you kind of have to shift focus or something. So I'd, I'd lead out with that. Okay. That's good. Um, yeah, I mean, I, you know, I, I think, uh, I think what you, you know, you experienced there is pretty is pretty common for people. They get some eggs and however that happens, and then they're like, oh, my gosh, I can do this. And they kind of go all in for it, right? And my thing would be is that was that necessarily a function of a larger collection? Obviously, if you have a larger collection,

you're open to have more issues because you have more animals. It's just kind of like the law of numbers, you know. So anytime you have a lot of animals or higher numbers, you know, your instances of issues will go up. And I think, you know, some of the issues that you had were were related to you being a new keeper, you getting into a new thing and just group, you know, the best way to do that isn't to go 1.1 or 2.2. It's to go like 10.10 or, you know, to get a big group so that you can work. Because like you said, not every animal is going to be a great breeder, you know. And if you want to have a viable project, you really need to work on, you know, it's a numbers game, right? And, you know, that kind of pivots to the idea of the goals. Like, what are your goals as a, you know, as a keeper?

And if you're interested in, you know, being a semi-professional professional breeder, then your goal should be to have a big collection and, and having a big collection in a lot of ways drives your lifestyle. So, um, you know, you have to kind of make those decisions. And I think, uh, you know, to the point of like, can you do a lot of herping when you have a huge reptile collection? Well, no, not if you don't have employees or not if you don't have somebody who can cover for you when you're out. But at the same time, like, you know, I mean, you have a fairly decent sized collection, not huge. But you also have people who can kind of back you up enough to everything is fine. It's not that big of a deal.

You're a busy guy anyway. So you're kind of, even though you have a big collection, you know, it's not like you're Mike Stefani where you're like got a whole, you know, collection of monitor lizards that need daily, absolutely daily care and things like that. You've kind of set up your collection around your lifestyle a little bit and you've made ways to make it manageable. So I think even with a big collection, and especially if you're doing it in a professional setting, but I do agree, You can get to a numbers point where it's like, you just have way too many animals to walk away from. And at that point, it's a business and you're committed to it. And it is what it is. And you got yourself into that. You know what I mean? Yeah. So I think that's how I think. I think, you know, I like how you said, you know, you need to think about what your goal is or what, you know, what you're going to go for.

And I think a lot of people kind of have hoop dreams. You know, they want to be they want to do it full time. They want to be able to quit their job and breed reptiles professionally, you know, and that kind of thing. And I think you're right. If you want to walk down that road, you do have to have a fairly substantial collection. You also have to have a collection that's kind of caters to what people want to buy, you know. And you see a lot of professional breeders that just breed ball pythons or that have ball pythons mainly and a few other projects or boas

or something on the side as well um so you know it's it's it's possible to to do uh to do that and you know but i i listened to a talk uh by alan or pashy at uh one of the conferences and that you know we were we spoke at and and he was talking about like in the U S, um, I think that somehow he worked out like the economy would support, you know, people breeding animal reptiles for sale was, you know, professionally and making good money doing it and, and having the stay power to, to do that and to be able to, be able to retire and things and have enough money for that. I think he figured out there was like room for maybe 50 of those in the United States. And that works out to maybe what you'd see.

Like if you went and count all the guys who were doing it full time, not relying on their wife's paycheck or their wife's insurance or things like that, you know, doing it full-time, you could probably, it's probably around 50 that are, you know, been around for a while and that can do it. I'd probably agree with that. Yeah. So, you know, and I mean, his point was he was talking to an Australian crowd and in Australia they have a tenth of our population.

So he's like, you know, in your country, you probably have the population to support five professional, you know, reptile breeders or whatnot. So, you know, and I think, um, if, if we kind of understand that and like, I look at it and I think I don't ever want to be a pro breeder. Like, I think initially I probably had some of those hoop dreams thinking, oh, that'd be nice to retire and do this. But I I'm to the point where now it's like, no, that doesn't have any appeal to me. I don't want to have to sell animals to feed my family. You know, I have a good job and, you know, I can keep reptiles as my hobby. And that's been a really nice arrangement. I think, you know, look at it realistically, like, because a lot of the pro breeders too, they do have a large collection and they are mostly busy online selling animals or, you

know, going to shows or things like that, which, you know, has its benefits and can be a great life. And, but it's also, like you said, it ties you down and it keeps you there, especially, you know, if you start getting employees, then they're the ones working with the animals and you're the one handling the, you know, online or managing the overall kind of big, big picture things. And so you lose that connection with the animals to some extent. And then you also have to trust others. And, you know, of course, there's all sorts of horror stories of employees, you know, stealing animals or messing up, you know, breedings or whatever,

