Popping is an easy technique to sex young snakes without probing. HOWEVER, it is best to learn from an experienced keeper FIRST HAND, as you can injure and damage your animal with over zealous ignorance.

Without getting into HOW to pop a snake correctly, this FAQ more so addresses how it should LOOK-

My left thumb is pretty stationary right above the vent, it kind of holds the vent in place. It also helps to keep any liquid or solids from gushing out the vent, which will happen unless you prevent it. My left first finger wraps under the snake and vent to further secure it. The tail is bent over this finger.

The rest of my fingers help to hold/cradle/stabilize the body. If I have another person, then they hold and stabilize the rest of the squirmy body.

My right thumb "rolls" up the tail toward the vent, popping out the hemipenes or hemiclitoris (it rolls up the tail, like a wheel, it doesn't slide). I prefer to roll it up SIDEWAYS, as your thumbnail can come up and pinch the tail and vent significantly, getting in the way, or hindering your result.

This is a ball python baby male. both hemipenes out, red and engorged with blood.

This is a boa baby male. Both hemipenes out, notice they are significantly longer than a ball python. At the same time, they are not engorged with blood, but you can still see a red vein running along each hemipene (you can see it live, but not so much in this pic).

This is a ball python female, fully "popped". There are no hemipenes to pop out, but you still see the female's glands. They are the tiny little buds that point out to each side at a 45 degree angle in the pic. Detail may be hard to make out in a picture, it is easier to see live.

An unpopped male may look similar, but usually the "buds" have the vein, or are bright red with blood, and I will "roll it" again, perhaps from a slightly different angle, to get a full pop of the male hemipenes.

The female gland is typically white, and barely budding. Once you understand, and get the feel of popping, it literally takes half a second to pop male or female. I can go through a rack of 20 baby balls in just two minutes, popping all with 100% confidence. You get a strong feel and eye for the male hemipenes, you know if they are there or not, and they typically pop right out.

With a new species of snake, I will not mark females UNTIL I have popped a male. Each species has its own hemipene design, small, large, short, long, and I want to VISUALLY confirm a popped male before I can go ahead and mark cages for sex. It may take a different angle of "roll" or a slightly different pressure, or the male hemipene may be very small, and very clear, except for the thin red vein. That can cause some mental confusion until you pop BOTH a male and female and assess the difference. Blood pythons can be VERY confusing to sex by popping, as you get a lot of similar looks from both males and females.

This is a female boa, white female glands are quite visible.

Babies are easy to pop. you can pop them at one hour old (but why bother them that early? they will be the same sex a week later). Smaller juvies are typically easy as well.

Adults are much more difficult to pop, and the confusion can return with a poorly or partially popped snake. Probing adults is a better choice when you are trying to ascertain sex 100%.

Sure, I can simplify it. I can make it as simple as possible, which can still be mighty confusing : )

But we won't get overly in depth. Genetics can be tough, super confusing, and daunting. If you want a more in depth look at reptile genetics, get NERD's Complete Ball Python book, available here at ProExotics.com. If you are even a casual herper, you need this book in your library regardless, and this is just one more reason to get it.

You can also find more in depth genetics info, including Punnett Squares, at Ralph Davis' Ball Python site.

I am only going to answer the simplest, most basic questions.

There are two types of genetic descriptions most commonly seen in the reptile world, especially in Ball Pythons. Morphs (genetic color and/or pattern mutations) have either "simple recessive genes" or "dominant genes".

Simple recessive genetics are morphs like Albinos, Stripes, Ghosts/Hypos or Pieds. Dominant genetics (and related derivatives like Co-Dom) include morphs like Pinstripes, Mojaves, Pastels, and Lesser Plattys.

With a Simple Recessive morph, BOTH parents need to have the desired gene to produce a visible Albino (or Pied, etc) baby.

With a Dom or Co-Dom morph, only ONE of the parents needs to have the desired gene to produce a visible Pastel (or Mojave, etc) baby. With a Co-Dom morph like Pastel, breeding animals that BOTH have the gene produces a "Super" version, hence the Super Pastel, an animal that is visually a more extreme visual expression of the Pastel gene.

Back to simple recessives like Albinos.

Albino Ball male bred to Albino Ball female= all Albino babies.

If you breed an Albino male to a NORMAL female, all of the babies will CARRY the Albino gene, but since both parents did not, the babies WILL APPEAR NORMAL. They carry the gene inside, but it is not visually expressed. These babies are labeled as being Heterozygous for Albino (commonly abbreviated as Het for Albino).

These Het babies can still be bred to make visual Albinos. You can breed Hets to the visual morph and get some morph babies (Het Albino male to Albino female) or Hets to Hets (Het Albino male to Het Albino female- both appear normal, but contain the Albino gene).

Predicting the offspring of Het breedings is where it starts to get complicated, and we are not going that deep. Breeding with Hets MAY produce a visual morph in the offspring (statistical chance is NOT a guarantee, especially with small clutches like Ball Pythons), in most cases there is a mix of visual morphs and normal appearing babies in the resulting clutch. When a Het animal is included in the breeding pair, any normal looking babies in the clutch MAY contain the desired gene, or THEY MAY NOT.

There is no way to know what those normal appearing babies contain genetically without breeding them to confirm.

To break down the terminology of these normal appearing babies in Het clutches:

Normals- Regular normal Ball pythons, with no special genetics (other than "pretty", or, "pretty ugly").

Hets ("Het for Albino" "Het for Pied")- These babies are 100% guaranteed to carry the desired gene, BUT THEY LOOK NORMAL. They must be bred back to another Het, or visual morph, to produce the desired visual offspring.

Possible Hets ("Poss Het for Albino" "Poss Het for Pied")- These babies MAY contain the gene, or they MAY NOT! These are babies produced when breeding Het to Het, Het to Normal, etc. These must be bred again (and possibly again, and then again) to determine what lies inside. These babies may be NORMAL, or they may be Het, and that determination is not an easy one to make, it takes time, and patience.

As you move further away from the actual visual expression of the desired trait, like an actual Pied, the value of the animals go down. For example:

Most expensive- This Pied Ball, the visual expression of the Pied trait, would be the most expensive way to get into the Pied line of Ball pythons. This animal would be many thousands of dollars.

Less expensive- This Het for Pied animal is NORMAL LOOKING, but contains the Pied gene, guaranteed. This animal is typically from Pied to Het Pied, or Pied to Normal breeding. This animal would be many hundreds of dollars.

Least expensive- This Possible Het Pied (i.e. Poss Het Pied, PH Pied) animal is NORMAL LOOKING, and MAY or MAY NOT contain the Pied gene. No way to know without successful breeding. This animal may be worth all of $50 if it is a male (males are often worth less than females in the breeding world).

Another note on Poss Hets- When you see 66% Poss Hets, or 50% Poss Hets, that refers to the chance that they are actually Hets (and relates to the Punnett Squares and deeper genetic terminology, see The Complete Ball Python book by NERD). It DOES NOT MEAN that 66% of your clutch will be Pied, Albino, etc. It just means that particular animal itself has a 66% chance of being HET, and 34% chance of being NORMAL.

Needless to say, when you are purchasing Hets, or Possible Hets, it is in your best interest to deal with a REPUTABLE BREEDER. Anyone can take normal babies and label them "Hets" or "Poss Hets" and con you out of your hard earned money. There is little recourse in this instance, as it could take 3 years, 5 years, even 10 years to breed the animals enough to determine their genetics, or lack thereof.

When you buy Hets, you are taking a chance on the reputation of the seller/breeder. Do your homework, and spend your money wisely.

A last note on Doms, and Co-Doms. They are either the visual morph, or they are NOT. They are either Pastel, or they are NOT. There is no "Het for Pastel" or "Het for Mojave". Buying a normal appearing sibling from a clutch including Mojaves gets you a NORMAL.

Geez, that is a lot of words for a "simple" explanation. But that is really as simple as I can make it...

We don't know exactly...

We have been goofing around with some PE Stripe Balls for a few generations now. They don't look like Genetic Stripes, but rather normal balls, that are striped.

Genetically I am not positive what is going on, perhaps with such small clutches Balls just don't explain themselves as quickly as something like a Burm with 65 babies at a time. Perhaps there is such a thing as a "weak recessive" trait. Others dabbling in this type of Stripe think it may be dominant, although that is not our experience.

We have bred our PE Stripes a number of times, sometimes you get nothing, sometimes you get one Stripe baby, sometimes you get partial Stripes...

A few years ago we crossed the PE Stripe and Ghost, making normal looking "double hets". I wasn't sure about the double het status, having the PE Stripe carry through a "het" generation, but th is year we hatched this Ghost PE Stripe from breeding those double hets back together. It certainly makes for a great looking animal.

We have also crossed the stripe into Lessers, Pins, and others, it makes for a nice bonus gene, and we will continue to tinker with it to develop the line more completely.

This first animal below is a sibling to the Ghost PE Stripe above, a PE Stripe PH Ghost. The second animal is also a sibling, but a normal top appearance, with what I believe to be a PE Stripe MARKER on the belly.

The PE Stripe Marker is not present on all babies, but this baby is from a Double Het Ghost PE Stripe breeding. It is neither Ghost nor PE Stripe, but check out the Marker on the belly.

This last animal is from a separate clutch, Lesser Platty male bred to PE Stripe female. Some nice Lessers in that clutch, and with their already weird bellies, you can't see any Marker indications, but this PE Stripe baby did make an appearance in the Lesser x PE Stripe clutch. Give us a few breeding seasons, we will get this figured out!

Why yes there is. Actually, there are four!

The VPI book on Ball Pythons by Dave and Tracy Barker is the most detailed and comprehensive book ever written about a snake species. It is a landmark work in herpetoculture, the best book ever written about a snake species, and an instant classic.

The VPI book covers all aspects of husbandry and breeding, it is absolutely, positively, a MUST HAVE for your herper library. It is pricey, but for what you are getting, it is the deal of the century.

The next one I would recommend is Kevin McCurley's Complete Ball Python book at $60.  This is a very good book covering captive snake husbandry. The husbandry, care and breeding info in this book can be applied in theory to many different species, you will be a better snake keeper by owning this book.

If $60 is really too much to swing, then you MUST get Ball Pythons in Captivity, a trimmed down version of Kevin's big book, and an absolute silly value at $11. Still packed with husbandry info and tons of photos.

My other favorite snake book is The More Complete Chondro by Greg Maxwell at $55.  Simply one of the best reptile books ever written. Certainly great for tree snake enthusiasts, but also a tremendous resource for any hobbyist, from beginner keeper to advanced breeder, this book covers so much territory, REPTILE TERRITORY, you WILL BE a better, more insightful keeper after reading this book.

I can't imagine a beginner or intermediate Ball python keeper NOT owning at least Kevin's small book, and any serious herper should have all four of these excellent titles in their reptile library. Arm yourself with the knowledge to be the best possible keeper you can be!

No. Nope. Nyet. Good grief, NO.

There are some pieces of "advice" that continually float around, and never go away. They are constantly recycled, often regurgitated without actual thought to new keepers struggling to separate good advice from bad.
There is no sensible or logical reason to feed your reptile in a separate container. The most common reasoning is that it "trains" the animal not to bite when you go in the cage.

There are two basic reasons your animal strikes when you go in the cage. Most likely it is a defensive strike, as you have startled the animal (perhaps woken it up), and it is defending itself. Learn how to approach your animal better, don't grab it by the head, or from in front of the nose. "Wake it up" before snatching it out.

The other common strike is due to the fact that you SMELL LIKE FOOD. Don't wear "rat cologne" and don't feed by hand. Use a hemostat for goodness sakes! Again, this is not the fault of the animal, this is due to the ignorance of the keeper, and it is easily remedied.

Feeding in a separate container does not "train" the animal to be tamer when you go in the cage (you still "go in the cage" to inititiate feeding). And in itself it does not prevent impactions of particulate substrates like soil or mulch.

You know what DOES prevent impactions? Proper husbandry! We have kept thousands of reptiles, snakes and lizards, on MANY different substrates, and feeding doesn't cause impactions. Bad choices do.
Impactions are most often caused by low hydration levels. When an animal is dehydrated, nothing is going flow as smoothly as it should. When an animal is kept too cool, metabolism is not going to run well enough to pass substrates and other non-digestibles.

I suppose if you kept your gecko on a substrate of crushed glass, then any glass consumed while feeding would cause a problem. But that is because you chose CRUSHED GLASS (or walnut shells, or some other poor substrate). Pick an appropriate substrate. Don't chronically dehydrate your animals (a SUPER common problem and misunderstanding in reptile husbandry) and give your animals the necessary range of temperatures to accomplish life events (like pooping!).

And stop feeding in a separate container. That is just dopey.

Why yes, we sure have! I was fortu nate enough to catch this amazing sight with the hatching of our Albino Red Bloods in 2003. Check out this video, and watch the thick blood vessel towards the right side, you can see it twitch with the animals heartbeat. I must have watched this for 20 minutes before I thought "I should catch this on video!" and even then I was limited to the 15 seconds that my digital camera would shoot, but here it is, and it is pretty amazing, please check it out!

Video of Albino Blood heartbeat in the egg

A "primer" gets your reptile in the mood, raring to go, and as responsive as can be.

You can prime your snake by feeding two meals in one sitting. Go with feeders that are 50-60% of the regular weekly size, one mouse, and one rat. Feed your mouse meal first (you are feeding thawed, right?!?), and then pay attention. A smaller prey item should be consumed pretty quickly (that's the "prime"), and that is when you pounce. Immediately after the snake has swallowed the first item (allow for that full "get in the stomach" stretch), offer the rat to your snake. Snakes are instinctive feeders, and it is hard for the animal to shut off the triggered feeding response. Your animal should snap up the second item (the rat) with gusto. Anyone that has handled their snake too soon after feeding (sometimes an hour or two!) will be familiar with this instinctive strike. Your hand doesn't smell like food, but dagnabbit, that snake is ready to go, and any old target will do! Make that target your thawed rat, and you are good to go.

Follow the two in one primer plan for three or four weeks. For the fifth week, offer a full sized, high quality thawed rat, and watch your previously mouse addicted animal snap it up without a second thought. The slightly different smell, or flavor, of the thawed rat will be old news to your animal by now, switch made, problem solved.

This technique also works well for making the rat-to-rabbit switch. Follow the same gameplan.

BEWARE!! Once you have worked so hard to make the switch, DON'T LOOK BACK!! Once your animal is eating rats (or rabbits) you can reset the whole system by offering a mouse again.

I can't tell you how FRUSTRATING it is to work for weeks, or months, to get a big burm feeding on thawed rabbits, only to have an employee wander through with "extra" thawed rat feeders one day, and think he is doing us all a favor by feeding them off to our rabbit eating burms! Now we have to start the whole process over again (rats must taste better than rabbits), and if I wasn't so tired from switching four burms back to rabbits again, I would be whipping some employee tail!

Better to skip a week of feeding if you run out of rats (or rabbits) than to revert back to a previous feeder and ruin your whole program. Reptiles can be quite stubborn, and feeding is as much a game of strategy as anything else. Let it be YOUR strategy, and not the reptile's (this stubbornness goes for all reptiles, especially Monitors. Don't get punked out by your own pets!).

Feeding live rodents is by most accounts an outdated husbandry practice, and in this day and age, should very rarely be necessary.

Live feeders are ticking timebombs waiting to explode on your animal. Mice and rats have extremely sharp teeth, and can do a lot of quick damage (not to mention rabbits, which are a whole ?nother level of switchblade). Leaving a live feeder rodent in the cage with your snake, even for a half an hour, can lead to serious damage to the animal. A snake that doesn't eat because of shed, sickness, or for whatever reason, is a sitting duck for a scared, desperate, aggressive rodent.

At the same time, even a snake with a quick feeding response can pay the price to a live rodent. One small slip in the strike of your animal can leave the rodent's head and teeth (or rabbit's kicking claws) exposed and ready for damage. It takes only one quick bite to puncture an eye, or chew through a throat, or back.

I can't tell you how many times I have seen a ball python constrict around a mouse's rear end, leaving the head completely free to move about. While the ball is occupied, and completely defenseless (coiling with all it's might), the mouse is free to fight back, using the best weapons that it has, it's teeth. Not even the quickest keeper is going to be able to jump in and prevent an accident everytime. If you insist on feeding live prey, over time the odds WILL catch up to you, and your snake is going to pay the price for your ignorance. There is a very dramatic picture that perfectly illustrates the live feeding problem, an instance of a mouse left overnight in the cage of a "feeding" Ball python. I hate the picture. It breaks my heart (this picture is NOT a PE animal, it has been floating around the internet for years). But it is certainly an effective deterrent, and one I think should be included here. If this FAQ is enough to convince you otherwise, don't look at the pic, and even then, don't look at the pic (this Ball python is still very much alive, but must be put down as soon as possible), but if you must see it to believe it, it is here.

