April 2012
1 post
Balls aren't the only game in town
Over the past decade BHBreptiles has become known more and more for specializing in Ball Pythons and that’s great, but not entirely accurate. Although I have been obsessed with Ball Pythons an continue to pour tons of energy (and money) into them, the truth is that 2/3 of my collection is comprised of colubrids. That’s right, I have way more corns, kings, milks and ratsnakes then...
March 2012
2 posts
Tinley Summit
The whole idea behind the late winter NARBC show in Tinley is to have a summit for USARK, PIJAC and our community about the “State of the Union”. After all it was a summit put on by the NARBC that spawned USARK in the first place. Over the last few years the reptile hobby has come under attack on many levels, but the legislation that has been proposed and passed has been the major...
SnakeBytesTV
It’s a hard feeling to describe when you have a vision for something like a TV show or a Web show and you put all your energy into trying to make it a success, not because you are narcissistic or have to pad your ego, but because you want to reach people with your message. What message you might ask? The message that “we” are here and we’re not the underground evil killers...
January 2012
6 posts
Time to wake up
I posted a video of Roy Garber from the hit series “Shipping Wars” on A&E tv. I was shocked that on the main page of A&E’s website there was a video about this guys love for his pet alligator along with his love for snakes, frogs and turtles. In my eyes this was a huge win for the reptile community. A public figure speaking out about how cool these animals are. Did I...
mites
Are mites the kiss of death? Seems that a lot of people in the reptile hobby equate mites with being the plague… As if mites are as bad as IBD, respiratory infections or Herpes for that matter. Of course nobody wants to deal with mites, they are a pain in the butt and are something that everyone that keeps reptiles hopes to avoid.
It’s not secret that we have had issues with mites...
Idea for educating/ promoting the hobby
I had this idea a couple of years ago and never followed up with it, after all I have a few irons in the fire you know. Here goes… We pick a date in the spring, best around the end of the school year, where as many people from all over the country contact their local schools and libraries, asking if you can bring animals and do an educational show for the kids. We call it “Snake...
Champagne corks
You can almost hear the champagne corks popping at HSUS with this latest victory, and trust me it was a victory for them. They put together a masterful job of selling the public, the media and the law makers that there was a threat to humanity with “killer” pythons. Let’s take a step back and look at this from a “non” snake keepers stand point. You turn on the news...
R.I.P. big snakes
In reality I probably thought I’d see this day come, yet I was still in denial. Maybe it was the promise of “fight” that we were putting up, maybe it was me just being naive. Yet, when the announcement came and four species of the “big” snakes that I have kept and bred for most of my life are now on the Lacey act and will be banned from crossing state lines, I was...
2012 high hopes and challenges.
I’m really not one to think of the New Year as a new start, after all it’s just one day after the last day in December and what really changes? With that said, I can see it as a way to put things in perspective, to kind of look back and inventory what the last twelve months have meant and what you hope the nest twelve will have in store.
There is no doubt that 2011 was the year of...
December 2011
1 post
Ball Bids
I hate to bring attention to this, but I felt a need to share my opinion. There’s a “new” website called BallBids, where you bid a penny on a morph Ball Python. How it works is you pay for your bids, average of .60 or so. Each bid the animal goes up a penny. The auction goes for a few days, so in the end a $350 snake sells for $4. Keeping in mind that every bidder has lost money...
November 2011
2 posts
Time For Action
Ohio is one example of the many attacks that our hobby has coming at us. What exactly does a crazy guy letting dozens of Lions, Tigers and Bears have to do with passing a ” reptile law”? Well, it’s the perfect way for organizations like the HSUS to use this platform to push legislation that meets their agenda, which is to outlaw reptiles. We can all sit back and think that...
Sugar plums dancing in my head?
With the harsh realization that winter is upon us, or at least from a weather stand point. It’s not sugar plums that dance in my head this holiday season, but the promise of potential Boa and Python production. We’re in the full swing of breeding finally, actually for use it’s very early. Normally I don’t even think of putting males and females together until close to...
October 2011
2 posts
Mentally Tired
Each year in March I feel so excited about the year to come, female Boas and Pythons are becoming gravid, colubrids are coming out of hibernation and are ready to breed. Breeding and hatching snakes is what I love, and each year the potential seems so exciting. What comes over the next seven months is something that I am never truly prepared for. It’s a cycle that I have been dealing with...
Pro Exotics
September 2011
1 post
Reptiles, is it a disease?
Being in the reptile hobby for more then 23 years, the one thing that I realize is that once you have the “bug” you never get rid of it. Sure, you can get rid of your collection, but mark my words, you’ll be back. I’m really not sure what it is about keeping reptiles, but it’s just in your blood. I have seen so many people exit the hobby with the intentions of never...
August 2011
3 posts
The High Road
People often ask me why I never respond to negative rumors, post, or comments. The answer is very simple, I want to try my best to portray the hobby in the best light that I can. By going in the trenches and defending what I believe, just to discredit someone that is spreading nonsense is nothing more then stooping to their level. You actually validate their point if you respond. I would be lying...
Daytona is not dead.