you know? So, uh, it has its challenges of course, but I think it, it definitely can be done. But, you know, if you want to be one of those 50 people, you're going to have to work your tail off and you're going to have to, you know, do all sorts of things to, to compete with people who are already established, who are already doing it, you know? Yeah, I mean, I do think there's some, you know, if what we're talking about is strictly breeding reptiles to make a living, you know, I think Bill Bradley comes to mind. I think Ari comes to mind where, you know, they've obviously have a collection that they're building a zoo with or they have a collection that he can kind of, you know, illustrate, you know, things to kids that, you know, to try and make his point about, you know, colubrids or, or, you know, you know,

a crocodilian or whatever, whatever he's, you know, he's, he's got a very wide range of stuff and I'm sure that keeps him very busy. And I know, you know, um, both of them do not do it alone uh you know it kind of takes a village uh in both cases uh and so you know i think you know just to push back a little bit on the idea that it it strictly has to be uh you know a reptile breed i think that's the mantra. And I think that's like what the idea that gets pushed. And if you work a job where you hate your fucking job and you go to it every day and you're like, this fucking sucks. I like reptiles. I want to stay at home. I want to just sell reptiles.

And that's cool. Yeah, I totally get that because there are days I don't want to go to work and I would just rather be at my house working with my animals, doing my own thing. Like it would be much better for me. But at the same time, the reality is selling animals is hard, especially when people aren't buying them. The economy sucks. Things are, you know, whatever things that are out of your control are happening. And so these guys that are part of, you know, Rapashi's 50, they're working very hard. They're making good choices.

They're making bad choices. They're losing money on their bad choices. They're making adjustments. They're doing a lot of things. And, you know, I think when you talk about success at any level, there's a level of obsession that goes into it. And if you're not willing to be fully committed and fully obsessed with it and take it, you know, do whatever is necessary. Like, so if, you know, if you're one of these breeders who's like, I'm going to get a big collection, I'm going to sell my animals. Well, guess what? If somebody's been doing it before you and they've out hustled you and they've out, you know, they've out diversified their collection,

you're going to have a hard time keeping up with them and you're going to fold under and they're going to continue chugging. So, you know, all those things come into play. And that's kind of the downside with a big collection is, again, it goes back to why are you doing it? What is your goals? You know, and how do you want your lifestyle to be? Because if you, being in this for, you know, where we've both been in this for the last 25 years, you see a lot of big guys come and go, you know, they came in, they made their money, and then they usually get out or something happens, they get some kind of, you know, viral infection or bacterial thing that kind of knocks things out. And I mean, it's, it's, it's a tough way to make a living. And I think if, you know, more people that have those hoop dreams and think I want to do this, if they do it kind of on the side for a few years and you know, you have to do that anyway. I don't know of anybody that can just instantly become a breeder.

I've seen a couple people try that. I can't remember who that was back in the day but they just came in they bought it bought a ton of ball pythons it was like some used car salesman guy and he had a partner that was a reptile guy and they were like they were going to take the ball python more sounds it sounds like a recipe for the w right there, man. Yeah. The sky's the limit with that. Exactly. With that setup. Oh, my God.

Yeah, but they sunk a lot of money into it. And then, you know, it seemed like they were, you know, off to the races and stuff. But, yeah, of course, it didn't work out and they didn't see eye to eye and everything fell apart. So they were gone. I'm sure they lost their hat, lost a lot of money. So, you know, if you want to do it, I think, you know, get, get to the point first where your collection is sustaining itself, you know, and you're working a job, you're, you know, you don't have to worry about selling the animals, but see how easy it is to sell animals. You know, you kind of have to build up a reputation anyway. Um, and, and, you know,

work with a few things that you like and that maybe other people like as well, you kind of have to build up a reputation anyway. And, you know, work with a few things that you like and that maybe other people like as well and kind of get used to breeding things first. But I think, you know, if more people just didn't have necessarily that idea that I'm going to get rich off of this, but they had the idea, I want to work with reptiles. I want to, you know, spend some time with reptiles. And they kind of have that dose of reality that the pyramid scheme doesn't usually work except for the top 50 people. There's a bunch of other people supporting that pyramid. And you're probably not going to make it as a full-time breeder because it's a hard row to hoe. And like you said, there's already people out there doing it, making it work, and kind of ahead of you, kind of have to wait for a space or something