I told you so.

There are instances when live feeders must be used. But 95% of the time, it is just not necessary. If I get 100 emails about stubborn animals that "won't eat", and the keeper wants to feed live, in 99 of those cases, there is a better choice, and live is not necessary. The anorexia of the reptile is almost always due to the inexperience of the keeper, and not the appetite of the reptile.

If you must use a live feeder to spark an appetite, you are courting disaster. But it is your responsibility to get your animal switched to either prekilled or thawed prey as soon as possible. Feeding live prey over the life of your reptile is simply ignorant and barbaric, we have come too far as a hobby to encourage such a practice.

So how do you switch? It really is not that difficult. Once again, failure is typically the fault of the keeper, and not related to the appetite of the reptile.

Most healthy snakes will take a thawed rodent without hesitation. Offered on a pair of hemostats, or feeder tongs, a fully thawed rodent of high quality, held in front of the snakes mouth will get a full blown strike and constriction (NEVER feed a snake from your hand! Now THAT is a novice technique!). Hold the mouse or rat by the back, below the neck, high on the spine. "Dangling" by the tail is less effective, and gives poor "aim". If the snake is puzzled by the stillness of the prey item, give it a little wiggle, a little movement, and it will become quite enticing.

Some snakes like a lot of movement. Some don't. Common boas will often strike a thawed mouse that "pops" them on the head a time or two. Ball pythons, on the other hand, are extremely head shy, and it is best not to touch the snake, but instead hold the mouse completely still in front of it's nose. A Ball python may take it's time, but it will strike (and often miss, they seem to have the WORST aim in the reptile kingdom). Using a high quality thawed feeder, hemostats, and a little patience, will usually give you success in making the transition.

But sometimes, the snakes will be more stubborn. A "primer" might be of use.

You can "prime" your snake by feeding two meals in one sitting. Go with feeders that are 50-60% of the regular weekly size, one live (ugh!) or fresh killed, and one thawed. Feed your regular meal first, and then pay attention. A smaller prey item should be consumed pretty quickly (that's the "prime"), and that is when you pounce. Immediately after the snake has swallowed the first item (allow for that full "get in the stomach" stretch), offer the thawed rodent to your snake. Snakes are instinctive feeders, and it is hard for the animal to shut off the triggered feeding response. Your animal should snap up the second item with gusto. Anyone that has handled their snake too soon after feeding (sometimes an hour or two!) will be familiar with this instinctive strike. Your hand doesn't smell like food, but dagnabbit, that snake is raring to go, and any old target will do! Make that target your thawed mouse, and you are good to go.

Follow the two in one primer plan for three or four weeks. For the fifth week, offer a full sized, high quality thawed f eeder, and watch your previously stubborn animal snap it up without a second thought. The slightly different smell, or flavor, of the thawed feeder will be old news to your animal by now, switch made, problem solved.

I mention high quality frozen rodents for a reason. Years ago, frozen rodents were more difficult to find. I can remember receiving full size trash bags of frozen mice, various sizes, perhaps 1500 in the bag, and it certainly looked less than appetizing. Convincing our snakes to eat such ugly mice was not quite as simple, and the smell was terrible. "Feeder Suppliers" sold mice and rats that had been refrozen two or three times, or rodents that were wet when they were frozen, and the resulting thaw was one gooey, unusable mess.

Fortunately, those days are gone. Well, you can still get crappy feeders out there, but there are also a plethora of GREAT frozen rodent suppliers that sell Grade A, Prime Choice, fat, dry, healthy, meaty, vacuum sealed, wonderfully packed rodents, and those folks definitely deserve your business. Companies like SAS Feeders, Gourmet Rodent, or RodentPro.com (see our links section), offer great selection, service, and of course, the best part of feeding frozen, VALUE. Ordering mice in a 50 or 100 lot (or 5000 lot) can be 75% cheaper than buying live feeders at your local pet store, and it is a lot more convenient!

One last thing, a note on THAWING your feeders. Don't be a doofus. Thawing frozen mice in a cup of hot water only takes you back to the old days of rotten, slimy mice. Thaw your rodents on a plastic lid, or some newspaper, at room temperature, it doesn't take long at all. If you must use hot water for that "quick thaw" at least put the feeder in a Ziploc bag! Seal it up, thaw it out, and when you feed it, it is still dry! And appetizing! Ok, that's a relative term, but this whole paper is about your animal, not you, so do what is best for them! Feed smart, feed healthy, feed thawed prey!

NOTE: Some keepers insist that it is safe to feed live because they would "NEVER" leave a rodent in the cage for a long period of time, much less overnight. But you know, it is about the MISTAKE you make, not necessarily your sweet intentions. The problem is going to arise when you sweep through your cages to pull the live rodents, and MISS ONE. That would be the one burrowed in the substrate, or hiding behind the snake in the hidebox, or in the back corner of the cage. Sure, you are super careful, but you WILL miss pulling all of the live rodents occasionally, and that is when it is going to explode in your face, and break your heart.

The Snake Pro Pack is a list of essentials. We have kept many different species of Boas, Pythons, and Colubrids over the years, and we have worked very hard to develop and refine our husbandry, theories, and strategies. I couldn't imagine trying to keep a constrictor properly without access to the items on this list. Can it be done? Of course. Will you be better off with the complete Pro Pack? I am willing to bet so. Check out the list:

Pro Exotics Temp Gun- The ability to temp out your cages and environments with immediate feedback is absolutely invaluable. The PE Temp Gun is easily the number one tool, an absolute must have. Once you get hip to using a PE Temp Gun, not only will you find a thousand non-reptile reasons to use it, but you will not be able to imagine life without it. Hyperbole, yes, but honestly, I cannot stress enough how important Temp Guns are, and the positive impact they can have with your animals (certainly not just snakes).

They work quickly and easily, and can help you make simple yet subtle changes to your setup that can mean the difference between an ill animal, and a healthy, thriving animal. Creating a temperature gradient from 80-92 degrees F in your snake's cage is made simpler and more direct with the great features of a Temp Gun. Comprehending the temperature requirements of a gravid female boa is made much simpler with the immediate feedback of a Temp Gun. She may change cage positioning half a dozen times throughout the day, a Temp Gun gives you quick and accurate readings (and hopefully comprehension and understanding). We offer a great Temp Gun with Min/Max readings for an incredibly affordable $25. This one is really an easy choice.

Digital Min/Max Thermometer with probe- Another great temperature reading tool, but this IS NOT a substitute for the Temp Gun! They are not interchangeable, but rather, complimentary. While the Temp Gun is an in hand tool to go from cage to cage, the Min/Max is more of a permanent fixture in your cage. You set up the base of the unit on the cooler side of the cage to measure your ambient temps. I like to mount it halfway up the wall of the cage, away from any direct heat source (or on the outside of the cage, if the entire snake room is running a good reptile ambient temperature). The probe is very handy to measure your basking spot (or hot spot) but it is highly mobile, and can be used to check temps all through the cage. Check the high temps, find the low temps, temp the far dark corner of the c age, check the hidespots, check the favorite hidespot, move the probe through all the sectors of the cage to really get a handle on your temperature parameters (do yourself a favor and record this information in a notebook or on a record card).

The Min/Max feature is great because you can easily check daytime highs, and most importantly, nighttime lows. Any goofball can temp a cage at 3 in the afternoon, but when temps are most critical, say at 3 in the morning, in the cool of the night, that is where the magic of the Min/Max reading lies. So often, when someone is having trouble with their reptile, like a common res piratory problem, it is because they have not controlled the degree of the nighttime temperature drop, and at best, they are making a guess as to what the temp "might be". With the Min/Max probe, you can record EXACTLY how cool the cage environment gets to overnight, and make the necessary adjustments.

Having a Min/Max Thermo in each cage is not a bad idea. Having a unit setup in a cage that represents each specific group of setups is the recommended minimum. If you have a wall of 4 ft. Vision cages, and they all have the same setup (same substrate, same basking areas, same water bowls, same layout, etc.) then getting the readings from one cage should extrapolate to the others (if you have 4 levels of cages, which is a popular setup with Vision style caging, use a Min/Max on each level, as you will often find a significant temperature swing going from the top level cage down to the floor level cage, an important, and perhaps critical, difference). If some cages have newspaper, some have cypress, some keep Redtails, and some keep Rainbows, then the readings of one cage will not necessarily reflect the readings of the others, and each setup should have its own probe. Having a Min/Max unit mounted in a cage setup allows you to glance at the cage and get some immediate feedback each time you pass the area, an extra reassurance that everything is running well and properly.

Of course, there are a thousand other uses for the Min/Max. When you are incubating those Albino Ball python eggs you have worked so hard to get, certainly you will have a high quality thermostat to control the heating and egg temperatures. But there is nothing like that reassuring feeling you get when you have a few backup temperature readings to give you peace of mind. If we are cooking ten boxes of reptile eggs, you better believe I have at least 3 or 4 Min/Max units in place, giving me specific feedback not from just the incubator, but from the egg boxes themselves. Use a single Min/Max unit to monitor not only your cage temps, but your SNAKE ROOM temps as well, hell, put the base unit in the adjoining living room, and run the probe through the wall (or window, or doorway) and be able to check your reptile room temps while you watch tv. The Min/Max units have a ton of uses, and at an affordable $15 ea., you can go with half a dozen units (or more) to further your understanding of the thermal experience. Our Min/Max Thermometers have a probe, a backlit display, and read not only current temps, but easily resettable minimums and maximums, as well as the current time (a clock too? Whoa!). Another easy choice.

Proper hidespots- Check out our Hidespot FAQ for a more detailed breakdown of hidespot theory, but I will cover the basics here. Your snakes want a hidespot that provides security. A hide that is dark, small, and low to the ground. Big open caves or logs provide shelter, perhaps, but no security at all. 99% of the hidespots you find at your local retail reptile store have been designed with YOU (a human being) in mind. Something pretty, something flashy, those absolutely dumb half logs, it is all about appealing to your eye, and very little thought has been put into the actual needs of the reptile. They want to be protected from the predators in the wild, the birds that will scoop them off the ground, those damn monitor lizards that will hunt them through the bushes. If a hidespot is tight and secure enough, you will have a heck of a time pulling them out of it. Of course, when you just lift it right off the top of them, I think it might very well ruin their day, but that is another matter. The point is that until you exhibit your truly massive human intellect, they will feel secure, safe, and at some kind of peace. That is a lot of anthropomorphizing, and I hate that, but I guess we can feel all warm and fuzzy for a moment or two?

Nature provides great hidespots. When you provide captive hidespots, you can be quite creative, but try and keep in mind the basic theory. Flat cork bark laid flat on the ground makes a good hidespot for smaller snakes, especially babies. They will shimmy right underneath it and feel completely crevice-safe. Borrowing from our monitor lizard husbandry, for arboreal monitors like the Green Trees, we have constructed "cork sandwiches", in which we zip tie two flat pieces of cork together, and their natural gentle curve creates a slightly larger crevice type space of which the animals make good use. We secure these sandwiches up in the higher branches of the cage, although they would certainly be of good use terrestrially as well, and the tight wedge security is well appreciated by snakes.

We have adapted many non-reptile products to our hidespot needs, and had some very good success. From the thousands (it seems) of Rubbermaid trash cans in our facility, we have found that the trash can lids make an excellent large footprint, low profile, hidespot. We have found a number of gardening products that work well, including a thin, black plastic seedling plant tray that meets all of our hidespot criteria, at a price well under a dollar per unit.

The more traditional clay pot plant bases are also a good choice. They have a large footprint, but they are low to the ground, and you need only crack a small opening for the animal to get inside. We use a lot of the Vision bowls in our facility, and those have a hollow base underneath, which is a favorite hidespot of both monitors and snakes. If you take a moment to peruse a few hundred photos, you can see all of the hidespots described here (and more) in the various galleries, including the Facility photos. (or do not pass go, and find yourself immediately in Hidespot FAQ jail here)

We don't really sell hidespots on our site, nonetheless, they are an ESSENTIAL part of the Snake Pro Pack. I could not imagine keeping snakes successfully without good hidespots. You can use Vision bowls, perhaps those are one option. But for the other hides, you will have to use your own resources, and creativity. It isn't hard, just think like a snake. A scared one.

Virosan - Keeping reptiles means cleaning rep tiles, and even in a good week, it can get messy. I have seen hobbyists use Bleach, Windex, soap, plain water, and any number of home concoctions to clean with. We started using Virosan at the recommendation of our vet many many years ago. Virosan is a virucide and bactericide that is safe to use with your animals. Vets use Virosan as a surgical mouthwash, to rinse away the blood and guts. It is completely safe for your animal, and we use it for infected teeth and gums, and other minor abrasions (for a serious wound, always see a vet).

Reptile caging can be a breeding ground for more than just snakes. Bacteria and other undesirables can grow in poorly kept caging, water bowls, even dirty "storage areas". Keep a clean cage, and use a good, safe, Vet recommended cleaner. We have spray bottles of Virosan available for $8 ea. If you have your own bottle, or just need a refill, it is also available as a lone concentrate for $5. If you would like a more long-term supply, try a gallon for $46 (including hand pump).

Sexing Probes- If you plan on doing any breeding at all, you are going to need a set of good sexing probes. Don't be the keeper that relies on an unskilled seller to provide you with that missing piece of your snake breeding puzzle, that perfect female Redtail that you have looked high and low for, only to have "her" turn into a "him" two years into the project, right when you were ready to get with the breeding. Know how to properly sex that animal yourself from the start. Having a set of sexing probes, and knowing how to properly use them, will give you further mastery of your own collection, and trust me, it will solve many a quandary as you venture further into the clouded world of snake breeding. Get a nice, affordable set of probes at LLL Reptile.

Mouth Speculum- This is a great tool, one that many keepers just don't have. A speculum is a simple metal tool that helps keep the mouth of your snake open. It is useful anytime you need to access the "toothal area" (I made that up). It makes oral medications and treatments/inspections much simpler and safer for both you and your animal. While we find this an amazingly helpful tool, I can't believe that many folks are going to want to order one, so for the time being, PE will not sell them. Check with your local vet for availability, they should be able to get you a speculum, in the appropriate size, for a fairly modest sum.

Leather Gloves- There is nothing fancy about the leather gloves we use, they are regular, inexpensive work gloves that we buy from Home Depot when they are on sale. But a good glove is a good friend.

I could go over the "glove theory" here, but it has already been done, in our FAQ, here. Please check it out. Your confidence, and lack of fear of a defensive, biting animal, is key to your success in interacting and acclimating a new snake. Gloves can give you that confidence.

Do we sell leather gloves? Sure, I will sell you a new pair for 3 bucks, same as we paid for them, and I will toss them in the box with your new snake. But really, you can find them just about everywhere.

Hemostats- Hemostats (the long tweezer/tongs with the scissor grip) are an important tool in the feeding of your snakes. You absolutely SHOULD NOT feed your snakes by hand, that is just asking for trouble. Using a pair of Hemostats to feed keeps your precious little fingers at a safe distance from over eager choppers. The Hemostats allow you to present the food in an appetizing fashion, presenting either the head, or the rump (as some snakes prefer) to the nose of the animal (a much better technique than simply dangling it by the tail).

If you feed thawed rodents on a plate, dish, or right on the substrate, holding the items out for the snakes is not an issue, but when it comes time to retrieve any uneaten foods, the Hemostats provide a safe an d simple way to snatch the food back out of the cage, from a more comfortable distance. Hemostats are like the Temp Guns, once you have them, you will find yourself using them all the time, every day. Plus you can probably get your pen when you drop it down behind the cage.

We sell Hemostats in a few different sizes, I use all of them in different applications. The 12 inch Hemos are $18, the 16 inch Hemos are $22, and 18 inch Hemos are $28. They do make longer models, but at that point, they become fairly unwieldy. Stick with 18 inch and below. We also carry the tongs, which are similar to the Hemos, but no scissors grip (just a giant set of tweezers). The 12 inch Tongs are $16, the 15 inch Tongs are $20, and the 18 inch Tongs are $15.

Snake Books & DVD's - Oh woe, the state of reptile literature. It is getting better, but by and large, it still stinks. For every good reptile book you will find, there are a dozen more terrible tomes waiting to confuse and confound you with bad information, ancient ideas, and just plain illogical claims and "strategies" (some admirable alliteration there). As a hobby we are really just beginning to understand the reptiles and their captive needs and requirements. Strides have been made with "state of the art" tools like the Ultrasound machine, and the best breeders are ach ieving more and more predictability and positive results from their efforts. But even the best literature can be instantly dated from communicating these current captive care standards, husbandry and theory. I would say that the best captive keepers/breeders of reptiles are too busy working with animals to spend time writing a lot of books, so the vanguard of reptile information is obtainable just as often through community and discussion as it is through reading the page. 