Heading to the National Breeders Expo in Daytona was a bit stressful this year. The buzz in the industry was the show was dead, and this would be the last year. You have to realize that our hobby was built on the success if shows like the NRBE. For 21 years people have traveled from a far just to see some of the coolest animals and buy their future breeders and pets. To think it was coming to an...
Stand Up For Snakes
Just needed to vent a little about the video contest. This idea came to me over a year ago. A way to reach non-snake people with a positive message about our hobby. A way to get people to go outside our community for votes and show how awesome our hobby is. I knew it was going be a lot of work, not to mention the close to $10k I would be giving away with really no actual benefit to my own...
July 2011
3 posts
This is why I do SnakeBytesTV
It’s hard to believe that it’s three and a half years into producing SnakeBytesTV. Coming up with a new idea each week, trying to put together a show that the community will be proud of as well as people outside the community will enjoy watching. I would be lying if I didn’t say that I consider taking a break once in a while. Don’t get me wrong, I love producing the show,...
The Reptile Family
Over the last twenty years it’s been a joint venture between myself and my wife Lori to try to run a successful reptile breeding business. There have been many ups and many downs during that time, but the one thing that stayed constant was both of our commitment to trying to be the best we could be. You might think to yourself that breeding reptiles for a living is all about fun, but the...
Interesting question
In a blog post on our community site, the question was asked, “what we did with snakes that were sub par or not wanted by anyone”. People have asked if we put those animals down being that it might be a good business decision. Not that it was a leading question, but it made me want to explain my position on “all” of my animals. First off, when you work with large numbers...
June 2011
4 posts
Egg Season
When you are a reptile breeder for a living, the egg season is what you dream for. Those long months of caring for your collection of animals while they are gearing up for the breeding season are always filled with expectations of egg production. That time of the year is finally here and each year it seems to come with on with a fury. When you get your first eggs of the year, it feels like...
Big Breeder VS. Small Breeder
Seems that for as long as I have been in this hobby there has always been a slight divide between the big and small reptiles breeders. In my opinion, it’s something that both sides use as a marketing tool. The small breeder claim that the big guys don’t have the individual care for each animal or their clients, and the big breeders claim that the small guys can not afford to back...
Reptile Auctions
We’ll be exploring the idea of auctioning animals on facebook. The idea stemmed from the success that Ben Siegel has had with his reptile auctions. My first concerns were of course not just selling animals to people that were not going to be able to care for the animals the way we would like. The more I thought about it, the more I realize that when we sell an animal to a customer at a...
Life without the net
I hate to admit it, but my life is so dependant on the internet. Whether it’s staying in touch with friends, family, supporters, finding directions, looking up weather or selling snakes. I need to be online almost all day! Things like following the latest FaceBook post, the trending tweets, and the coolest new videos it’s all part of the fix. This morning my Internet modem was...
May 2011
8 posts
Jumping Croc River
After settling into Australia for a few days, the event that would turn out to be the highlight of my trip would come while on what is being called “The Jumping Crocodile Cruise”. It’s a tour down the Adelaide River, where “wild” crocs are literally jumping out of the water after being offered a hunk of meat dangling from a long stick. Okay, they don’t actually...
Fresh water crocs
Our second day of filming we headed up to the township of Adelaide river. After what seemed like going up a road for two hours from something you would see in a hummer commercial, we finally made it to our destination. We had Erin with us and she assured us that this is a great location for pygmy fresh water crocs. These pygmy crocs only get about 5 foot and unlike their ominous cousins the...
Oz
Think of getting on a plane at 6pm, after being up for 12 hours already, then wrap your head around the fact that you will not be at you destination for over 40 hours. That’s what you have to endure when your making a trip to Darwin, Australia. Is it worth it you might ask? In one word, yes! We’ve been here for a few days and after a several hour layover in Sydney, where we were able...
Travels
When running a live animal business the thought of being away from my animals for even a day or two is enough to turn my stomach, with that being said I am always in search of a new adventure. Fortunately this time I’ll be heading to Australia , spending the majority of my time in the Darwin area, and Lori will be staying back to keep the breeding season moving along. The crew knows what...
1400th blog
When I think of all the rambling that I have made in the last 1400 blogs, I realize it’s amazing that anyone even reads my dribble. That being said I appreciate all your support and want to take the time with this blog to talk about what the future looks like here at BHB.
We’ve been reorganizing the collection over the past few months, some changes have already been made and some are...
Pied Retics and more
I think the reality of Boas and some large Pythons not being a part of our future market hit me even harder today, when I had my first glimpse of Bob Clarks new baby pied Retics. My first thoughts were, holy cow he’s gong to get rich on that project. Then I started to think about the possibility of this “rule change” going into effect and the large constrictors no longer being...
Mental Month
With the calender switching to the month of May, it brought the realization that life will be out of control for the next 30 days. Is that a bad thing? Not really, it actually be a really good thing. May will be a month that I’ll look back on and have incredible memories of some cool experiences, that is if I survive it. The first few days started out rather normal, but that’s all...