or some kind of niche or something that you do well to kind of break into that, I think. And having that smaller collection. Oh, go ahead. Oh, just having that smaller collection gives you a better sense of how you can make it work and how it actually works and get kind of your feet wet that way. Sorry, this lag is killing me. I think of like I think of somebody like Sean Carroll who, you know, he's an Aussie. But if you are friends with him on Facebook, dude, every single animal he has is dead knockout amazing. And the stuff he must produce is incredible. So like if you have gone through and, and you, you know, do your make your nipper, you know, breed just top notch stuff. And you are that guy who is known for that

and you've built it and you have a big collection. It's easier for you to sell animals because when people think of, Oh, I want killer stuff. I go to Sean because he has – all he has is killer stuff. Yeah, that's the guy. That's the guy you go to. And as we've shown time and again, what people love more than anything is killer-looking stuff, right? The name and how it – how it looks will always trump the name, whatever it is. The name is important, but man, people throw the name out the window, whatever the name is out the window when it's nice enough looking. I just think that, point taken. Very true. I just I think that you have to if you build a big collection, you have to manage that collection.

But if you do it right and you do it well, you can definitely have things where things are much easier to sell because you've built a name for high quality, you know, and are kind of the, oh, you want that? Go to him. You know, I think when it comes to a lot of Frank Payne's a guy who comes to mind, people, he's just becomes a go-to guy because he's doing, you know, whatever he gets into, he chooses his projects. He refines them, does them very, very well. And he's very consistent and he's very proactive. And it's like, oh, yeah, just go to Frank. Go to Frank. Go to Frank. Go to Frank.

Right? And he sells all his animals. Like, you know, that's the – I think that's the way you do a big collection. And, you know, I know Frank doesn't do it alone. He's a full-time, you know i know frank doesn't do it alone he's a full-time you know high school teacher so he you know like i said a lot of times you got to have some help um and it would be a tough slog to go at a big collection alone yeah i'd i'd look at frank kind of um as it doesn't seem to me that he's a huge you you know, breeder. Like he has,

he, he's kind of limited himself to certain projects, you know, the, the electric blue day geckos or the, the chameleons, you know, he has like one or two of species, you know, so he's not like one of these huge breeders. Um, So I would definitely put him in the small breeders selection. And I think that's kind of the point is he's kind of found that nipper. He's found the things that, you know, that needed maybe some help and attention that he knew they would be popular if they were just captive bred and healthy. And he has, you know, a decent number of, of a few projects, but I mean,

I think it could probably count them as projects. I don't think he has a lot of species, but he has numbers of those species because he produces 100, at least 100 or more electric blue geckos a year, and he always has them for sale. So I mean I hear what you're saying. Yeah, he's not all over the place where he has – I think of somebody like Great Bay Serpentarium, Great Basin, Joey. I think Joey has a lot of – he's got a very wide, deep collection, right? A lot of stuff. He's super busy, whereas Frank probably maybe collection, right? A lot of stuff. He's super busy. Whereas Frank probably may be more focused but has a lot more animals.

You still got to clean all those cages. You still got to do all that stuff, right? And, you know, both of them don't do it alone. I guarantee it. I guarantee it. Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. Joey, I've been to Joey's place a couple times.

He's got a few employees. His family's there pretty much full time, you know, unless the kids are in school. But yeah, his wife's helping. He's working out there all the time. He's got a couple full time employees. And, you know, he's got a couple warehouses, too. You know, he's got a big operation going and he's kind of moving towards that uh you know the more of the zoo display type thing rather than um you know necessarily just breeding and selling animals i i really think it's you know it definitely is kind of a hard avenue hard road to hoe especially when you're competing with imports and things like that you you know, where they can just undercut you all day. And it seems like the majority of people just haven't been educated on, you know, the difference between captive bred and wild caught. And frankly, probably most of them don't care because they just want a quick pet that's not going to be around a long time. So their kid stops bugging them, you know, that kind of thing.

So they'll go into PetSmart and buy a, you know, whatever snake or lizard there. Or they'll spend the money and something will happen and they'll say, yeah, I don't know what it was, but yeah, I mean, that was cool, but I'm not doing that again. You know, like they, they move on from it because of the bad experience. And, you know, I'm, I'm hoping that will change down the road. And, and I do think, you know, it seems like a lot of the, you know, some of those big breeders, I, I, I, Barczyk comes to mind, right? He's, he's a very public example of that, where he had a huge collection and he kind of was some, some of the impetus for a lot of, a lot of us thinking, ooh, how cool would that be to just have row after row of these rack systems and all these animals, you know, and that kind of thing. And, you know, he's moving away from that. And he got rid of a lot of those rack systems.

You know, now he's doing mostly display and zoo and reselling other people's animals and things like that. You know, and that's fine. I mean, it's kind of the progression. But he's definitely making a lot more money doing YouTube than he was breeding and selling animals. And, I mean, you know, there's apparently more than one way to be the, in big air quotes, the man in reptiles. And, you know, maybe he was somebody who, you know, thought that breeding was the way to be the man. And he was offered another show or shown or figured out another avenue.