An aspect of snake husbandry to really take advantage of is the consistency. There are changes here and there for diet, humidity, breeding cycles and such, but the basic theory is applicable across a very wide range. That is to say, ANY GOOD SNAKE INFORMATION is GOOD SNAKE INFORMATION FOR YOU! Understanding the snake in its various incarnations, whether it be colubrid, boa, or python, can help you more fully understand the natural basis of the animal, how it makes use of food, heat, and other resources, and this in turn can help to make you a better keeper.

We are not a big reptile book seller, spots like LLL Reptile handle that pretty well, but we do have a number of solid titles that would be a valuable addition to your herp library. With a much more focused subject like Monitor lizards, the book list is indeed very short. For snakes, you can certainly start with the books on our list, but definitely seek out other titles, through intelligent browsing, and through discussion with other committed hobbyists.

A couple of these books (Seward's Gila Monster book, and Klingenburg's Parasite book) are not directly about snakes at all, but they are indeed relative to the discussion, and offer valuable ideas and insights that can improve your own strategy, and increase your chance of success. Our recommended Pro Pack books:

Ball Python Breeding- THE DVD- $30.00 by Dr. Mark Seward and the Sutherlands  -Ok, so right off the bat I don't even list a book, but rather a DVD, but this is an excellent package and can really help you more fully understand the subtleties of snake breeding. NOT JUST BALL PYTHONS, but other snakes as well (apply the theory and ideas!).  Don't be a pirate and copy your buddy's video, reward some hard working breeders (Doc Seward and the Sutherlands) for their dedication and willingness to share this hard earned information. Get this package.

All About Ball Pythons DVD- $25 by Dave and Tracy Barker at VPI- an excellent video on the care, breeding, and wide variation of the popular Ball python. Covers husbandry info in detail, and features a visual overvie w of many of today's most popular color and pattern morphs. Also includes topics like raising hatchling Ball pythons, Equipment and caging, Sexing, and Egg Incubation. A ridiculous value at $25. These DVD's are MUST HAVE additions to your library, and can be used as genuine HUSBANDRY TOOLS by the beginner hobbyist as well as the successful seasoned breeder.

All About Boa Constrictors DVD- $25 Another terrific title from VPI and Boa Superstar Rich Ihle (oh, he'll love that!). This video again covers care, breeding, and morph variation of the Boa Constrictor. Also includes a section on caging and equipment for a successful breeding program. For 25 bucks, you get DECADES of experience! These DVD's are MUST HAVE additions to your library, and can be used as genuine HUSBANDRY TOOLS by the beginner hobbyist as well as the successful seasoned breeder. 

BALL PYTHONS: History, Natural History, Care & Breeding by Dave and  Tracy Barker- $80   Well, there is a new definitive snake book, and this is it. This volume is the most detailed and comprehensive book ever written about a snake species. This oversized volume is beautifully designed and archivally bound. This is a la ndmark work in herpetoculture, the best book ever written about a snake species, and an instant classic. The Barker Ball python book covers all aspects of  husbandry and breeding, with the most detail ever, it is absolutely, positively, a MUST HAVE for your herper library. It is pricey, but for what you are getting, it is the deal of the century.

The Complete Ball Python- $60 A Comprehensive Guide to Care, Breeding, and Genetic Mutations by Kevin McCurley.   This is an excellent book covering captive snake husbandry. Yet another important title that we offer that is a MUST for ALL Herper libraries! The husbandry, care and breeding info in this book can be applied in theory to many different species, and it is certainly state of the art for the world of Ball Pythons!  

Ball Pythons in Captivity- Professional Breeders Series $11-  This is a trimmed down version of Kevin McCurley's Complete Ball Python book. It covers basics and husbandry essentials like feeding and troubleshooting, as well as breeding and morphs. 101 pages, 144 color pictures, a silly, ridiculous value at $11.

The More Complete Chondro- $55  A comprehensive guide to the care and breeding of the Green Tree Python by Greg Maxwell.  Simply one of the best reptile books ever written. Certainly great for tree snake enthusiasts, but also a tremendous resource for any hobbyist, from beginner keeper to advanced breeder, this book covers so much territory, REPTILE TERRITORY, you WILL BE a better, more insightful keeper after reading this book. There is a new standard in reptile literature, this book is it! This book is ABSOLUTELY A MUST HAVE!

Gila Monster Propagation by Dr. Mark Seward- $35 ea. Some very good ideas on incubation techniques here, completely applicable to pythons!

Understanding Reptile Parasites by Dr. Roger Klingenburg- $12 ea.  As a reptile hobbyists, you may be addressing parasites at some point, have the knowledge and ammo preloaded. Over the years, I have referred to this book more than ANY OTHER, it's a must have.

What's wrong with my snake? by Dr. John Rossi- An excellent all around resource for some of the most common snake problems (feeding, shedding, handling, and much more) this i s a great general reference, and covers a lot of territory that the more species specific books miss. Get this book through LLL Reptile.

The Boa Constrictor Manual by Philippe, Doc Klingenburg, and Jeff Ronne- Another great general title, you really should read this book before emailing folks (me) with completely open ended and generic questions like "How do I breed my boas?" The basics are covered in this book. Get this book through LLL Reptile.

The Corn Snake Manual by Bill and Kathy Love- Have you got colubrids? Do the common sense thing and get this book, along with the Kingsnake Manual, both can serve as the foundation of your colubrid program, once again providing the basics that with time you will develop into a real understanding. Get this book through LLL Reptile.

Snake Hooks- Some folks love snake hooks, I don't. I really prefer a good glove to a hook, and I very rarely use a hook. Chad Brown LOVES to hook snakes. Even when it is completely unnecessary, that fool is running around the shop with his dumb little hook. What a goofball. I think you have more control, more physical communication, and overall better interaction feedback when handling snakes directly, through a glove. Even for "mean" or "aggressive" snakes, I feel confident in my handling abilities, and I get consistently better results using my h ands, and not a hook. Chad would too, if he would only listen!
(venomous snakes are a whole different story : )

Monthly Tracking Cards- We have used a few different tracking and recording techniques over the years, everything from Post-It Notes on the cages to handwritten records in a notebook, and I would certainly recommend that you find SOME way to keep track of the significant events in your daily schedule of snake keeping. If you truly want to be successful with your animals, this one is a MUST HAVE. In 2003, I finally got off my duff and designed a PE Monthly Tracking Card, and it has already become one of those things that I CANNOT imagine life without. We have specialized cards for different groups of animals- Snakes, Monitors, Gilas, etc., and they are customized to address the recording needs of each group of reptiles. You can capture all of the relevant info on the card (over 30 different categories), ranging from feeding habits (or lack thereof) to basking habits, to follicular development and copulating data, it is all easy to note, and easy to follow. The ability to look into the past, whether it be 3 months or 3 years, will once again fine tune your abilities and successes as a keeper and breeder. We are offering the PE Monthly Tracking Cards as a free dow nload. You can print a copy of both available cards, and then you are off to Kinko's to print out as many as your collection requires. Download Tracking Cards here.

So that's the Pro Exotics' Snake Pro Pack, the snake essentials that I couldn't live without. These are all common items, you can find them on your own with a little footwork, so why buy from us?

Support us because we support you. We bust our butts to bring you great products, great information, great access, great service, and definitely great animals. We truly appreciate your support and patronage, and we truly appreciate the opportunity to show you our passion, love, and dedication to both the reptiles and the hobby.

Pro Exotics Reptiles. GREAT REPTILES (and information) for a GREAT EXPERIENCE!

FOCUS FOCUS FOCUS!! We are no longer working with common colubrids like kings and corns. The only colubrids we still breed and keep in the collection are the Porphyraceus species, Mandarin Ratsnakes, and the Rhino Rats. All are fine snakes, and we reproduce them each year, check out our caresheets for more info. As far as the less expensive colubrids go, there are literally thousands of other breeders out there, and it didn't make a lot of sense for us to work with common kings and lose focus on some of our more cutting edge species. We can only breed so many species successfully, as we narrow our focus with some groups, others have to go!

Galvanized metal "horse troughs" are galvanized metal tubs used most commonly in farming for feeding and watering livestock. You can find them at farm supply stores, livestock supply stores, feed lots, Horse and Tack, online Stockyard Supply and Hutchison, even Home Depot often carries the smaller sizes.

Metal tanks are preferred over the Poly (plastic) tanks for monitors. The Poly tanks have a sloping, textured side. Baby monitors and feeder insects can climb the sides of a Poly tank, making for easier escape. They cannot climb the vertical sides of the metal troughs.

No caging manufacturer makes a usable adult monitor enclosure. Most are front loading, with no depth for any substrate, and even those with a substrate "lip" of 3-4 inches are a nightmare when the substrate inevitably gets tossed up in the tracks of the door or glass. There are no allowances for overhead lighting that would create a decent basking spot. I love Vision caging for snakes, but it works horribly for monitors, and believe me, I have tried. And tried. And tried.

After using a glass tank for a baby monitor setup, you will have to find a larger cage for monitor adulthood.
Your best bet is to build around the metal troughs. They are nearly indestructible. Leakproof, rustproof, swell proof, crack proof, rot proof, they hold substrate up to 2 ft deep, and compared to custom caging, they are SUPER economical.

Use the trough as your base, build from there. You can make it as plain or fancy as you like. You can use a flat acrylic lid (very common for Ackie setups, and we use an acrylic lid for our Gila setups, as shown in the pic) or you can build upward and create more vertical height, with a top loading or side loading cage. When building up from the trough, you can create whatever windows/visuals/access that you desire.

If the trough does not meet your visual needs, be creative. I have seen a really cool painted metal trough (see pic). You can also do the "hot tub treatment" and use wooden slats as a "skirt" around the trough, if the metal is not visually appealing to you. Or go with a literal skirt and use cloth to drape around the trough to hide the metal side. Be as creative as you like, but use the trough as the economical, indestructible base to start from.

The galvanized troughs are not actually monitor lizard specific. They are a terrific choice for any number of reptiles, from lizards to tortoises. We have done multiple lizard species in troughs, the same basic setup and application works great for monitors, Uros, Beardeds, Gilas, Tegus, heck, even an elaborate Leopard Gecko setup. Use a trough as the base of your cage, provide a great temperature gradient, great moisture gradient, a great substrate, and take it from there.

The pics below include PE Gila setups with a simple acrylic top and large hinges (we tried long piano hinges with 6 million screws, what a dopey idea THAT was). Also shown is a pic of our large 10 ft circular troughs. We have done many species in those setups, from Ornate Uros to Gilas to large Blackthroats (more pics of all troughs in the PE facility photo gallery). There is a pic of a Green Tree Monitor setup, including sheets of FRP for the walls. The trough in that case holds just the soil substrate of the cage.

The longer series of photos show the building process and detail for a 10ft x 3ft trough. Simple plywood walls, some top loading doors, a side door for additional access, light placement, etc. Certainly you can see how this type of approach could be used to create a fancy front loading and visually beautiful cage that was still able to allow for 2 ft of soil substrate.

I am no Handy Hammer Hank, we have to hire a "fella" to come in and build what I see in my head, but perhaps you have the hammer skills, or know someone who does, to build a cage to suit your needs. Even with the paid help, you are likely to come out WELL ahead when compared to the cost of a full size custom snake cage, which won't work for your monitor anyway : )

UPDATE- I have added some new pics from Mike's Monitors and Frank Retes showing other creative approaches to building up from the troughs. Nice looks, good brains.

Why yes there is. The Savannah Monitor Lizard book by Ravi and Bennett contains the most current, up to date monitor husbandry and breeding theory available, for all of 20 bucks. This is absolutely a must have for ALL monitor keepers. And most lizard keepers, for that matter.

The great thing about monitors is the consistency. For the most part, monitor lizards are very similar in their needs. There are subtle changes here and there for diet, humidity, breeding cycles and such, but the basic setup remains the BASIC SETUP. That is to say, ANY GOOD MONITOR INFORMATION is GOOD MONITOR INFORMATION FOR YOU!

The Savannah Monitor book is a perfect example. Maybe you don't have what is the most common pet monitor in the hobby, the Savannah monitor, but YOU CAN LEARN MANY THINGS about monitors from this book. It will make you a better keeper. It covers details and concepts very well, in an easily read and understood format. A great Water monitor caresheet will help you keep your Peachthroat monitor more effectively. A good discussion about the breeding habits of the Acanthurus monitor (Ackies) will take you 10 steps further down the road in your quest to breed your Savannahs. This book will make you a better monitor keeper, period.

NOT EVERY SAVANNAH BOOK WILL DO. This is a very specific recommendation. Other Savannah books and articles I have seen have been absolutely horrible, ass backwards in info and husbandry. Get this book and start to grasp the details of modern day moni tor husbandry!

If you won't spend 20 bucks on this book, I would really have to question your "dedication" and "passion" for keeping monitors. No disposable animals!

If you want to know the other "must haves"- Nile Monitors by Rob Faust ($8) has more excellent and widely applicable monitor husbandry info, and Australian Goannas by Matt Vincent ($45) is a very strong account of Aussie monitor species. Do yourself and your monitors a favor and add all three of these excellent titles to your reptile library!

(newbie keepers actually ask about these goofy food items)

A healthy monitor would eat just about anything. Hearts, gizzards, eggs, bacon, peanut butter, ice cream, Walrus poop, doorknobs...

BUT THAT DOESN'T MAKE IT A GOOD IDEA!

Your monitor is not a child, it doesn't need "treats". It needs terrific husbandry, great temps, and a proven, nutritious diet. Rodents, feeder insects, DONE.

Feeding these treats, or esoteric foods, is ALL ABOUT YOU. But it isn't about you, it is about the monitor. Quit projecting your appetite on your animal!

Rodents are whole foods. Nutritionally complete in a handy little package. Feeder insects are safe, nutritious and provide good roughage.

Offering food items like eggs is only asking for trouble. They are not nutritionally balanced, and you risk getting your stubborn monitor hooked on an inappropriate diet. Offering cooked meat is ignorant. Your monitor is not evolved to properly digest cooked foods. They eat their meat RAW, that is what they are built for.

Your monitor will be plenty "happy" eating rodents and feeder insects. If it does not want to eat these items, it is YOUR fault, not the fault of the monitor. You are delinquent in some aspect of husbandry. Temperature, substrate choice, lack of hide spots, cage overcrowding, there is a problem in there somewhere. Find it and fix it.

A properly setup monitor of any size does not need to be enticed to eat by offering eggs, beef heart, or lollipops. Take a harder look at YOUR husbandry, and technique, you will find the problem there, not in the appetite of the monitor.

If you are committed to being a responsible monitor owner, feed a proven, nutritious diet. Rodents and feeder insects. DONE.

We have in the past, but not for many years.

No question Croc Monitors are one of the most intriguing and beautiful monitors, but they are also the most inappropriate for captive situations.

Croc Monitors have Raptor like claws, and loooong sharp teeth. They seem to be more thoughtful and intelligent than other monitors, and they can give you the creeps when they stare at you from the cage, almost like they are thinking something devious. That is anthropomorphic, and wrong, but that is the FEELING they often give you : )

Crocs are perhaps the LONGEST monitors in the world, with the super long tail. They are not the biggest monitors, body wise they are on the small end of the large monitors, but absolutely a handful.

So why do they make for poor captives? POTENTIAL FOR DAMAGE. The potential for significant damage with Croc Monitors is on an entirely different level than it is for any of the other large capti ve monitors.

I have seen bites from full size Waters or Blackthroats. No fun for sure. There can be bruising, blood, and even a broken bone if you get a finger or hand in there. But it heals ok.

The Croc Monitor bites I have seen are bloody, but also include muscle, nerve and tendon damage. This has happened to multiple keepers. Good, experienced keepers, just caught off guard one day.

One keeper had a juvie Croc Monitor in a stock tank. Very cool animal, not flighty or high strung. "Tame". Care was easy enough. Then one day just reaching in for the water bowl, like he does every day, he got a quick strike and release. Tore up his forearm. In fact, because of the damage and worry of infection, the doctor cleaned the wound, but left it splayed open, only covered with a bandage. For a week. He was left with muscle, nerve, and tendon damage. And all from changing the water bowl of a very "tame" animal. The potential is scary. 

Other keepers get dozens of stitches in their head, or have a thumb that doesn't work well anymore...

There are breeders that have had captive success with the Croc Monitors, but then they are faced with the question- "Who can I responsibly sell these babies too?". For the most part, the answer is no one. Like PE, they just don't want that potential catastrophe hanging over their heads. And so you see virtually no do mestic breeders producing captive Croc Monitors. There are plenty of wild caught and imported Croc Monitors available, but that only makes the situation worse.

Croc Monitors are an unbelievable display animal. Go to a great zoo and check them out, but don't dabble in the danger yourself. We don't.