April 2011
7 posts
Filming
When trying to break into the entertainment world, there can be a lot of peaks and valleys. Times when your future looks so bright and then times when the journey seems endless. Lately I have been putting most of my efforts into working with my collection of snakes and focusing on my Internet videos. That doesn’t mean that I don’t have bigger plans or aspirations for that matter....
First Eggs
It’s what ever reptile breeder waits for, the first clutch of eggs of the year. Whether it’s a five mutation clutch or a clutch of normals, it feels the same each year. That feeling of success! I once heard that the “white” of a clutch of eggs was addicting, and I pretty sure I agree with that statement. No matter how many breeding seasons I have, and this is my 24th,...
Tips to winning the video contest
If you are reading this and aren’t aware we have now officially launched the “Stand up for Snakes” video contest. We’re still tweaking the website to help make it easier and easier for you to get involved and win. Speaking of winning, I want to go over things as well as a few tips for you so you have the best chance to win. If you are asking what you win, we are giving...
It's the Internet Stupid
This week was somewhat of an epiphany for me. I have been on a mission to get a TV deal for years, and trust me when I say I get something in my head and I have tunnel vision. The reasons for TV have been well documented in my blogs of the past, but a quick recap would be; positive exposure to the reptile hobby, helping in negative legislation, sharing my passion for animals, and here comes the...
Snake Road
For the past several years I have been doing my best to get down to Southern Illinois to go to the infamous “Snake Road”. It’s a small stretch of dirt road that the fish and game shut down each year for a few weeks in the spring and fall for the migration of thousands of animals from the bluff on the east and the swamps on the west of the road. Animals migrate in the spring from...
Snakes must be evil
For as long as I have been keeping snakes, which has been most of my life, I have heard the opinions about peoples fear and loathing for snakes. To me this has always driven me to change as many peoples minds as I could possibly achieve. I have done this in a number of ways, one on one at my shop or at any given opportunity, through social media such as this blog, and of course with our web show...
Inspired again
Once again Danny and Andy from www.urbanjunglesradio.com had another inspiring guest. Colin Riddel from Australia has been taking conservation to a new level. This guys not the politically correct type, he tells it how it is and doesn’t care who likes it. Unlike most people who might want to sit back a little, Colin starts his interview off bashing the Australian government for their...
March 2011
11 posts
Anything is possible
On any given day my over active brain might pump out any number of ideas, maybe I’ll be watching a news show, or a commercial, and then out of nowhere I think of how I can apply an idea to better our plight for people to understand the animals that I love. It’s never the ideas that separate doers from non-doers, I know a ton of far more creative people then me. It’s all about...
Snakes
The one thing that I have realized over the years while breeding snakes for a living, is that you have to follow your passion. Not just with working with animals in general, but even what type of animals you work with. I didn’t start breeding Ball Pythons, or Hogsnose snakes, or whatever species you want to name for the money, or because they were popular. I started working with the...
Always Behind
With life being so full and seemingly getting fuller by the minute. The hardest thing to get used to for me is the contest feeling of being behind. Whether it’s a few days of e-mails in my inbox that are looming, getting caught up on phone calls, or whatever other project that is filling my brain to the rim, there are always a stack of things on my plate that feel like I should have gotten...
Global Pet Expo
The weather in Orlando is to die for, low 80’s, no humidity and not a cloud in the sky. Why am I here, the global pet expo. I have been doing reptile shows for over twenty years, but this is my very first “pet” expo, and I have to say I am blown away. All the major players are here in the pet trade, from dogs to fish all the way to the small showing of reptile supply companies....
Off Again
For me life has and always will be about chasing my dreams. For most people it’s the first step that is the hardest, we all have dreams, but many of us just can not step out and take that risk. We want to find happiness in what we do, but our brains get in the way and tell us it’s ludacris to take the chance and fail. I’ll never fall into that category, I always am chasing the...
Buying A Snake Collection
Over the years buying snake collections has always been a good plan of attack when growing my business. The less few years there have been plenty of opportunities, but I have not taken advantage of many of them. I took the path of buying a project here and there rather then buying bulk collections, but recently I was offered a collection of Boas and Ball Pythons that consisted of some great...
Youtube Next Lab
By now most of you know that I produce a weekly show called SnakeBytesTV, some of you know that I am signed with a company that was called Next New Networks, they specialize in original online videos. In all reality I am pretty blessed to have been signed by them because most of their producers dwarf our show. Basically they help distribute and promote our show as well as sell advertising so we...
Defining Moment
I was really excited to see that Bob Irwin the father of the legend Steve Irwin was going to be on Friday night’s Urban Jungles radio show. Even though I had been anxiously waiting for it for the past few weeks, I was unable to listen to it live. Not to mention my normal “catch the download” the following morning was foiled by company and tons of things to do. I was starting to...
It doesn't slow down
I remember the years when the dreaded winter months not only brought cold and nasty weather, but also had a silver lining by bringing a much needed slow down in our work load. Right around January things would start to slow down, colubrids were sleeping and didn’t need much attention, babies were almost sold out and Pythons and Boas were deep into their breeding season. The summer and fall...