And now he's the, you know, he's the influencer man, you know, like that to him if that's, you know, he definitely, definitely, you know, switched that train and got on a different track and seems to be doing pretty well with it. So, you know, I mean, he does. He does still seem to push that the pyramid scheme thing. He's, you know, the with with those catchy titles like the next million dollar project dollar project and crap like that you know it's just like come on dude you know because it's it's it's all i mean you know the pyramid scheme is kind of that like self-fulfilling prophecy even if you you know even if you realize that it's bullshit you still want other people to participate in it because in some way, shape, or form, you're still plugged into it. You need those new morphs to keep that excitement, to keep yourself relevant, to make new shows for yourself. It feeds the machine, and you're part of the machine, and you need the machine fed.

So you kind of push the bullshit even though you need the machine fed. So, you know, you, you kind of push the bullshit, even though, you know, it's bullshit. So, I mean, and you know, some of that's just economics at some point, right? We, so much of, of our economy is just pushing the bullshit because you got to feed the machine. And I guess if I think about it, that's probably the main reason I didn't want to go down that path. And why I think I need to thin out my collection a little bit is because I never really – I'm not a good salesman because I don't want to push somebody into something that they don't want to do, you know? And I think a lot of time I've seen a lot of the big breeders, they kind of do some sketchy things here and there because they need to sell animals to feed their family, you know? So it's like, there are a few examples of, of, of upfront and, and, you know,

breeders that are doing it the right way and aren't trying to, you know, swindle people and things like that. But that's kind of few and far between. You know, I think of Ron. Ron, he seems like he's just doing it the right way and has a good sense, you know, about him. But he'll also be the first to admit that, you know, like he's saying, you know, when he touches a project, it kind of dooms it, you know, a little bit in his hands. But then as soon as he sells it off, it does fantastic.

So he's gone through a few of those projects where other people – But that's more towards how Ron operates, right? Like Ron is more of a process guy. He's not a business – he literally is the – I'm here for the counterculture. I'm here for the process. I'm here for the counterculture I'm here for I'm here for the process I'm here for the development I I I don't like the money side of it but I gotta make enough you know it's like at some point it's like I've done so well with this I need to make enough money and I think now he's kind of transitioning into you know uh into projects where he's to make some money off of it. And he's, and good for

him, man. He should, he, he's contributed so much and, and worked so hard and, you know, he's helped so many people get, get, get, get plenty of money in their pocket from his efforts. Um, so, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's the process, it's's the goals it's why you're in it and you know you you see people like ron saint pierre and you're like good dude like that i'm about it like i i i don't know he's just he's just so on on my flex of like the the you know reptiles being a counter the more the more i listen to him talk and the more i think about the way he views things the more i'm like that's he's a fucking hundred percent right and you know that where the things he hates about the industry i fucking hate the about the industry and it's like

i think everybody can hear the ringing of truth and what you know he's like the guy who speaks the truth um because he's been there he's done that and you know he walks you know, he's like the guy who speaks the truth, um, because he's been there, he's done that. And, you know, he walks, you know, he walks the walk, talks the talk. Um, and, you know, like Ron's also a good guy who has a fairly sizable collection and he's kind of tied down a little bit to, you know, his collection, but Ron also goes out and herbs, he goes out and does stuff like he, you know, but he doesn't do it alone either. He was saying he hasn't been out a lot. That's fair. He's had to have been tied down.

But he also self-admitted that there's a part of him that walks away from reptiles when they're down. And he has a whole other – he does a lot of gaming and stuff. So he has – and that's the other thing, like, and I'm, I'm experiencing that too, where, you know, I'm getting older and I'm like taking my health more seriously and I'm trying to do more things. I started doing like mixed martial arts and, you know, going, trying to go to the gym and I've just been going as hard as I can on that. And I, you know, my animals haven't suffered just because my collection is so, is so, so manageable. But, you know, again, it's like, you, you have to be able to stay healthy, um, for yourself. And, and I do, I do agree with you that, that sometimes if you're, you know, you don't have it, if you haven't worked out how to do that with a big collection, it could definitely get the better of you. And, and it's just not worth your health and you're you know you haven't if you haven't worked out how to do that with a big collection

it could definitely get the better of you and and it's just not worth your health and your happiness and your you know you know your peace of mind uh for the animals if if you're just trying to go after something because it's too big i i definitely think there's a limit to big collections i think people have to be sensible about that stuff and really look hard at the market and really, you know, take some honest assessment and start slow. And if you're going to go for a big collection and you want to be that guy, you know, you better do your goddamn homework because there's some real, real, real good breeders out there. Yeah. No, what's, what's, uh, waiting for you, you know, on the other end, because I think we, we like the glamor of it, but we kind of gloss over the, the, the, the road is paved in snake poop. You know, you, you gotta, you gotta do the, the kind of rough stuff as well as the, the glamorous, you glamorous, producing the world's first or having a great season, things like that.