"tame" Croc Monitor head damage

"tame" Croc Monitor hand damage

another pic submission of Croc Monitor damage. these pic visuals are something else!

....an excerpt from a Monitor forum post at kingsnake.com by Rob Carmichael of The Wildlife Discovery Center-

The Croc monitor poses, in my opinion, more cause for concern (when compared to other easily obtained monitors) due to their behavior. We experienced this first hand at my facility. Two years ago, one of my animal keepers was giving our croc monitor (a YOUNG male at only 7') it's daily warm shower. He took his eyes off the lizard for a split moment and the croc must have seen some fingers moving around on the spray nozzle. He came over and just nipped and let go in a millisecond. I heard a blood curdling scream and ran over only to see blood splattered on the glass, the floor, everywhere. This little nip just about severed off one of the fingers of my staff. He went through 4 hours of intensive surgery and has a very nice scar to this day and has never regained fully feeling and mobility in that finger. Just something to think about before making a mistake.

....an excerpt from a Monitor forum post at kingsnake.com by Tom Crutchfield-

Many years ago Ardell Mitchell at the Dallas Zoo got his nose literaly torn off by a Croc Monitor. They reattached it but it never looked right. All he did was open the door to service the enclosure, he sure as hell didn't try to kiss it. I've had most species of Varanids available and have personally caught and handled Komodo Dragons in situ but I believe Croc Monitors are the most DANGEROUS living Varanid to keep in captivity....TC

We now sell Lobster Roaches in our Online Store!

Monitors, lizards and other Insectivores go absolutely nutty for roaches. They are an affordable and nutritious choice for your lizards, and they are a great feeder to use to get your animal over the "it won't eat crickets" hump. There are a number of different roach species to use, some climb walls (including glass) and some don't, but all are greedily accepted by monitors. The real bonus is that roaches breed like crazy, and it is easy to keep a self sustaining breeding colony going for your monitor or lizard collection.

If you are looking to start a sustainable Lobster Roach feeder colony, consider the 500 quantity or more. Expect to take 2-3 months to really get your colony rolling along and productive. We have pictured here a simple Rubbermaid trash can setup that can hold a few thousand Lobsters. It is a simple setup, with a wide Bug Stop ring near the top to prevent escapes, it is easy access and easy maintenance, all in small footprint container.

Check out our store listings for Lobster Roaches , Bug Stop and the Allpet Roaches book , we have what you need to get started!

Bug Stop is a MUST HAVE for your roach colonies because it prevents the roaches from climbing the sides of your containers. It is a Teflon based "paint", it is easy to apply and makes keeping and feeding the roaches a breeze. We use feeder bowls in our monitor cages for the roaches, usually 10 inch plastic crocks, and we paint the inside edge of the bowl with the Bug Stop to prevent the roaches from getting out into the cage, and from there into your rooms. We sell three different sized jars of Bug Stop in our Online Store.

FOCUS FOCUS FOCUS!! We sold all of our gecko breeders (all species) in the summer of 2002. We are no longer selling geckos, sorry. Try some of the fine gecko breeders on our links page, and the gecko forums at kingsnake.com!

Well ACTUALLY, Mr. Know-it-All-Internet Keyboard Warrior-Genius, what YOU are probably seeing is either the hemipene of a male monitor (indeed!) or the HEMICLITORIS of a female monitor (whoops). The problem is that YOU don't know the difference : )

I get a lot of emails from complete neophytes that seem to think that they have mastered all aspects of monitor (or snake) husbandry simply because they hav e kept a single Savannah monitor alive and breathing for 3 straight months.

For other, more humble folks, the question is usually stated in a more quizzical fashion, in that they are starting to see "something" protruding from the vent of their animal, they are just not sure what it is.

Both males and females can "pop" a sexual organ, and while a fully everted male hemipene is very distinct, a partially everted male hemipene looks very similar to a female hemiclitoris. (You can't probe a monitor, and you should back away slowly and warily from anyone who suggests or offers to do so. It is not useful in sexing, and can cause significant problems.)

So in order to complicate the already twisted world of monitor sexing, when you see a short eversion, it could be either male or female. When you see a full eversion, it is certainly a male, but you need the time, experience, and exposure to recognize what a full eversion is.

Unless of course, you are "Joe Know it All" and your local petstore expert has already helped you sex your monitor by phone, and on top of that, "guaranteed" it : )

With an adult Water, Blackthroat, Nile, Bluetail, any of the larger monitors, the male hemipenal bulge is pretty pronounced. It will look like the male is packing a couple of C batteries (or D's) in the base of the tail. Very obvious once you know what you are looking at. 

Adult males will also drag an everted hemipene around the cage, scenting substrate and living area. If you have a 4 or 5 year old monitor, and have NEVER seen this activity, it is most likely a female, although that is a secondary clue, you should still be looking for hemipenal bulges. 

NOTE: on visual body sexing- male monitors will typically have a wider head and thicker neck than females. This is a visual cue that is easy to spot IF YOU HAVE A GROUP OF MONITORS that are both male and female. Visual cues are hard to decipher with only one animal, or two of the same sex. It is a compare and contrast method, nothing singularly definitive.

NOTE: on probing - probing does not work and is DANGEROUS for monitors (and many lizards). If your vet, buddy, or "expert" pet store genius offers to probe your monitor, take your things and walk away quickly. Probing for sex shows a serious lack of monitor knowledge and is not only ineffective , but dangerous.

Hey! Hows it going?

Thanks for reading our FAQ! Since I have caught your eye, check out this addition to the Turkey Diet FAQ, added to emphasize an overlooked but IMPORTANT POINT:

I want folks to understand, the monitor Turkey diet is NOT IDEAL! You wanna know what is? Rodents and feeder Insects! Those are whole foods!

The Turkey Diet is an economical choice that we make to feed HUNDREDS of monitors. But when using it, you are starting IN A NUTRITIONAL HOLE with plain turkey, and you are adding things to it, trying to REPLICATE the nutritional balance of a nearly perfectly balanced whole food, RODENTS! I tell keepers again and again, if you have a small collection, then skip the turkey (and gizzards, hearts, fish fillets, chicken legs, bacon, peanut butter, Walrus poop etc.) and JUST FEED RODENTS and INSECTS! That is your perfectly balanced, healthy, proven diet! Need help in a jam? The turkey diet can bail you out, but stick with rodents and insects and watch your monitor thrive!

So on to the original Turkey Diet FAQ:

The San Diego Zoo developed and tested a turkey based diet a number of years ago for use with their Komodo Dragon breeding program. The "recipe" is 2.5 pounds of ground turkey (we buy it in frozen one pound blocks at 89 cents at the grocery store), 22.5 grams of bone meal, and one half Centrum vitamin tablet (crushed). Mix well, feed to voracious lizards.

The "turkey diet" has proven useful at Pro Exotics, and we have been using it for a few years now with positive results. We only feed it at most once a week to our animals, as one part of a larger monitor diet (balanced with rodents and insect feeders). For us, it is very economical, and easy to use.

It is a fairly lean meat, and with the right mix, it has added vitamins and calcium as well, making for a fairly balanced serving. You can make up a few pounds of the diet, and then spread it into ice cube trays, where once frozen, you have handy individual servings that pop right out and thaw quickly. All of our monitors accept the turkey very readily, and for larger collections, it certainly seems like a good diet alternative.

HOWEVER, I would still consider the turkey diet a supplemental choice, and not necessarily ideal. If you have a small collection, and not hundreds of hungry lizards, I would recommend that you stick with whole foods. Thawed mice or rats are nearly an ideal f ood item, and are a perfect choice for your growing monitor. The turkey diet is more economical, sure, but with a small collection, costs are not always so significant, and in the very best interest of your lizards, a rodent based diet, rounded out by quality feeder insects, would be my first choice.

New Ackie keeper #1

"I got three of these fat little guys from Jefe a couple weeks ago and I have to say they are a blast. I am one of those guys that put off getting the smaller species in favor of species in the 4' range. I intentionally stayed away from ackies because everyone had them.....man did I miss out. These little guys are full of energy and personality. They have inspired me to get more of the smaller species. Just thought I would share my experiences, ackies are really cool and would definately be my choice for "best first monitor"."

New Ackie keeper #2

"'My' ackies were originally for my wife. They just seemed too ordinary and small. But my wife liked them, so we got a trio. Well they are mine now. I thin k that anyone that doesn't like them doesn't have any. They truly are great little monitors. And this is from an ex-ackie disbeliever."

And from PE:

The Acanthurus monitors are a great choice for a pet monitor, no doubt. But not everyone "buys in" or understands what makes these monitors such a blast to own, there is a lot of skepticism out there.

Obviously, there are a lot of aspects to keeping monitors that don't exactly translate well to the page. Sometimes, to understand a particular reptile, you simply have to keep it, live with it day to day, learn about it, and learn to understand it.

Some of the greatest rewards in keeping monitors in general are the personalities, the interaction, and the activity level of the animals. That is the "fun" that makes monitor husbandry so fantastic. Well, the Ackies deliver these rewards in spades.

A lot of newbie keepers think of starting with Savannahs, or Niles, or Waters, some of the heavily pushed "pet store" monitors that are not necessarily a good choice for a beginning keeper. They are drawn to the sheer size of a big monitor. Being huge makes it "cool". But size is such a small part of monitor enjoyment. That "huge" thing wears off really quickly, and you are left with a big giant monitor that is not only more difficult to interact with, but an animal tha t is difficult, and expensive, to cage properly.

The Ackies aren't a big massive lizard. They stay in the 16-30 inch range, and you can do a small group of them in a 4 ft cage (as adults). A 4 ft cage is a LOT cheaper than a 15 ft cage, that's for sure! Feeding bills aren't nearly as frightening either. You can feed a single Ackie for a year with what you are likely to offer a large Water over a couple of weeks!

So economically, they are within the reach of most hobbyists. Sure the initial cost of the monitor itself might be more, but you are talking about a captive bred and born lizard here, not a farm hatched or wild caught baby, one that may be in need of a veterinarian check up ($$) and a 15 ft cage (or a whole room). It kills me when I hear neophytes talk about how $200 is too much for an Ackie, but they go and buy a Nile or Water, a (soon to be) giant lizard that will blow through $200 in a matter of weeks! If you "can't afford" an Ackie, how in the world are you going to afford to keep the biggest lizard in captivity?!? That doesn't make any sense! Trust me, let the size thing go, and get yourself a lizard you will really ENJOY!

The Ackies are a great social animal. Sure they will thrive and do quite well if set up as a single animal, but they are also very easy to socialize as a group, assuming you start with a group of same age babies (see Monitor Breeding Strategies for compatibility problems). Watching your baby Ackies socially stratify and settle within a group is an extremely rewarding experience.

The Ackies simply have TONS of personality. Sure there are other dwarf monitors that meet the size requirements, caging and feeding ease, and all that, but none can compare to the Ackies for simply being a FUN monitor. Once again, it is hard to really communicate this experience effectively, but watching a group of Ackies is unlike any other reptile I know.

One of my favorite Ackie sales was to a very large Bearded Dragon breeder. This guy has been doing reptiles for years, and hatches out over 10,000 Beardeds a year. Quite the operation, and quite the fan of Beardies. He wanted to see for himself "what the big deal was" and so we sent him off a trio of the Ackies. He had heard all this gloss about "Ackies are this, Ackies are that, great, great, great!" and frankly, he didn't believe it. But it was no big deal for him to set up a trio in his lizard room, so he rolled the dice.

It wasn't two weeks later that I got the call. "These are the coolest lizards I have ever seen!" "Geez, I just love watching these nutty little guys!" "Can you send me three more trios? I want to get started with breeding these guys!" LOL, that IS NOT the first time I have gotten that kind of response from a new Ackie owner. I had TRIED to tell him, and he always blew it off, thinking it was some kind of sales pitch. But that is not what PE is about. We are here to promote GREAT REPTILES and a GREAT EXPERIENCE, and I can't think of a better animal than the Acanthurus.

To go with the personality, the long term economic savings, and the fun of keeping these guys, you can also consider their extreme hardiness. Set up correctly, which is easy enough, these monitors will simply take off. They are tough little buggers, making them an IDEAL choice for the first time keeper. Sure, they can be started on a breeding program pretty readily, they are rewarding for the experienced monitor keeper, there is a growing community of enthusiastic Ackie keepers out there, but hands down, if you want one of the simplest, most basic, most tolerant of the learning curve monitors to get your foot in the monitor door, well, the Ackies are the number one choice for that too!

An all around fantastic animal. We don't hype the Ackies because we sell them, we sell them because we LOVE THEM!

Check out our Acanthurus Monitor Caresheet for some basic husbandry info on these terrific little lizards. Save that extra bedroom not for a Water Monitor, but for your new home theater or playroom, get yourself an Ackie monitor toda y, and learn for yourself what makes these beautiful monitors such a fantastic choice!

Monitors are great animals to work with, and I would say the vast majority of folks get into various monitor projects with plans of breeding them at some later date.

With the right strategy, the right animals, and the right amount of patience, this is an achievable goal. However, it helps tremendously to have the right attitude going in, and realistic expectations.

One of the most common mistakes new keepers make is trying to take a shortcut into the breeding groups. Instead of buying a group of hatchling animals to raise up, from a reputable breeder, many first time keepers try and put together an older group of one male and multiple female adult animals, some from here, some from there, this guy has a male, this guy has a female. And ideally, these are all "proven breeders". There are a couple of problems with this strategy.

First of all is the "proven breeder" adults. This is a fantasy. Think about it………

With a single adult female Red Ackie, raised from a hatchling from our own stock at Pro Exotics, we can expect quite a healthy amount of production in a single year. Nearly all of our adults have exceptional egg production, but for the sake of this discussion, let's imagine that we are talking about a very average, but solid, adult female.

In a single season (year), we can expect at least 6 clutches from the female. Egg counts would average around 10 eggs per clutch. That is 60 eggs per year, for this one single female. Now, consider that the price on Red Ackies has "dropped" this year to $350 each. Taking into further consideration that Ackie hatchlings have been sold out in advance for 2 years now, you now have $21,000 worth of production from this single, very average female.

Now you tell me, why on earth would I sell you this animal for $500, or even $1000? Those prices are certainly in the range that I have seen advertised for these so called "proven breeders". It just doesn't add up.

At Pro Exotics, we have too much integrity to sell bad animals. We have a reputation for excellence that we have worked very hard for over many years. We are not about to throw that away or jeopardize it for a quick sale or a quick buck. Unfortunately, there are pl enty of others in the industry that don't have the same standards.

You don't have to look hard to locate adult monitors that are available for sale on the reptile market. But after considering the above economical unlikelyhood of the animals being healthy and genuine, think about the other reasons that are much more likely to apply:

-burnt out females- these are adult female monitors (or snakes, or geckos, etc.) that have been bred for a number of seasons, and their egg production is now ceased or significantly decreased. What you often find in this class are females that throw infertile or dead eggs (or no eggs at all). This continued attempt at productive breeding only leaches calcium and other valuable resources from the female, and contributes to their overall poor health. Once an animal is too old to breed, or has thrown their natural maximum of eggs, there is no amount of TLC that you can give to turn that female around.

-aggressive males- whoa, watch out for these guys : ) we have had a number of male monitors in the past that are simply too aggressive to put with our females. They bite too hard, and too deeply, and inflict multiple deep lacerations on any other animal in the cage. They might breed great, but they will kill your females in the process. These do much better in a single and lone environment, in a pet type situation. U nknowingly putting this type of male in with an established group of females, even overnight, can result in the death of your other animals.

-non compatible or anti social animals- these are animals, males and females, that for whatever reason, are simply not compatible with other animals. They may in fact do fine with one particular group, but then be incompatible with another group. This most frequently happens with adult monitors. You may buck the odds and gather a group of 2.3 perfectly healthy young adults, but then you are faced with the fact that none of these animals get along in a group situation. You may be facing fighting animals, stressed out animals, non eating animals, and most significantly, non breeding animals. This only works against your breeding efforts. Conversely, when starting with a hatchling group of monitors, typically you will find that the group will socially stratify itself, and will thrive in the group setting.

-genetically weak animals- you may find young females that are not burned out, or perhaps young males that seem quite robust, but either one may have a hidden genetic secret. Simply put, not all captive hatched monitors are ideally suited for breeding, some females are simply not capable of breeding, or not capable of breeding repeatedly and reliably. Males, on the other hand, can sometimes be firing blanks. This type of reptile is more familiar in the snake world, where you have male boids that simply aren't capable of impregnating the females, but yes, it exists in the monitor world as well. These monitors are a terrific choice, for a pet.

-animals that are improperly sexed- this is a very common problem. Monitors, by nature, are very difficult to sex, especially visually. A single animal can be nearly impossible to sex without a number of other animals, same species and similar size, to closely compare to. Too many times I have seen folks buy a group of 1.3, or a "guaranteed pair", only to eventually find all males, or at best 3.1. That nice looking breeder "probable" female at the great price may very well turn out to be a little too masculine for your breeding expectations. Once again, why sell a truly proven "breeder female" adult for a ridiculous price? It's either because your source is too dim to recognize a mis-sexed animal, or sadly, and too frequently, you are dealing with a crook that could care less about your troubles after the sale is made and the animal shipped.

-animals for sale in poor health- At Pro Exotics, when we say that an animal is in perfect shape, or "polished", we mean that the animal will blow your socks off, and we stand behind and guarantee that. I have seen plenty of other animals that have been labeled by others as "really nice" or "great" or "super", and a majority of the time, they have been less than impressive. Now, there are a number of breeders and dealers that truly work with great animals, and I can recommend them to you, but for every one of those, there are dozens of sellers whose definitions of "perfect shape" fall woefully short of the standard. Animals labeled "robust" come in downright scrawny. Animals that are "eating great" come in with hip bones showing. Animals described as "functionally perfect" arrive not with missing toes or tails, but missing eyes or half limbs. Don't rely on customer service or returns from such hustlers, for much of the time, that AOL email account has since been closed, phone calls aren't returned, and you are simply up the creek, out a good deal of money, and instead of further in the game, you are looking in from the outside, at step negative one.

-surplus males- You actually stand a fair chance of finding these animals. In the process of putting together a group of animals, smart keepers will start with a decent sized group, raise them up, and see what sex ratios are available. Seeing that you can breed a good size group of females with just one or two males, the keeper will then look to move on the extra, and truly healthy, males, at a decent price. Moving out these males does not affect the product ivity of the group. If you are looking for a pet monitor, and just can't wait to have an adult, then these males might be for you. But if you are looking to start your own breeding colony, having a single male is not going to get you much closer to your goal. You still need those females, and for the very reasons that we are covering here, healthy, viable, and affordable adult females are going to be extremely hard to come by. A better strategy is to find your females first, and if that comes together, finish your group with easier to locate males. An even better strategy......is to start with your own group of babies, and go through the whole process.

-the last important consideration for your monitor breeding future is time, and how much you think you have. To start with a group of unfamiliar, but otherwise healthy adults, you are typically looking at at least two years before seeing some success. It takes time to acclimate the animals, it takes time to socialize the animals, it takes time to cycle the animals, and most importantly, since starting with helter skelter adults is more commonly a strategy of novice keepers, it takes time to know your animals. The subtle aspects of breeding monitors are not something that can be communicated through this paper, or even a detailed care sheet. You learn how to breed monitors, by keeping monitors.

When you start with a group of hatchling animals, you learn about each animal from the jump. You learn their individual personalities, you learn the hierarchy of your group. You learn who eats what foods more enthusiastically, and you learn which animals need particular attention. You learn to recognize weight cycles, and you know what each animal normally looks like, which comes in very handy when trying to determine which of your females are carrying eggs, and how far along they are.

Best of all, when you know your animals inside and out, and have an intimate familiarity with them, your success rates are bound to go through the roof. It is not uncommon for us at Pro Exotics to breed our Ackie monitors before the first calendar year of age. Of course, if you are on your first group of monitors, or a new species of monitor, you may not have the same immediate success. But you certainly stand a terrific chance, a very likely chance, of breeding your healthy group of hatchling monitors before the guy down the street gets any kind of positive progress out of his thrown together group of adults, even though they were "proven breeders".

It takes time to successfully start a breeding project with monitors, and the great "secret" is that all things being equal, you will achieve your success fastest starting from scratch than you will starting with animals that someone has already failed with.
There are no shortcuts to monitor breeding, but it is not as difficult as you may think. The real key is time, patience, and the right group of animals. If you start with those three things, you will be well on your way to success. Good luck!

Savannah Monitor FAQ coming soon

A cheap, giant, mean lizard bought by a neophyte keeper with absolutely no clue on how to keep monitors period, much less one of the biggest, meanest lizards you can buy. And people wonder why we get so frustrated with "popular" lizards that are such poor choices (Niles, Iguanas).

We don't sell Nile monitors because there are much better choices for a large pet lizard, most notably the Ionides and the Water monitor, with the Ionides being the best choice overall.

As stated in our other FAQ's, whether or not PE sells a half dozen Niles a year is going to have little impact on the hundreds of thousands that are sold, but if we can convince a handful of new keepers to make an informed and intelligent choice in a new monitor, then the effort and frustration are well worth it.

I will leave the real "Nile comments" to a couple of experts, the first being Daniel Bennett, taken from a post on kingsnake.com's Monitor Forum, capturing in just a few words the real meat of the issue:

"There are few animals less suited to life in captivity than the Nile monitor.... Animal dealers who sell Nile monitors under the pretence that they can be kept as pets are a despicable breed. Generally I don't think they should be kept in captivity, captive bred or not. It's one of the biggest lizards in the world, any idiot with $40 can buy one, but there are very few people prepared the give them the facilities they deserve. Hundreds of thousands of them die in horrible conditions."

Wow, thanks Daniel.

Another great Nile post from the Monitor Forum is by "Nessie's Mom", a regular forum member that not only keeps Niles, but breeds them as well, and she also captured the complexities of realistically keeping Niles with her words (and challenging questions) :

"Why do you want to purchase a Nile? Because of the size they get to? Have you done any reading and research on Niles? For your information, for you to grow a large Nile monitor, it takes daily food feedings of 1 - 3 mice (rats later) along with crickets, meal worms, snails, etc.; can you afford to keep up this daily regiment of food?

Also, you'll need to have adequate heating such as basking spots with temperatures ranging from 85º to 130ºF for maintaining proper growth and digestion. Do you have the proper heat lamps for this to be accomplished?

Next is the temperament, not temperature, I am talking the attitude Niles are famously known for: being mean-tempered. They will bite (it hurts like a vice grip), whip their tail (feels like a wet towel snap), scratch (have long, sharp claws), and poop (meat is their main diet, so you can just imagine the smell and looks of that). Are you ready to take on that type of treatment, DAILY?

If you can seriously take on these three criterions (daily feeding expenses, proper heating, and daily temperament treatment), not to mention the large enclosure you'll need to build to accommodate the size of your growing Nile, then you are almost ready to take on Nile raising.

The part that will make you completely ready is the emotional commitment. Most of us on the forum are reptile lovers from way back and w e are dedicated to the survival and safekeeping of these wild reptiles, therefore, we tend to be highly critical of newbies that "want to buy a monitor because they think they are so cool," not realizing that taking on a monitor is a lifelong commitment (we're talking 25 - 50 years). When you get tired of being bitten by your new Nile, are you going to want to get rid of him? When you get frustrated, and you will, with the constant whipping of the tail, if not hiding from you, are you then going to throw in the towel and say the heck with "this monster?" If you find you cannot hold or pet your Nile, like a dog, are you going to discard him and ignore him? Look deep inside your soul and answer these questions truthfully and if you find yourself saying "yes" to any of these commitment questions, then you are NOT ready to take on a monitor, let alone a Nile monitor.

Please, if anything, do some research first. Read some books on Niles, like Nile Monitors by Robert Faust. It is a complete Pet Owner's Manual in a paperback book that we sell on our site. I also recommend, Monitors, Tegus, and Related Lizards by R. D. & Patricia P. Bartlett, which sells for the same and comes in paperback as well.

Please, seriously, evaluate your situation here. Are you ready to take on ALL the above? If not, then don't put an innocent wild reptile in your charge, because the outcome would only be more upsetting."

Once again, very eloquently captured, by a committed Nile keeper.

Niles are simply not for everyone, in fact, they are appropriate for very few keepers, and experienced keepers at that.

If you want a large lizard, seriously consider the Ionides, a large monitor that can also be tamed, and has a great personality. If you are after great personality, consider the Ackies. They are small, but terrific to work with, and believe me, the "BIG MONITOR" thing gets old, quickly.

Best of luck in selecting a great monitor!

For the same reason that we don't sell Niles, Burms, Retics, and other largely inappropriate reptiles. They are a poor choice for a pet reptile.

There are HUGE Iguana farms in Central America that ship out hundreds of thousands of baby iguanas to the u.s. each year. They are easily the most "well known" lizard on the market. And probably the worst choice for a beginning keeper.

I will keep this s hort and sweet. I am not interested in arguing this point with Iguana keepers or enthusiasts.

Iguanas get big. Iguanas need a large (and not inexpensive) cage. Iguanas typically get quite aggressive.

Great, a big, mean lizard that needs large and elaborate caging, what better choice for someone that has never kept a reptile before (Iguanas are a frequent "first reptile purchase").

Baby Iguanas are cute enough, sure (can you say "impulse purchase"?). But Iguanas also go through perhaps the worst puberty and maturation stage of any reptile. They become extremely territorial and anti social, and male Iguanas in particular may attack any "intruder" in their territory (most often a female, of any species). Iguana bites are nasty and serious, and very common occurance.

I will never forget the one time in our retail store, explaining this very FAQ to a new customer, when "Enthusiast Jill" the Iguana keeper chimed in to say "That's not true! My Iguana is GREAT, I love him, and he CERTAINLY isn't mean!"

I told "Jill" that I was happy to hear of her success, but that we get A LOT more feedback from keepers with negative Iguana experiences than positive ones, and they most often involve aggression, so yes, it does happen.

And then "Jill" says...

"Well, he did bite me on the nose once and I had to get stitches, but I am careful now when I handle him!"

As if that makes ALL the difference!

We get perhaps a dozen calls a week from folks looking to "get rid" of their Iguanas, for many, many, negative reasons. In the meantime, just about every other pet shop in the country sells these heavily marketed, cheap animals. You can buy an Iguana from those stores, not Pro Exotics. We would rather educate you about lizards that would make a better "pet" choice. Great Reptiles for a Great Experience, and no neglected Iguanas.

For more on our selection of animals, try here.

We use a couple of different substrates for our monitors, including paper towels (for very new hatchlings), cypress mulch, and a soil mix.

The cypress is a great substrate, and works well for us. It holds humidity well, is easy to clean, and the animals can burrow into it easily. It is not available ac ross the country however, so many regions of the country simply do not have access to it (it is plentiful only in the East and Southeast), and it can be frustrating. I have been able to locate cypress mulch at just one location in Colorado, and I am happy to have that source. For other folks, they cannot locate it at ALL.

The other substrate we use regularly, and a substrate that is a good substitute for the cypress, if not simply better overall, is soil. Plain old dirt (well, kind of).

We use a soil mix for our breeder monitors, and it can be used for lizards of all sizes and stages. Soil holds moisture, and burrows very easily as well. But where to get a good soil...

Some keepers are lucky enough to have natural dirt that can be dug up locally, screened (to remove large rocks, sticks, etc.), and put right into the cage, ready for burrowing, egg laying, and everyday use by their monitor. I remember visiting one keeper in the Northwest that used a silty dirt that he dug up at his local river bed. It was the thickest, finest, cleanest, heaviest dirt I have ever seen. With the right amount of water, it held the perfect burrow, compacted easily and firmly, and yet was simple and light for the lizards to dig in. I sure wish we had access to that dirt!!

But we don't, so we make due. For our soil mix, I start with a screened topsoil that I buy at a local landscaping wholesale r. I try and choose the "cleanest" dirt possible, that is, with the fewest organic additives. No manure, no fertilizer, just straight dirt. We then mix in playsand, and vermiculite. Our soil/sand/vermiculite mix is 50/25/25. Once you adjust your moisture (water) content correctly, this mix does everything you need it to do, and it does it well. The animals seem to enjoy it, and it is easy to dig, but also holds a good burrow for egg laying.

The water content is up to you. If you play with it a bit, you will find the right balance, including how often to add more water. We never "mist" the soil, that is a waste of time. We just use a gallon jug of water and dump it in accordingly. After a while, you will have a good feel for how much to add, and it is not exactly scientific, you will find a generous range that works.

If Home Depot is your only source of soil, don't despair. We have used retail topsoil many times over the years, and it has worked fine. Once again, try to get the cleanest soil possible, with the least amount of additives, and you should be able to create your own usable mix.

Best of luck to you and your animals!

Has the search for terrific soil reached its conclusion!?!?! Oh, the suspense!!

We have indeed stopped using the topsoil/sand/vermiculite mix described in the soil mix FAQ. It is still a very workable mix if you don't have other choices, and it beats straight potting soil, dirt and cypress mixes, and straight cypress mulch itself. But at PE, we have moved on to a new soil, a decomposed granite that we were lucky enough to find locally.

We found our new soil at a local landscaping supply wholesaler (no walk in retail sales). This supplier was situated outside of town, on a number of acres, and there were dozens and dozens of 30 foot piles of different materials. Topsoils, potting soils, manures, rocks, gravels, mulches, and aha! Decomposed Granites. There were many different types of decomposed granites, different grades, different colors. Some were rockier, some were finer, some thicker, etc. We simply went through the same steps that YOU should be going through in finding a workable soil.

We sampled a number of different granites, a few hundred pounds of each, and found that the "Pink Breeze" (which is actually more orange) was the one for us. It digs great, it holds burrows really really well, it holds moisture well, it has a nice consistency, and the animals have absolutely loved it.

It is significantly more expensive than the topsoil mix, but the benefit to the animals is immeasurable. They really dig this dirt, so to speak : )

We have had nearly 50 tons delivered to our facility, and we have all of the monitors on this soil, as well as a number of other reptiles that are in "experimental" and, dare we say, "revolutionary" setups using this same soil.

"Pink Breeze" Decomposed Granite is apparently from a mine in Utah. Is it available in your area? I have absolutely no idea. Get off your duff and go find out. Do some footwork, some homework, some phonework, and see what your options are.

And don't forget your local soils. If you are very lucky, perhaps you can go outside town, down into the forest, or into your local streambed and find a terrific reptile dirt. I know that a certain monitor breeder in Arizona digs up his own local soil, and it works great. It is also very similar to our decomposed granite, but it is even less rocky (he screens it). Of course, you probably can't haul out 50 tons, but you probably won't need to (did you know that a full 4 ft. metal trough holds (literally) a TON of dirt? It is A LOT of digging and hauling, you better pack your lunch).

The whole soil question/problem/puzzle is yet one more piece of the monitor pie. Like so many other aspects of successful monitor husbandry, it is largely up to you to figure it out for yourself. A lot of trial and error. Hopefully we can at least give you some ideas. Best of luck to you and your animals!

We soak our reptiles for a number of different reasons, although most all are hydration related, naturally. Here is an excerpt from one of our monitor care sheets:

"Soaking your monitors once a week is not only recommended, but nearly a necessity. Soaking in room temp water for one to two hours allows the animals to completely hydrate, as well as helps with any stuck sheds on the delicate toes and tails. You should use water that comes up to the shoulder (or body thickness) of your monitor, so they can easily keep their heads above water. We have used this technique for a few years now, and we have had tremendous success. Keep in mind that when soaking baby monitors (or snakes), they often float on the water, not having enough mass to sink to the bottom and walk around in water up to their tiny shoulders. If they have to lite rally swim in the water for the entire 2 hours, they may die of exhaustion.

This is remedied by "soaking" your tiny animals on extremely damp paper towels. Line your container with three of four layers of paper towels, then wet these down liberally. Add the animals to the container, and use a secure lid. They will walk on the paper towels, drink from the small pools of water, and get all the positive benefits of a good soak, without the added worry of drowning.

A couple things are crucially important when soaking animals. First is water temperature. It should be tepid water, which means neither hot nor cold. Even the dimmest keeper would know not to use cold water with reptiles, but not everyone realizes that HOT water is just as bad, and can also kill your animal. Use water that is simply room temperature, when you stick your hand in the water, it should feel, well, like nothing, neither hot nor cold. (You can also use a Temp Gun to nail it to room temp exactly.)

Another important factor is drowning prevention with small animals. If left to float, and swim, many babies will become exhausted and drown. They simply cannot be left to swim for 2 hours straight. Either use the paper towel method, use appropriately shallow water (body depth), or put some props in the soaking tub that the animal can perch on, avoiding total submersion.

We use our soaking program with all of our monitors and lizards. We also use it for many snakes. It helps significantly in keeping our Blood pythons, Emerald Tree boas, and other higher humidity animals well hydrated, in great health, and free of shed problems. We don't have any more stuck sheds, no shed scarring, no dehydrated and listless animals, nothing....it simply works great.

Many other keepers love to debate me about the soaking, saying how "it isn't necessary", "a well set up monitor shouldn't need it", blah blah blah. I can only tell you that it works for us. Customers that have incorporated it into the husbandry have also loved it. If you don't agree, that's fine, but it is hard to argue with the most polished and healthy reptiles in the land, and the husbandry techniques that were used to get them there.