But I don't fault anybody for wanting that. I just think let's have a more realistic approach. Think about is that what you really want. I think intention is everything. Intention is everything. Intention is everything. What your intentions are, I feel, will have a gross influence on the outcome of your success or your failure. That's just me, though. Yeah. Another downside, I think, of being that professional breeder, having that giant collection, is you look at everybody as kind of competition.

And I see that with a lot of the larger breeders that they have to sell animals for their livelihood. And so anytime somebody comes along and breeds the same animal and undercuts them, they're gr're they're grumbling about it because oh you know they they they're selling them for less and i you know i you know it's it's kind of a sad thing to to kind of not see every to see everybody as a competitor or or somebody that you have to take down or that you have to watch out for and keep things from. And you see that a lot. I think it keeps the hobby from progressing like it could because then you're keeping trade secrets or you're not telling how you bred this animal because you want to be the only one to supply these things. And that leaves a bad taste in my mouth at least.

That's the part of the hobby I just really don't like. And so maybe that's another reason why I'm not destined to be a professional breeder but just enjoy the animals i think you know i think in context those people who are you know very like uh you know hating on you know hating on other people because of the competition and i think they're again i'm going back to intention and and you know and and and the goals you know and i don't want to speak for the guy but but sean Carroll again, animals are amazing, simply fantastic. I do not think that he has to sit there and be like, oh, that motherfucker sold these things. Or, you know, he doesn't have to worry about that because he has developed such a collection and he's doing such great things. And his animals and his

work absolutely speak for themselves and so if he it and in my and this is just me in my mind if i had that kind of a collection and i was doing that kind of work at that kind of level i wouldn't be worried about what anybody else is doing because I'm doing it so fucking good that, you know, it's not, um, it, it, I don't have to get down in the weeds. I think the people who are working in the margins of high success, they're down in the weeds because they're, they, because they haven't made those good decisions. They haven't long game their collection. They haven't done some of that stuff that really sets those 50 rapache style,

large breeders. And, you know, I'm not saying Sean is one of those 50 large, you know, you know, large breeders, but I'm using Sean as a, as a, as a quality example to make my higher point. And I think that, you know, the, the, the, where you see the ugly part is where people struggle and where they, you know, where they struggle and that's where you see the ugliness of it. And, and, and, you know, that goes to big collection versus small collection. If, if that's, if you've got a big collection and you're pissed off at everybody else because they bred this or, you know, whatever, maybe you need to examine what you're doing. Maybe you need to look at your intention and, and reassess your goals. Um, I, I think that, you know, there's definitely, you know, there, there's definitely,

uh, a point for you to be made there. Um, but at the same time, you know, is that, is that a problem with big collections or is that a problem with decision-making and goals and intentions? Right. Yeah. I, I, I'd like to kind of go off of what you're saying about, uh, Sean Carroll and the quality, you know, a lot of times when you have to just pump out animals to meet the need or try to pump out animals to have enough to, to, you know, feed your family, things like that. A lot of times the quality is, is secondary. I mean, you're going to have healthy specimens or whatever, but you know, not everyone's going to be a stunner, you know, and that's kind of the trick. And especially, I guess, if you're wholesaling or selling to PetSmart or Petco or something like that, maybe it's is, you know, selling 80% of his stuff, you know, to, to some pet store and then just having that 20% that's just marvelous.

Yeah, but I don't think, I don't think in the law of numbers babies that you'll get versus if you have an average quality of a breeder stock that, you know, in the numbers, in the percentages, I think you'll get a higher percentage of higher quality animals, which leads to, you know, more in number, more higher quality animals going out into the market. Yes, you're, you know, in a carpet clutch, you're always going to have, you know, animals that aren't quite as nice or, you know, not every animal is like the the the the Kwan or like the stellar animal. But the higher the quality of the breeder stock, the higher the quality of the offspring. And we've seen that time and again. Sure, but you still get a percentage of them. Your point is made.