The Monitor Pro Pack is a list of essentials. We have kept lots of different monitors over the years, and we have worked very hard to develop and refine our husbandry, theories, and strategies. I couldn't imagine trying to keep a monitor properly without access to the items on this list. C an it be done? Of course. Will you be better off with the complete Pro Pack? I am willing to bet so. Check out the list:

Pro Exotics Temp Gun- The ability to temp out your cages and environments with immediate feedback is absolutely invaluable. The PE Temp Gun is easily the number one tool, an absolute must have. Once you get hip to using a PE Temp Gun, not only will you find a thousand non-monitor reasons to use it, but you will not be able to imagine life without it. Hyperbole, yes, but honestly, I cannot stress enough how important Temp Guns are, and the positive impact they can have with your animals (certainly not just monitors).

They work quickly and easily, and can help you make simple yet subtle changes to your setup that can mean the difference between an ill monitor, and a healthy, thriving animal. Bumping a basking spot from a miserable 95 degrees to a more appropriate 135 (see our monitor caresheets) can be as simple as raising the vertical height of your basking area 6 inches. Comprehending the temperature requirements of a gravid female monitor is made much simpler with the immediate feedback of a temp gun. She may change cage positioning a dozen times throughout the day, a Temp Gun gives you quick and accurate readings (and hopefully comprehension and understanding). We offer a great Temp Gun with Min /Max readings for an incredibly affordable $25. This one is really an easy choice.

Digital Min/Max Thermometer with probe- Another great temperature reading tool, but this IS NOT a substitute for the Temp Gun! They are not interchangeable, but rather, complimentary. While the Temp Gun is an in hand tool to go from cage to cage, the Min/Max is more of a permanent fixture in your cage. You set up the base of the unit on the cooler side of the cage to measure your ambient temps. I like to mount it halfway up the wall of the cage, away from any direct heat source. The probe is very handy to measure your basking spot (or hot spot) but it is highly mobile, and can be used to check temps all through the cage. Check the high temps, find the low temps, temp the far dark corner of the cage, check the hidespots, check the favorite hidespot, move the probe through all the sectors of the cage to really get a handle on your temperature parameters (do yourself a favor and record this information in a notebook).

The Min/Max feature is great because you can easily check daytime highs, and most importantly, nighttime lows. Any goofball can temp a cage at 3 in the afternoon, but when temps are most critical, say at 3 in the morning, in the cool of the night, that is where the magic of the Min/Max reading lie s. So often, when someone is having trouble with their monitor, like a common respiratory problem, it is because they have not controlled the degree of the nighttime temperature drop, and at best, they are making a guess as to what the temp "might be". With the Min/Max probe, you can record EXACTLY how cool the cage environment gets to overnight, and make the necessary adjustments.

Having a Min/Max Thermo in each cage is not a bad idea. Having a unit setup in a cage that represents each specific group of setups is the recommended minimum. If you have a group of 4 ft. troughs, and they all have the same setup (same level of dirt, same basking areas, same water bowls, same layout, etc.) then getting the readings from one cage should extrapolate to the others. If some troughs have dirt, some have cypress, some keep Ionides, and some keep Ackies, then the readings of one cage will not necessarily reflect the readings of the others, and each setup should have its own probe. Having a Min/Max unit mounted in a cage setup allows you to glance at the cage and get some immediate feedback each time you pass the area, an extra reassurance that everything is running well and properly.

Of course, there are a thousand other uses for the Min/Max. When you are incubating those monitor eggs you have worked so hard to get, certainly you will have a high quality thermostat to control the heating and egg temperatures. But there is nothing like that reassuring feeling you get when you have a few backup temperature readings to give you peace of mind. If we are cooking ten boxes of reptile eggs, you better believe I have at least 3 or 4 Min/Max units in place, giving me specific feedback not from just the incubator, but from the egg boxes themselves. Use a single Min/Max unit to monitor not only your cage temps, but your MONITOR ROOM temps as well, hell, put the base unit in the adjoining living room, and run the probe through the wall (or window, or doorway) and be able to check your reptile room temps while you watch tv. The Min/Max units have a ton of uses, and at an affordable $15 ea., you can go with half a dozen units (or more) to further your understanding of the thermal experience. O ur Min/Max Thermometers have a probe, a backlit display, and read not only current temps, but easily resettable minimums and maximums, as well as the current time (a clock too? Whoa!). Another easy choice. $15.00 each.

Halogen Floods- Long Life bulbs- Choosing the right model and wattage bulb is no dimwit accomplishment. You have to understand a bit of caging and setup theory, and use the right product. We have found TERRIFIC Long Life Halogen Flood bulbs, and we sell them right here at PE. I have written an short FAQ on bulb selection and strategy, check out our Halogen Flood bulb FAQ here for more IMPORTANT DETAIL! We have 50 and 85 watt Halogen Floods at $10 each.

Miner-All Calcium Supplement- There are a number of good calcium supplements on the market, we switched to Miner-All many years ago. It works very well. A calcium supplement is an essential part of an insect diet for your monitors. When you are feeding crickets, superworms, roaches, or whatever feeder insect it might be, it is important to supplement the nutritional content of the feeder insect with a high quality calcium supplement. Monitors grow fast, and need a lot calcium to keep their bones strong and their systems healthy. Productive female monitors leech a ton of system calcium in order to make good eggs. They may get enough calcium from whole foods like mice, but they certainly aren't going to get it from cockroach wings. Use a good calcium supplement every time you feed insects, your animals will be stronger, healthier, and more productive. Miner-All is available in 12 ounce cans, for $7 ea., and a couple of cans go an awfully long way (for most hobbyists). It is available either with or without added Vitamin D3, call and check with us if you are unsure of the formulation you need.

Proper hidespots- Check out our Hidespot FAQ for a more detailed breakdown of hidespot theory, but I will cover the basics here. Your monitors want a hidespot that provides security. A hide that is dark, small, and low to the ground. Big open caves or logs provide shelter, perhaps, but no security at all. 99% of the hidespots you find at your local retail reptile store have been designed with YOU (a human being) in mind. Something pretty, something flashy, those absolutely dumb half logs, it is all about appealing to your eye, and very little thought has been put into the actual needs of the reptile. They want to be protected from the predators in the wild, the birds that will scoop them off the ground, those damn feral cats that will chase them through the trees. If a hidespot is tight and secure enough, you will have a heck of a time pulling them out of it. Of course, when you just lift it right off the top of them, I think it might very well ruin their day, but that is another matter. The point is that until you exhibit your truly massive human intellect, they will feel secure, safe, and at some kind of peace. That is a lot of anthropomorphizing, and I hate that, but I guess we can feel all warm and fuzzy for a moment or two...

Burrows are great hidespots. When an animal constructs its own burrow, given the proper substrate to do so, it is addressing its own instinctual ideal needs. When you provide additional hidespots, you can be quite creative, but try and keep in mind the basic theory. Flat cork bark laid flat on the ground makes a good hidespot for smaller monitors, especially babies. They will shimmy right underneath it and feel completely crevice-safe. For arboreal monitors like the Green Trees, we have constructed "cork sandwiches", in which we zip tie two flat pieces of cork together, and their natural gentle curve creates a slightly larger crevice type space of which the animals make good use. We secure these sandwiches up in the higher branches of the cage, although they would certainly be of good use terrestrially as well.

The more traditional clay plant pot bases are also a good choice. They have a large footprint, but they are low to the ground, and you need only crack a small opening for the animal to get inside. We use a lot of the Vision bowls in our facility, and those have a hollow base underneath, which is a favorite hidespot of both monitors and snakes. If you take a moment to peruse a few hundred photos, you can see all of the hidespots described here (and more) in the various galleries, including the Facility photos. (or do not pass go, and find yourself immediately in Hidespot FAQ jail here)

We don't really sell hidespots on our site, nonetheless, they are an ESSENTIAL part of the Monitor Pro Pack. I could not imagine keeping monitors successfully without good hidespots. You can use Vision bowls, perhaps those are one option. But for the other hides, you will have to use your own resources, and creativity. It isn't hard, just think like a monitor. A scared one.

Virosan - Keeping reptiles means cleaning reptiles, and even in a good week, it can get messy. I have seen hobbyists use Bleach, Windex, soap, plain water, and any number of home concoctions to clean with. We started using Virosan at the recommendation of our vet many many years ago. Virosan is a virucide and bactericide that is safe to use with your animals. Vets use Virosan as a surgical mouthwash, to rinse away the blood and guts. It is completely safe for your animal, and we use it for infected teeth and gums, and other minor abrasions (for a serious wound, always see a vet).

Reptile caging can be a breeding ground for more than just snakes. Bacteria and other undesirables can grow in poorly kept caging, water bowls, even dirty "storage areas". Keep a clean cage, and use a good, safe, Vet recommended cleaner. We have spray bottles of Virosan available for $8 ea. If you have your own bottle, or just need a refill, it is also available as a lone concentrate for $5. If you would like a more long-term supply, try a gallon for $46 (including hand pump).

Leather Gloves- There is nothing fancy about the leather gloves we use, they are regular, inexpensive work gloves that we buy from Home Depot when they are on sale. But a good glove is a good friend. Leather gloves protect your hands and arms from the sharp claws of your monitors (try trimming those suckers, it helps a lot). When you handle monitors on a daily basis, you can either become somewhat immune to the pain like Jimmy @ Pro Exotics (I think he has just severed all the nerves at this point) or you can have a few pairs of leather gloves around to stave off the 20 needles all looking to secure a solid grip (and draw blood). Gloves are a HUGE help when it comes to acclimating and working with baby monitors, which are often nervous, defensive, and flighty, and good grief, I couldn't even imagine trying to hold a large, nervous, Argus monitor without a pair of the FIREPLACE GLOVES (the ones that come all the way up your arm).

Gloves are also good to discourage a biting monitor. Without the presence of your hot juicy flesh, baby monitors can't quite find the right target, and will be more reluctant to latch on. If you have a larger adult monitor that bites, no glove is going to do much good if you catch a bite, but it will still help hide the target, and will buy you more time. Your confidence, and lack of fear of a defensive, biting animal, is key to your success in interacting and acclimating a new monitor. Gloves can give you that confidence. Plus when the animal craps all over your hand, w ell, it isn't actually ALL OVER YOUR HAND!

Do we sell leather gloves? Sure, I will sell you a new pair for 3 bucks, same as we paid for them, and I will toss them in the box with your new monitor. But really, you can find them just about everywhere.

Hemostats- Hemostats (the long tweezer/tongs with the scissor grip) are an important tool in the feeding of your monitors. You really shouldn't feed your monitors by hand, that is just asking for trouble (but hey, we have all done it, it is quite a thrill). Using a pair of Hemostats to feed allows you to not only control which animal gets which portion, but it keeps your own precious fingers at a safe distance from over eager choppers.

If you feed thawed foods on a plate, dish, or right on the dirt, holding the items out for the monitors is not an issue, but when it comes time to retrieve the uneaten foods, the Hemostats provide a safe and simple way to snatch the food back out of the cage, fr om a more comfortable distance. Hemostats are like the Temp Guns, once you have them, you will find yourself using them all the time, every day. Plus you can probably get your pen when you drop it down behind the cage.

We sell Hemostats in a few different sizes, I use all of them in different applications. The 12 inch Hemos are $18, the 16 inch Hemos are $22, and the 18 inch Hemos are $28. They do make longer models, but at that point, they become fairly unwieldy. Stick with 18 inch and below. We also carry the tongs, which are similar to the Hemos, but no scissors grip (just a giant set of tweezers). The 12 inch Tongs are $16, the 15 inch Tongs are $20, and the 18 inch Tongs are $15.

Monitor Books- Oh woe, the state of monitor literature. It is getting better, but by and large, it still stinks. For every good monitor book you will find, there are a dozen more terrible tomes waiting to confuse and confound you with bad information, ancient ideas, and just plain illogical claims and "strategies" (some admirable alliteration there). We are still at the start of the new monitor revolution, and only at this time are we really beginning to truly understand the monitor lizard and its captive needs and requirements. Even the good literature is dated in communicating current captive care standards, husbandry an d theory. I would say that the BEST captive keepers of monitors are too busy working with animals to spend time writing books, so the vanguard of monitor information is obtainable more through community and discussion that it is through reading the page.

But the great thing about monitors is the consistency. For the most part, monitor lizards are very similar in their needs. There are subtle changes here and there for diet, humidity, breeding cycles and such, but the basic setup remains the BASIC SETUP. That is to say, ANY GOOD MONITOR INFORMATION is GOOD MONITOR INFORMATION FOR YOU!

The Savannah Monitor book by Daniel Bennett and Ravi Thakoordyal is a fine example. Maybe you don't have what is the most common pet monitor in the hobby, the Savannah monitor, but YOU CAN LEARN MANY THINGS about monitors from this book. It will make you a better keeper. It covers details and concepts very well, in an easily read and understood format. A great Water monitor caresheet will help you keep your Peachthroat monitor more effectively. A good discussion about the breeding habits of the Acanthurus monitor (Ackies) will take you 10 steps further down the road in your quest to breed your Savannahs. Hanging out shooting the breeze with experienced monitor keepers at a show will improve your own strategies 100%. IT IS ALL ABOUT THE MONITORS, and they are so similar it is silly.

Like I said, the number of quality monitor books is very limited. It is so limited that it is very realistic and affordable to work at collecting them all. We sell the monitor books that we feel have the most value and application. And while a couple of books (Seward's Gila Monster book, and Klingenburg's Parasite book) are not directly about monitors at all, they are indeed relative to the discussion, and offer valuable ideas and insights that can improve your own strategy, and increase your chance of success. Our essential Pro Pack books:

Monitor Lizards by Daniel Bennett-
The Savannah Monitor Lizard by Daniel Bennett and Ravi Thakoordyal- $20 ea. (most current captive theory and husbandry in print)
Nile Monitors by Rob Faust- $8 ea. (I am a big fan of Rob Faust, and this is a great monitor book that covers topics like monitor handling, breeding, sexing, and incubation. Very well done)
Australian Goannas by Matt Vincent and Steve Wilson- $45 ea. (another out of print title - but copies are still available from PE!)
Mertensiella Advances in Monitor Research II by Hans-Georg Horn and Wolfgang Bohme- Sold Out Forever!
Gila Monster Propagation by Dr. Mark Seward- $35 ea. (some very good ideas on incubation techniques here)
Understanding Reptile Parasites by Dr. Roger Klingenburg- $12 ea. (as a monitor hobbyists, you will be addressing parasites at some point, have the knowledge and ammo preloaded)

Monthly Tracking Cards- We have used a few different tracking and recording techniques over the years, everything from Post-It Notes on the cages to handwritten records in a notebook, and I would certainly recommend that you find SOME way to keep track of the significant events in your daily schedule of snake keeping. If you truly want to be successful with your animals, this one is a MUST HAVE. In 2003, I finally got off my duff and designed a PE Monthly Tracking Card, and it has already become one of those things that I CANNOT imagine life without. We have specialized cards for different groups of animals- Snakes, Monitors, Gilas, etc., and they are customized to address the recording needs of each group of reptiles. You can capture all of the relevant info on the card (over 30 different categories), ranging from feeding habits (or lack thereof) to basking habits, to follicular development and copulating data, it is all easy to note, and easy to follow. The ability to look into the past, whether it be 3 months or 3 years, will once again fine tune your abilities and successes as a keeper and breeder. We are offering the PE Monthly Tracking Cards as a free download. You can print a copy of both available cards, and then you are off to Kinko's to print out as many as your collection requires. Download the Tracking Cards here.

So that's the Pro Exotics' Monitor Pro Pack, the monitor essentials that I couldn't live without. These are all common items, you can find them on your own with a little footwork, so why buy from us?

Support us because we support you. We bust our butts to bring you great products, great information, great access, great service, and definitely great animals. We truly appreciate your support and patronage, and we truly appreciate the opportunity to show you our passion, love, and dedicati on to both the reptiles and the hobby.

Water Monitor- Varanus Salvator

These terms confuse a lot of people. Typically, new hobbyists using these terms are thinking of the common Water monitor, but they are a bit thrown off by a combination of common names, scientific names, and similar sounding names.

Water Monitors come from across the Indonesian range. Geographically, they naturally occur over a very large area. Most of the Water monitors available in the reptile trade are from the islands of Sumatra, Java, and Malaysia. These island names are used to denote the LOCALITY of a particular animal.

At Pro Exotics, we concentrate on Water monitors from Sumatra. We find these animals to have a bright and active pattern, and of the commonly available Waters, we feel they are the prettiest animals.

The SCIENTIFIC name of the Water monitor is Varanus Salvator The term "Water Monitor" is a COMMON term, used very loosely. In scientific circles, Varanus Salvator is used to describe the animal, so that there is a worldwide consensus as to which species is being discussed. Varanus Salvator is a proper term and is accepted worldwi de. A SUMATRAN Water is a VARANUS SALVATOR.

EL SALVADOR is a country. In South America. This has nothing to do with monitors. At all. It just sounds similar to the untrained ear, and unfortunately, there are probably a few hundred ignorant pet shops across the country that mistakenly use this term and confuse new hobbyists even more. But that is what most pet shops do. Disseminate bad information and confuse people. (but not your pet shop, right?)

SALVADORII is the last part of the scientific name Varanus Salvadorii. In common terms, this would be the Crocodile Monitor. Again, nothing at all to do with Water Monitors, or Varanus Salvator. They simply sound similar. But they are completely different animals, not interchangeable as pets by any means. Croc Monitors are best viewed from afar. Through glass. At a zoo. And they are definitely not Water monitors.

When you ask for a "El Salvador" Water Monitor, you are not actually asking for a monitor. Rather, you are saying, "Can you please give me more information about Water Monitors, because I am confused as hell and don't really understand what is going on." We are happy to help, happy to clear things up, and we want to be very sure that a Water Monitor, the biggest lizard you can possibly buy, is really what you want, and what you are prepared for!

(Have you seen our general Hidespot FAQ? Also check out our Bulb Selection FAQ)

The "Retes Stack" is the term generously applied to a "new" type of hidespot configuration that is generally used for monitors, but can be applied to cages for all types of reptile, including snakes and geckos. It is named after Frank Retes, who was the one to popularize this type of hide spot in the monitor world.

It is a very simple design, and is basically a series of platforms that stack under the basking light, allowing for multiple levels of both hidespots and temperature gradients.

You can use a number of materials to construct your stacks, simple is generally best. At PE, we use 2x2's, thin wood paneling, and wood screws, all purchased at Home Depot. Don't make your paneling too thick, get it as thin as you can. Thicker paneling/plywood acts as a heat sink and thermal mass, and you will get poor heat dissipation through the bottom of the stack with half inch thick paneling. Use quarter inch or less if you can. You can use a number of materials to construct your stacks, simple is generally best. At PE, we use 2x2's, thin wood paneling, and wood screws, all purchased at Home Depot. Don't make your paneling too thick, get it as thin as you can. Thicker paneling/plywood acts as a heat sink and thermal mass, and you will get poor heat dissipation through the bottom of the stack with half inch thick paneling. Use quarter inch or less if you can (ours is usually 1/8"). Wood works much better than rock/slate for a basking spot, and for a basking stack.

We cut the paneling into 12 inch squares, but like many of the details, the size of the pieces and spacers is pretty arbitrary, you can make them smaller or larger to fit your cage or application. The 2x2's run down opposite sides, and create a 2 inch gap that fits many baby monitors, and adult dwarf monitors, very nicely. A screw in each corner, and that is it, for one level.

The wood basking stacks work terrifically for many reptile species, including all the lizards. When you consider that each of our levels is (typically) 12" x 12", when you are using a stack of 5 or 6 levels, you have greatly increased the usable square footage of your cage. Use a 5 stack in a 20 gallon long, and you have more than doubled the usable space for your reptile!

This is a picture of a basking stack from one of our old Ornate Uromastyx setups. You can see Uros using temps at many levels, and you might notice that smaller, tighter hidespots are also used with the stacks to create even more choices. The temperatures at the top of this stack are 150F+, and the Uros are soaking it up. At the bottom level, temps are in the mid 80's. Retes Stacks, wood basking stacks, they are TREMENDOUS husbandry tool!

NOTE #1: 
We need to use these levels in any one of fifty 10 and 20 gallon long tanks for baby monitors. In order to make that work, we usually need our stacks to be very consistent in size. It is designed for a tight fit on one end of the tank, leaving only one exposed side, so we add holes to each level to allow for better movement and even temperature gradient.)

We generally use 3-5 levels to create the whole stack, and you want to adjust the height of the stack so that your top basking temp is close to ideal.

For monitors, we are shooting for a basking spot of 130 degrees F and up. Using the right amount of stacks to get us that temp on the top level, gives us a declining gradient towards the bottom of the stack. If you use your PE-1 Temp Gun to shoot the temps at each level, you will find the surface temps drop 10-15 degrees Fahrenheit per level. The animals can choose to hide on any level, still have a "crevice" to hide in, and can choose a comfortable temperature in a wide range of choices.

We have modified the stacks somewhat by cutting an access hole through each level, allowing for easier climbing and animal mobility, and our animals certainly seem to enjoy it. You are welcome to work with your own stacks and method to get the best results for your animals. One additional thought I ha d was to skirt each level with a denim or cloth "flap" so that the crevices are even darker and more hidden, but for hundreds of animals, that is not really practical for us. If you only have 6 cages, perhaps it is practical for you : )

We use the stacks in addition to our other cage hidespots, but we have found nothing better for getting good, reliable access to a high basking light and high temps.

NOTE #2:
Frank Retes insists that "our" Retes Stacks are not "his" Retes Stacks. He is correct, and a stubborn bonehead, all at the same time : )  Fr ank was the one to popularize the IDEA of the stacks, we have indeed taken them in our own direction, and modified them to best suit our needs. You can do the same, in fact, you SHOULD. Always look to apply the THEORY of great husbandry, if not the exact recipe, because there is no exact recipe : )

This picture here is ALSO a "Retes Stack", even though it looks completely different than the pic above. Layers of the wood stacks, loosely assembled under basking lamps, allowing for different temperature gradients, as well as hide spots. It is hotter on the top of the pile, cooler underneath.  We use this particular "setup" with our Ornate Uros, and you can find a couple of animals in the stack at all hours of the day. You can achieve the best results with your animals by APPLYING your knowledge properly! Use theory and strategy, don't get stuck in the trap of verbatim regurgitation!

NOTE #3:
This is ALSO a "Retes Stack", a pic sent in by one of our monitor customers. Same theory, slightly different application. Here there are blocks only on one side of the level, creating an angled hide that the monitor can use to vary both security and temp comfort levels. Fine application of the theory, without being exact copies of the PE stacks.

NOTE #4:
This stack is from a Bearded Dragon cage and is an excellent execution of the concept, again using the slanted stack style to achieve tighter hiding crevices. I like this execution very much, and for the Bearded
keepers out there, GET IN ON THIS! Beardeds will LOVE a well made basking stack offering such a wide variety of temperatures and hiding spots! So simple, and yet so effective.

NOTE #5:
This is another customer submitted "Retes Stack". Nice sanded wood, well made, but I feel the panels are too thick. The wood used here for each level is about one half inch thick. That is a lot of heat sinking material, and the first few levels will gobble up heat MUCH faster than the thinner paneling, making for a shorter, less useful temperature gradient. The monitor still uses the stack extensively, including as a hide, but I think it would be better served to have thinner panels, for a wider and deeper thermal gradient.

Sure, I can simplify it. I can make it as simple as possible, which can still be mighty confusing : )

But we won't get overly in depth. Genetics can be tough, super confusing, and daunting. If you want a more in depth look at reptile genetics, get NERD's Complete Ball Python book, available here at ProExotics.com. If you are even a casual herper, you need this book in your library regardless, and this is just one more reason to get it.

You can also find more in depth genetics info, including Punnett Squares, at Ralph Davis' Ball Python site.

I am only going to answe r the simplest, most basic questions.

There are two types of genetic descriptions most commonly seen in the reptile world, especially in Ball Pythons. Morphs (genetic color and/or pattern mutations) have either "simple recessive genes" or "dominant genes".

Simple recessive genetics are morphs like Albinos, Stripes, Ghosts/Hypos or Pieds. Dominant genetics (and related derivatives like Co-Dom) include morphs like Pinstripes, Mojaves, Pastels, and Lesser Plattys.

With a Simple Recessive morph, BOTH parents need to have the desired gene to produce a visible Albino (or Pied, etc) baby.

With a Dom or Co-Dom morph, only ONE of the parents needs to have the desired gene to produce a visible Pastel (or Mojave, etc) baby. With a Co-Dom morph like Pastel, breeding animals that BOTH have the gene produces a "Super" version, hence the Super Pastel, an animal that is visually a more extreme visual expression of the Pastel gene.

Back to simple recessives like Albinos.

Albino Ball male bred to Albino Ball female= all Albino babies.

If you breed an Albino male to a NORMAL female, all of the babies will CARRY the Albino gene, but since both parents did not, the babies WILL APPEAR NORMAL. They carry the gene inside, but it is not visually expressed. These babies are labeled as being Heterozygous for Albino (commonly abbreviated as Het for Albino).

These Het babies can still be bred to make visual Albinos. You can breed Hets to the visual morph and get some morph babies (Het Albino male to Albino female) or Hets to Hets (Het Albino male to Het Albino female- both appear normal, but contain the Albino gene).

Predicting the offspring of Het breedings is where it starts to get complicated, and we are not going that deep. Breeding with Hets MAY produce a visual morph in the offspring (statistical chance is NOT a guarantee, especially with small clutches like Ball Pythons), in most cases there is a mix of visual morphs and normal appearing babies in the resulting clutch. When a Het animal is included in the breeding pair, any normal looking babies in the clutch MAY contain the desired gene, or THEY MAY NOT.

There is no way to know what those normal appearing babies contain genetically without breeding them to confirm.

To break down the terminology of these normal appearing babies in Het clutches:

Normals- Regular normal Ball pythons, with no special genetics (other than "pretty", or, "pretty ugly").

Hets ("Het for Albino" "Het for Pied")- These babies are 100% guaranteed to carry the desired gene, BUT THEY LOOK NORMAL. They must be bred back to another Het, or visual morph, to produce the desired visual offspring.

Possible Hets ("Poss Het for Albino" "Poss Het for Pied")- These babies MAY contain the gene, or they MAY NOT! These are babies produced when breeding Het to Het, Het to Normal, etc. These must be bred again (and possibly again, and then again) to determine what lies inside. These babies may be NORMAL, or they may be Het, and that determination is not an easy one to make, it takes time, and patience.

Most expensive- This Pied Ball, the visual expression of the Pied trait, would be the most expensive way to get into the Pied line of Ball pythons. This animal would be many thousands of dollars.

Less expensive- This Het for Pied animal is NORMAL LOOKING, but contains the Pied gene, guaranteed. This animal is typically from Pied to Het Pied, or Pied to Normal breeding. This animal would be many hundreds of dollars.

Least expensive- This Possible Het Pied (i.e. Poss Het Pied, PH Pied) animal is NORMAL LOOKING, and MAY or MAY NOT contain the Pied gene. No way to know without successful breeding. This animal may be worth all of $50 if it is a male (males are often worth less than females in the breeding world).

Another note on Poss Hets- When you see 66% Poss Hets, or 50% Poss Hets, that refers to the chance that they are actually Hets (and relates to the Punnett Squares and deeper genetic terminology, see The Complete Ball Python book by NERD). It DOES NOT MEAN that 66% of your clutch will be Pied, Albino, etc. It just means that particular animal itself has a 66% chance of being HET, and 34% chance of being NORMAL.

Needless to say, when you are purchasing Hets, or Possible Hets, it is in your best interest to deal with a REPUTABLE BREEDER. Anyone can take normal babies and label them "Hets" or "Poss Hets" and con you out of your hard earned money. There is little recourse in this instance, as it could take 3 years, 5 years, even 10 years to breed the animals enough to determine their genetics, or lack thereof.

When you buy Hets, you are taking a chance on the reputation of the seller/breeder. Do your homework, and spend your money wisely.

A last note on Doms, and Co-Doms. They are either the visual morph, or they are NOT. They are either Pastel, or they are NOT. There is no "Het for Pastel" or "Het for Mojave". Buying a normal appearing sibling from a clutch including Mojaves gets you a NORMAL.

Geez, that is a lot of words for a "simple" explanation. But that is really as simple as I can make it...

No. Nope. Nyet. Good grief, NO.

There are some pieces of "advice" that continually float around, and never go away. They are constantly recycled, often regurgitated without actual thought to new keepers struggling to separate good advice from bad.

There is no sensible or logical reason to feed your reptile in a separate container. The most common reasoning is that it "trains" the animal not to bite when you go in the cage.

There are two basic reasons your animal strikes when you go in the cage. Most likely it is a defensive strike, as you have startled the animal (perhaps woken it up), and it is defending itself. Learn how to approach your animal better, don't grab it by the head, or from in front of the nose. "Wake it up" before snatching it out.

The other common strike is due to the fact that you SMELL LIKE FOOD. Don't wear "rat cologne" and don't feed by hand. Use a hemostat for goodness sakes! Again, this is not the fault of the animal, this is due to the ignorance of the keeper, and it is easily remedied.

Feeding in a separate container does not "train" the animal to be tamer when you go in the cage (you still "go in the cage" to inititiate feeding). And in itself it does not prevent impactions of particulate substrates like soil or mulch.

You know what DOES prevent impactions? Proper husbandry! We have kept thousands of reptiles, snakes and lizards, on MANY different substrates, and feeding doesn't cause impactions. Bad choices do.

Impactions are most often caused by low hydration levels. When an animal is dehydrated, nothing is going flow as smoothly as it should. When an animal is kept too cool, metabolism is not going to run well enough to pass substrates and other non-digestibles.

I suppose if you kept your gecko on a substrate of crushed glass, then any glass consumed while feeding would cause a problem. But that is because you chose CRUSHED GLASS (or walnut shells, or some other poor substrate). Pick an appropriate substrate. Don't chronically dehydrate your animals (a SUPER common problem and misunderstanding in reptile husbandry) and give your animals the necessary range of temperatures to accomplish life events (like pooping!).

And stop feeding in a separate container. That is just dopey.

These pictures are to help you visually understand the mounting and securing of the Flex Watt heat tape. This is not an actual rack application, but it is easier to get a decent photo this way, so just play along : )

The heat tape works best when mounted underneath your cage/container. This allows for a better, and wider, thermal gradient (hot spot) inside the cage. Mounting from the back or on the side results in poor heat convection. Sure, it can work, but make life easier and mount it from underneath, most of your reptiles are looking for belly heat in the first place.

I am not a fan of the 11 inch wide heat tape. If you have a wide area application, consider running two or more runs of 3 inch heat tape, spaced apart to cover your area. I have seen too many melted cages from folks setting up the 11 inch tape incorrectly.

The foil tape is an important heat tape component. Regular tapes melt and lose adhesion with the high temperatures. And good grief, DON'T USE DUCT TAPE. Duct tape will turn into a gooey, sticky mess.

The reason for the foil tape is to keep the Flex Watt secure. Secure in general, but also secure and out of the way for a sliding Rubbermaid container that is popular in reptile rack systems. Sliding that plastic tub in and out will rip, crease, and ruin unsecured (or poorly secured) heat tape, rendering it useless, and requiring a restart with brand new Flex Watt. Flex Watt is a heavily laminated material, once you crease it, it is very difficult to flatten out again, very difficult to continue to use.

The front edge is the most important, but to be thorough, get enough foil tape to do the back edge as well. For 6 feet of Flex Watt, that is 12 feet of foil tape. And at 25 cents a foot, you might as well order a couple of extra feet, to allow for cutting variances to your particular rack and use.

Speaking of cutting variances, you can trim Flex Watt to whatever size you need. If you order a 4 foot section of wired heat tape, and it ends up to be three inches too long for a perfect fit, you can trim it with a pair of sharp scissors. Cut straight across, and trim the open end of the tape, not the wired-up side : )

TEMPERATURE CONTROL!!
Do not run your heat tape without thermostatic control! Even a short length of Flex Watt can get extremely hot if run wide open . You must "dial it back" a bit using either a simple Rheostat (like the Zoo Med Rheostat we sell for $17) or an actual thermostat (like the Johnson Controls Thermostat we sell for $100) . Our 3 inch wide Flex Watt uses 6 watts per linear foot, so be sure that your thermostatic control is properly rated for the amount of heat tape you plan to run.

USE A TEMP GUN!!
The digital or analog setting on your thermostat is a relative setting. I don't care what the setting of the thermostat IS, what I care about is the actual, usable temperature that a particular setting achieves IN THE CAGE. Depending on what type of substrate you are using (thin newspaper? thick mulch?) and the location of your thermostat probe, a thermo setting of "92F" may produce a miserable hot spot of just 75 degrees through 2 inches of cypress mulch. Or it may produce an ass blasting temp of 115F...

Use a Temp Gun (like the PE-1 for a piddly 30 bucks) and shoot your ACTUAL hot spot cage temps. Shoot the spot over the heat tape, and then adjust your thermostat or rheostat accordingly. If your hot spot is temping out too low, raise your thermo setting. If it is too high, then lower it down. Remember that any readout setting on the thermo itself is relative to your actual cage temps. Use the tool, don't be a tool! : )

Now go heat tape yourself silly!

click for larger images

Pro Exotics Virosan may not be YOUR Virosan/ Nolvasan/ Chlorhexidine! Different brands have different strengths, qualities and concentrations. Our mixing/dilution guidelines are for PRO EXOTICS VIROSAN ONLY!