But that's an issue that whether you're the best breeder in the world or the worst breeder in the world or the biggest collection or the smallest collection, you still deal with that. You know what I mean? That's a universal thing. Yeah. Regardless of what he does, we have it in our minds that he's got the best stuff. And I think that's kind of the goal you need to have as a large scale breeder is people need to think of you as the guy for this or that or the other. And it's hard to get there. Would you disagree with what i'm

saying i mean you see the quality of his breeder stock no yeah and do you disagree yeah but i guess along those same lines as soon as you sell any of that highly refined you know beautiful stuff you've just created somebody who can sell the same stuff that you do you know what i mean so that's kind of where you get people saying well i'm going to sell a male or I'm going to sell these as normals even though they have the gene, that kind of thing. I'd rather take a loss on that rather than create competitors. And you see a lot of those kind of things that go on in the hobby. I agree with that. But at the same time, how did Andrew hair ever have problems selling those hair jungles?

I mean, he was doing different pairings from highlighter and he had, he had, I mean, so, so like even, even though so many of those jungles went out and everybody had hair jungles at some point or what,

you know, like there was a lot of people out there with him. Did he ever have problems selling his stuff? No, because he got known for that stuff. So people went to him for those things. And could they get them elsewhere? Sure, they could. Did some people?

Yeah. But I think by and large, the people who become well known for things, you know, they're in their nipper and people know them for that. And I, you know, if, if I if you could show me example after example of people who, you know, sell off their their high quality, you know, offspring from quality breeder stock, and then, you know, they're out of business because of it i know we talk about that and that's a factor yes i get it i understand you're selling to your competition and so it makes the market harder but that's business in some respects right like like if if other businesses can get the same type of stuff that you where. Where is Andrew here now? Well, and again, that goes to your point.

Where are highlighter jungles? Well, and I mean, you know, did he stop producing them or did all of the highlighter jungles that everyone else made drive him out of business? I would say he just stopped breeding. You know what I mean? And he moved on, which goes to your point of people get in and get out,

which really doesn't have anything to do with what we're talking about. Well, I know I would say if, if you have this, you know, golden goose and you're producing these jungles that everybody wants and loves. And so why aren't you still doing it? If it was a working thing, a lot of times things go wrong and you have to have kind of a big base.

If you don't have the staying power and the projects, multiple projects that people want, one project usually doesn't cut it you know and and that's why you see a lot of these kind of flash in the pans they were they were really popular for a couple years but then where are they now and where are those animals i i don't ever very rare all reptiles are hills and valleys sure all reptiles are hills and valleys so you know the fact that the fact that when you hit you you know, when you hit a valley and whoever that person is like, I'm out, I'm out. I did it. I made my money. I'm out. OK, cool, man. Cool. You know, the the the the long term people, the people who, you know, the the Nick Mutton, who's not, you know, know who's not gonna just be like roll up shop and

leave right he's gonna keep his highlighter jungles off in the corner and when that shit becomes in vogue again bam he's gonna start selling those out again because he's gonna have them and and i think you know it with the ebb and flow that's kind of what you have to do um and and part of having a big collection is holding on to those things taking care of them like you know even when they're not in vogue that's that's part of the the hard part and that's why you see so much turnover is people are like well crap man i have these animals that were really popular and now nobody gives a shit about them so i'm out i'm not gonna feed all this stuff or whatever and it's like okay you didn't understand what you were doing.

You didn't get you. You know, you you got the game twisted like that's not how it works. It runs in cycles. And if if if you're dedicated, Nick's dedicated, he's not going to roll up shop on a project and just stop. Stop doing it. He may, you know, not put animals together because he's having a hard time selling them, but it doesn't mean that he just rolls up and quits keeping. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah, I agree with that, and I guess that was my point, right? You have to stay on top of the game if you're going to play the game.

If you're going to be a professional breeder in real time, you have to stay on the cutting edge. You have to look for the next big project. You have to spend money to make money. You have to keep the new genes coming in. And you have to produce nice examples of those. You can buy all the nicest stuff. And a lot of times that front end first, you know, produced morph is not as nice as it's going to be after a few generations in your customer's hands, you know, or hopefully in your own hands. And, you know, with some projects like, you know, Nick's a great example

of that where he kind of cornered that Brettles market, you know, and he has all the latest, greatest. He spent a lot of money to get those. And but now he's producing things that people can't really compete with in some ways. I mean, I think he had a couple projects that popped up in other people's hands that, you know, were unanticipated. But, you know, and, and, and, but he has to kind of strategically work that out and figure out what's going to be cutting edge, what people can't compete with him on, and what he can be the guy for. Because if you're buying a hatchling from Nick, a Brettles hatchling, and it takes four or five years for that thing to be able to produce offspring of its own, you're not catching up to him. He's four or five years ahead of you.

And this isn't the, you know, being a professional breeder, being a breeder of the large collection, uh, who's, who's trying to sell animals, you know, to feed their family. It's not just breeding snakes. It's, it's, it is a whole, you know, it is a chess game. It's a giant chess game and it's, and it's a, you know, it's a moving target. So if you're going to be that guy who, all right, this project's no longer going to be viable for me, I need to get out. You need to know when the getting is good and when to move that project out and when to move on to the next thing and what that next thing's going to be. And you really need to have your finger on the pulse. And that's hard to do. It's hard to do. Yeah. Yeah. But almost takes a crystal ball type approach to do that. So,

you know, I would say like from, you know, at least my perspective, having a smaller collection is more enjoyable. One, you can leave it, you know, to go away and it's not too hard for somebody else to come and look after it or two you know you can you can uh take a step back and and not have to sell an animal you can sit on a whole clutch or two you know every year and it's not going to hurt you much or or you know if you're not financially um in need of selling those animals you know you can see how they grow up see what they turn out to look like. You know, you can take your time with them and pick your holdbacks over a couple of years. It's just it just seems to be more enjoyable.

You can also provide a better better environment, more enrichment, different things for each animal. You know, when you have a smaller collection versus a larger collection. And so I think, you know, a lot of times people just kind of gloss that over and see, okay, well, I can keep 50 in this rack and, you know, then I can produce, you know, several hundred from those 50 and they just kind of get the money, you know, stars in their eyes kind of thing and they forget what this is about. And, you know, stars in their eyes kind of thing, and they forget what this is about. And, you know, this is about, you know, the, the love and the, and the passion for the animal. And, and again, I do think there is a balance and you can achieve that balance. Again, I think of Ron St. Pierre and his outdoor caging and the, and the large extensive caging that he makes. And,

and, and if it didn't work, he scraps it and makes another one. You know, he doesn't just try to ram stuff into stuff that doesn't work. So, you know, he's a really good example of that. So, you know, there, there, you can achieve that. But it's difficult. I would agree with that. And I think, I think, I think you can get both right. You can get, you can get people who provide enrichment and who, who really do it right with their enclosures and their animals and doing right by the animal. But acknowledging that in the mantra of got to have a big collection, got to be a big breedereder that tends to fall by the wayside and people who would you know really put a lot into the enrichment of the animal are are not in the are not in the majority so yeah i'd kind of agree with that and and but but say you know

it's not always the case yeah Yeah, that's for sure. Well, have we beat this topic to death? You got anything else to add? The horse is on the floor. Okay. I don't know if it's the lag, but I think we've come to an end of our discussion here. Have you listened to anything good lately? Any cool things in herped culture that have come to your attention?

Man, I have not. I have been horrible, and I have not listened to really much. Well, so a lot of the podcasts took a break over over the holiday period. Yeah. And I got so the John. So, John, I listened to a non reptile related podcast by John Berthold, who is the guy who plays the Punisher. And he's got a he's got a podcast. I listened to him on Rogan and was just really struck by what an interesting guy. You kind of look at him and he's like the tough guy. I think he's from Boston or out east, but he's kind of that tough Bostonian,

New Yorker kind of philly guy and uh and you know like you find out that he he studied uh theater in the russian uh in russian theater and like just really interesting and then started a podcast uh around um because he has a lot of people that you know were into criminal you know activities but he also has people who are police and law enforcement and he kind of like brings those two worlds together and shows like both sides of it and is just a really you know kind of kind of really interesting i i just was like wow what a what a cool guy what a what a great like guy who's using his his fame fame to kind of give perspective and, and voice to both sides. Um, you know, I, I just, I like that kind of thing. I can't remember if it was like, uh, Conan

O'Brien or somebody like that. They had him on and I, I, yeah, I really enjoyed his backstory and some of the things he was doing. So just, just super interesting. So yeah, unfortunately, I have not really been on the reptile tip as of the past couple weeks. So need to get my butt back on the horse and make a significant contribution to the what's new in reptiles for the next episode. I'll do better, Justin. I'll do better. I really enjoyed an episode of Project Herpetoculture with Jordan Russell, if you remember. Oh, nice. Jordan, yeah. Yeah, of course. It was really, really cool to hear his perspective. I think he's pretty on the ball with a lot of things. And he spoke at that Herpeton a few years back. And, but yeah, I've, I've kind of, it's, it's been interesting to watch his, you know, progression and stuff like that. But it was cool to listen to that.

Yeah. I don't know. I, I, I. And that was on Project Herpetoculture? I've been kind of saying things, kind of take. Project Herpetoculture. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. Phil Leitz and Roy Arthur Blodgett. Yeah. They, they, they've, they've, they've got a really good show there. They're coming hard, yeah. Phil Leitz and Roy Arthur Blodgett. Yeah, they've got a really good show. They're coming hard, man. about that he kind of likes more of the give me some information you know give me some yeah some stuff i can use and you know it's nice to think about all the all the other aspects like the the philosophical stuff but i i want something tangible you know and i i understand that but and i think they bring both of that to the table for sure but um and he he mentioned um uh that he he enjoyed the one with uh scott and ty Iper, that that was a little more useful information or something like that. Yeah, yeah.

Some good shows they've got coming out. So, yeah, I've really enjoyed kind of catching up on theirs now that I've found where it is. But, yeah, it's pretty cool. I haven't really – I ran across a paper. It's by the same guys that did the anteresia re-classification thing. And, yeah, they did like a timeline of – I haven't read the paper yet, honestly, but I just saw that that kind of popped up up so i need to look at that one see see what was it what what is the topic of the paper like uh evolutionary history of the pythons okay kind of when they got you and and kind of a rapid expansion when they hit australia and some of the you know aspects of that so i'm more more kind of a nick paper but I like that stuff too and get kind of geeked out about that.

So I'll have to take a look at that. It's a very pleasant scene. Other than that, yeah, it's been kind of slow lately. Just kind of enjoying the holidays and family and not really hanging out in the snake room as well. Yeah, yeah. Same, same. as well yeah yeah yeah same thing i got a i got a new uh tool uh you know the drawer unit with the the it's like six foot tall kind of thing you know where you put all your tools so i've been kind of excited organizing all my tools and getting things uh organized out in my shop and stuff like

that so this is like a uh roll away like a toolbox rollaway. Nice. I mean, it's one of the cheaper ones, but it's got like a charging station up in the top so I can kind of put all my, and it's got locks and stuff like that. So it's, it's kind of exciting. I've always wanted one of those and I'm just a geek for tools. If you, if you want to take it to the next level, go get yourself some of that like foam, like the blue foam that you use to like lay down for sleeping bags and stuff cut it out for the squares and then silhouette all the tools so everything goes in its spot and like cut out the foam and put the tools in that's that's how like it worked that's how so we have like very because i work on aircraft we have very very

strict tool control oh yeah and so we have to account for every every tool every piece every every little thing and and so all of our boxes are silhouetted and man it's like when it's you know i don't know i geek out over that stuff too so i like a nicely silhouetted toolbox where everything has this place and you open it up and you're just like oh that's beautiful for sure that's awesome that's yeah, I, I, I like the tool things. I was able to pick up another miter saw or the, the chop saw, you know, those are fun. So I need to get some space and set that up, but I, I've got a bunch of cages that I need to build i i think i i mentioned that probably you know 50 episodes ago but yeah i i got a bunch of uh these um crates shipping crates and i've been turning those going a little slower than i'd anticipated and hoped but i i'd like to get most of my stuff into

bigger better cages and that kind of thing so that's's kind of one of the goals I have for this upcoming year. New year. How's the rat problem going? Oh, yeah. It's, it's, it's fixed. I'm back on track. Nice. No more loose rats. Nice.

That was a, yeah, it's a long time coming, but I'm very happy to report. That's good. That's why you didn't hear me. You didn't hear me complain about it at the top of the show. Yeah. I'm glad you didn't bring the loose rats into 2023. That's awesome. Yeah. They stayed back in 2022.

I mean, overall, 2022 is one of the best years on record. That was a lot of fun. I didn't make it over to Australia, so that's one of the things years on record that was a lot of fun i didn't make it over australia so that's one of the things i need to fix in 2023 and yeah um so i'm planning on getting them back over there at some point this year and then um yeah it should be a good year i'm excited yeah yeah yeah well cool man all right well um we we'll recommend you to the Podfather and his army of podcasts. You can check out everything at MoreliaPythonRadio.com and listen to all the great content they've got out. I know they've got some good shows coming up for the new year.

So check out Morelia Python Radio and all the associated podcasts, including ours, reptile fight club, go back and enjoy some of our past episodes and some of our past guests. We've got a lot of, uh, people that have given us ideas and that are, are, um, ready to come on the podcast. So I just need to get them scheduled. And that's been, um, kind of the, the rate limiting step here, but we should have some guests on so you can listen to somebody besides us too. But I don't know. I enjoy having a little intellectual battle with

Chuck. It's always fun. So hopefully you guys are all right with that, but we should have some guests coming up here in the next couple of weeks. Should be fun times. So as always, thanks for listening and we will catch you again next week for another episode of Reptile Fight Club. Stay tuned for a new year, new us. Later. Thank you. Outro Music Thank you.