	Virosan spray bottle for $8. This includes a spray bottle, and one refill, enough for one full bottle of properly diluted Virosan. Fill your 24 ounce bottle FIRST with water to the black mark indicated, and THEN put in the Virosan concentrate, and save yourself a lot of BUBBLING and FOAMING. First the Root Beer THEN the Ice Cream : )
	On the left, pure Virosan concentrate, enough to make a full 24 ounce spray bottle. Add a touch of water, and on the right, a PE Virosan "refill", which comes partially diluted, also enough to make a 24 ounce spray bottle.
	Using the hand pump, it is about HALF A PUMP of concentrate for a 24 ounce spray bottle.
	This is all the pure concentrate needed to make a properly diluted 24 ounce spray bottle. Fill your 24 ounce bottle FIRST with water to the black mark indicated, and THEN put in the Virosan concentrate, and save yourself a lot of BUBBLING and FOAMING. First the Root Beer THEN the Ice Cream : )

Click here to check out our site Tempgun.com, it is full of PE Temp Gun specifics, including a detailed Temp Gun FAQ that addresses all kinds of spec info and use questions.

NOTE: The red laser that is available on some temp guns DOES NOT measure temperature! It is a separate beam that simply serves as a pointing device. The surface temperatures are measured using an invisible infrared beam. The red laser can shoot a very long distance, across the hall, across the building, across the street. The INFRARED beam only shoots (effectively) a short distance, typically a few feet. So while you can use a ?laser gun? and see a red dot on the wall 50 feet away, you ARE NOT measuring the temperature of that far away wall, but rather the general air temperature a few feet in front of you, and no infrared temp gun is very good at measuring empty air ambient temperatures.

The infrared beam ?shoots out? in a cone shape, narrowest right at the sensor of the Temp Gun, meaning the farther away you are, the wider the area you are temping out.

So the usable distance of a Temp Gun is largely dependent on the object you are shooting.

If you want to shoot engine head temps in an RC Car, you are trying to shoot an area about a quarter of an inch in diameter, right in at the glow plug.  For such a tight reading, you want to be as close as possible.

If you are shooting the tire temps on a Stock Car, you have a much larger area, and you can be further away.

For road or track temperatures, you can shoot from a few feet away and get an accurate reading.  Still, the closer the better.

For our use in reptile breeding at Pro Exotics , I typically shoot cages and animals from 8-12 inches away.

With the Pro Exotics Tem p Gun, anything over 2 ft is really too far, as you will be taking a wide angle ?average? temperature of an area, as opposed to a particular spot or object.

There are more expensive Temp Guns that can shoot small spot temps from 15 ft away or more, because they have such a tight focus on their cone.  Raytek makes a number of models that shoot these tight cones, but they can run hundreds and hundreds of dollars.

For $25, we offer a Temp Gun tha t shoots well for a wide range of applications, and at a great price : )

Yes we do, check out these links to go the operating instructions

Model Zero

PE-1

PE-2

PE-3

This is a very common post on the many internet reptile forums, and it drives me nuts every time.  The only thing worse is when someone equally brilliant tries to answer it?

The only appropriate short and sweet answer is ?See a qualified vet?.

(and that is the first and most important NOTE:  if you have concern about the health or well being of your animal, SEE A VET!! If you need help with a minor issue or modification, visit an internet forum, but if your situation may be life threatening, do the RESPONSIBLE thing and see a Vet!  No one can reliably diagnose a seriously ill animal through telepathy or through a computer monitor.  You absolutely, positively, owe it to the animal that you have committed to care for.)

back to the FAQ?

No one can responsibly help this person without more DETAILS.

If you are the one searching for help, for the answers, you MUST provide details. 

-What is the history of this animal?  How old is it? Where did you get it? How long have you had it? Is it captive bred?  Wild caught?  Is it ?captive bred? from the local swap meet (aka wild caught with plenty of parasites)?

-How do you have the animal setup?  In a glass tank?  A Rubbermaid? A shoebox?  In an old converted stereo cabinet? Is it alone or with other animals?

-What are your temperatures?  What is your hot spot/basking spot temperature?  What is your cool sp ot temp?  What is your ambient temp?  At the coldest spot in the cage, at the coldest time of the night (2-4 am), what is the temperature then? (hint: use a Digital Min/Max Thermometer) How do you heat the cage? Lights? Heating pads? Heat tape?  By leaving it in the window in the sun?

-How are you taking the temperatures?  Do you have the right tools? Are you using crappy temp tools like dials and stick on thermometers (or your licked finger)?  Or have you invested a modest amount of money in your animal and purchased some high quality temperature tools like a Temp Gun and some Digital Min/Max Thermometers? (those are available here)

-Do you have hidespots in your cage? How many?  A cool one and a hot one? Are they nice and tight, and dark?  Or are they big open caves, and not really hidespots at all?

-What kind of substrate are you using?

-What are you feeding the animal?  Live? Pre-killed? Frozen/thawed?

If you really want answers to your questions, especially answers from an internet forum where folks can't SEE or EXAMINE your animal first hand, then you need to be as detailed as possible.  LOTS of folks want to help.  Eager Beavers that will answer an open ended question with zero context, often with a ridiculous answer with zero thought and context, will often dominate replies.  Giving details of your situation will help those with actual experience and know-how to reply to you and offer helpful tips, suggestions, and possibly solutions.

If you can't answer the above questions, then the solution is easy.  YOU are the problem.  If you can't answer those questions, then YOU haven't done your homework, and don't know enough about how to properly setup your reptile, and it is suffering because of that ignorance.

The best response at that point is to see a qualified Vet ASAP.  And then get to work and learn about the animal you have chosen to keep, and improve the setup and your husbandry.

I can't tell you how many times I have seen the ?What's wrong?? question posted, and some goofy neophyte calls his setup ?perfect? (yet with a sick animal), and when pressed for details, rattles off some horrible setup, with horrible temps, and non existent husbandry.  So much for ?perfect??

I see this question all the time, it is another one of ?those? questions : )

Meaning, it isn't the right question at all!

Light bulb wattage is largely irrelevant.  Your concern when setting up a hot spot or basking spot in your cage is TEMPERATURES!

You need to use whatever wattage bulb is necessary to achieve the desired temperature.  Every setup is going to be slightly different.  There is no consistent ?one model? of reptile setup that allows you to just plug in a ?259 watt General Fazilltric Super Hello-gen bulb? and get the desired results.

You may need to experiment with three or four different wattage bulbs, or three of four different types of bulbs, to find what works best in your setup.

Remember that your actual setup, the dimensions and orientation of your cage, will have a much larger impact on your temperatures than bulb wattages.

Inexperienced folks often use ?super wattages? to achieve proper temps.  For monitor or lizard setups for example, you are chasing a 130ºF+ basking temperature.  Scary setups use 150, 200, or even 250 watt bulbs to get 130ºF.  Those are BIG bulbs that not only eat up a lot of electricity, but they run EXTREMELY hot at their base, and pose a number of serious heat and fire concerns for your fixtures.

We setup cages all the time with 130º, 150º, even 170ºF basking spots, using simple, ec onomical, long lasting 50 watt Halogen Floodlights (floods, not spots!). Just 50 measly watts, using inexpensive LONG LIFE bulbs that you can buy at our Pro Exotics Online Store for just a few bucks.

We do this by using elevated basking spots! We use them for all lizards, and many snakes as well! You can raise your basking spot temperature 30ºF just by raising it another 6 or 8 inches towa rds the bulb! That is why actual setup and configuration plays such an important role. Knowing how to maximize your resources helps to achieve ideal results.

I got this quick quote from the kingsnake.com monitor forum, it really captures the big bulb/little bulb mentality, by Frank Retes- "white man make big fire, sit far away, native american make small fire, sit close."

Check out our facility and animal pictures here on our site. There are over 1000 pictures to browse, and there are many examples of setups using overhead lighting that visually show how we do it, and the configurations we use. You can decipher it all if you look hard enough : )

You can also see more theoretical detail in our Retes Stacks FAQ.

So what bulb wattage should you use for your setup? Whatever combination of bulb type, wattage, a nd cage configuration results in the desired husbandry temperatures (don't be a dope! use a Temp Gun and KNOW YOUR TEMPS!). In small glass tanks, we use regular incandescent lamp bulbs (still 25-60 watt bulbs, always low wattage). In larger setups, our long time fave Halogen Floods in 50 and 85 watt sizes.

With that simple bulb selection, we are able to set up every reptile species that we have ever dealt with.

Be safe, and figure out how to do it with the lowest wattage possible : )

Keeping an ideal setup with perfect temps and husbandry is the key first step to taming your reptile, getting your reptile healthy, or addressing any animal concern. Without an ideal and prop er setup, you are just spinning your wheels.

I don't really know what the question is exactly, but that's the answer right there. When you are trying to address some problem with your reptile, whether it be feeding, shedding, taming, breeding, or whatever, without knowing and applying solid, accurate husbandry methods, you will just continue to shoot yourself in the foot.

Know the husbandry requirements of your animal before you buy. Do your research. Be prepared. Be patient and thorough. Knowledge and its application is your key to success.

Feedback about our Temp Guns:

I also got the temp gun. What a great investment that is!!!!!!!!
My cages were all too hot!!! Not bad but still above the recommended temps. You would not believe (well you would) the difference this tool has made. Husbandry is truly of paramount importance in all as pects.

Thanks again!!

You guys are awesome!!
Gene

Click here for the Temp Gun Instruction Sheet

One of the most important tools at a herper's disposal is a temp gun.

Having a quality digital temperature gun can make all the difference in the world in your reptile husbandry and the health of your animals.

This one can be a tough one to explain to folks, and it used to be a really tough sell when temp guns were $450 ea (and we bought 3! Now they are $25), but you'll just have to believe me, A TEMP GUN MAKES A WORLD OF DIFFERENCE!

Consider this excerpt from our Water Monitor Care Sheet:

"Temperatures are another crucial factor (along with proper hydration and nutrition) to a healthy monitor. You cannot afford to make a mistake in this area, as it can mean life or death for your animal. You also cannot cut corners in this area. Toss out your dial thermometers, and stick those color changing strips on the bottom of the trashcan, that is where they belong. You can get terrific digital th ermometers from Pro Exotics for $15. These come with a probe, and they have a Min/Max reading as well. You can mount the base of the thermometer inside the cage, in an area away from the basking spot, to measure the ambient temperature of the cage itself. Move the probe around the cage, check the basking spot, check the hide spots, check the "favorite" spot, check the far end of the cage. Check it all, and know what is happening. Find the range of your cage, from hottest spot to coldest spot, use the Min/Max reading to check your night drop, and then make sure these temps fall within the parameters you have set. If they don't match, do what you need to do to get them there. Changing a hot spot from 95 degrees to 130 degrees is often as simple as raising the basking spot a few more inches toward the basking light."

Having that $15 Digital Min/Max Temp Probe is the ABSOLUTE MINIMUM that you should do. Ideally, you would get yourself that temp gun. The detailed and accurate knowledge that you can gain from an easy to use temp gun will help you to dial in your cages more precisely than ever before. Unlike a cage mounted probe, the temp gun is easy to use from cage to cage, throughout your collection.

Our employees used to fight and scrap over control of the temp guns, forcing us to get one for each employee, they are that coveted! Once you holster your very own temp gun, you'll never want to be without one again! It's the best twenty five reptile dollars you will ever spend!

Check out our "How-to" videos on making hide spots here.

Anthropomorphize- to attribute human form or personality to things not human.

Thigmatrophic- preferring tight, dark spaces

Folks just love to anthropomorphize with their animals! You gotta remember that your lizard is NOT your kid brother. Your gecko might sit quietly on your shoulder while you watch tv, but that doesn't mean Sportcenter is his "favorite" show!

This tendency can really confuse folks when they go to set up a reptile habitat. One of my biggest peeves is the way the whole reptile industry has completely missed the boat on reptile hide spots!

You can walk into any pet store in the country and buy a cool looking cave for your animal. I can't think of a more inappropriate hide spot. Except maybe this "bridged" thing-a-ma-jig.

In their natural habitat, reptiles hide for a large portion of their lives. Survival is the key out in the wild. Threats from above, most significantly, birds, keep reptiles crammed tight in the cracks and crevices of their world. There is safety in a nice, tight, dark spot.

When you offer a reptile a hide spot in a captive environment, you need to keep their thigmatrophic tendencies in mind. Your animal will feel most secure in a hide that is as snug as possible.

Ideally, your hide spot should touch all sides of your animal, it should be short and form fitting. If nothing else, use a short hide spot so that there is direct contact over the back of the animal. These big caves and tall plastic containers that are sold as "hides" are like walking around in a house. The ceilings are nice and high for human use, allowing for "open space", and they keep the rain off. But a monitor or gecko does not feel safe in a "house", there is still way too much air space to allow for some very dangerous predation. In the imaginary house scenario, you are most likely to find your animal hiding under the b ed.

Lots of keepers have seen their reptiles try and communicate this need for a tight hide spot to them, and I think most keepers ignore it most of the time (I have seen proper application in VERY FEW collections).

How many times have you found a snake or monitor UNDER the water bowl? Hiding under a big ten inch water bowl is a favorite spot for many animals (and what finally clued me in). Sure it is flat, the bowl is heavy, and there isn't much room at all under there, but ya know, it sure is SAFE!

We started offering other hide spots to mimic this situation. Flat pieces of cork bark are a FAVORITE with our animals. Just drop them flat in the cage, on top of the substrate, and watch your animal shimmy underneath to safety. Vision water bowls are also good choices. They are hollow underneath, with a nice snug, round fit. Once we started using these in our cages, we found the snakes under them again and again. They slip right under, and wedge themselves tight. For some of the larger snakes, we started cutting access holes in the side, which also works well for newspaper setups, and it is easily the preferred hide spot when it is available. Nice, dark, tight, and safe.

The primary use of a glove is to prevent bites. Reptiles like snakes and monitors don't see like you and I do, they see the heat that their prey items produce (in addition to chemical clues, which are also important). Sticking your bare hand into a snake's cage looks close enough to five hot little mice to trigger a quick sample bite in many instances, even from "tame" snakes.

Startling a snake from a sleeping state is also a good way to get bit, and they will defensively strike at the first hot thing they see, once again, your hand (this is why it is never good to go "nose first" into a cage. I'm sure some of you know what I mean

Wearing a glove when approaching your animal hides the heat of your hand, and that is the most important benefit of wearing a glove. You can touch the animal, ideally by placing your gloved hand gently over the top of the head, to clue it into the fact that it is not fe eding time, but instead cleaning time, or interacting time, or whatever. The lack of a hot target to strike at, and the fact that your hand is directly on the head, will usually prevent a surprise strike. You can then go ahead and pick up the animal at the mid-body and go about your business.

Our employees use a glove with 90% of the snakes for first contact, and once the animal is in hand, and the animal understands that it is not feeding time, the snake handler then drops the glove and handles the animal bare handed with very little trouble. It is that first contact that is the most important, and where the glove comes into best use.

With monitors or other lizards, the glove allows you to hold the animal securely without getting scratched or clawed to death. Many monitors are skittish for the first few moments of contact, and not having to worry about some very sharp nails drawing blood can help you better focus on the animal itself.

Of course, there are extremes in the animal range, with some animals always needing gloved handling because of aggressive tempers, and on the other end of the spectrum, animals that are so mellow and predictable that a glove is very rarely necessary.

If you have a large collection, and you are handling hundreds of different snakes a day, a glove is an invaluable part of your husbandry and approach. But even with a small collection, the ol d trusty glove can be a fantastic tool.

We soak our reptiles for a number of different reasons, although most all are hydration related, naturally. Here is an excerpt from one of our monitor care sheets:

Soaking your monitors once a week is not only recommended, but nearly a necessity. Soaking in room temp water for one to two hours allows the animals to completely hydrate, as well as helps with any stuck sheds on the delicate toes and tails. You should use water that comes up to the shoulder (or body thickness) of your monitor, so they can easily keep their heads above water. We have used this technique for a few years now, and we have had tremendous success. Keep in mind that when soaking baby monitors (or snakes), they often float on the water, not having enough mass to sink to the bottom and walk around in water up to their tiny shoulders. If they have to literally swim in the water for the entire 2 hours, they may die of exhaustion.

This is remedied by "soaking" your tiny animals on extremely damp paper towels. Line your container with three of four layers of paper towels, then wet these down liberally. Add the animals to the container, and use a secure lid. They will walk on the paper towels, drink from the small pools of water, and get all the positive benefits of a good soak, without the added worry of drowning.

A couple things are crucially important when soaking animals. First is water temperature. It should be tepid water, which means neither hot nor cold. Even the dimmest keeper would know not to use cold water with reptiles, but not everyone realizes that HOT water is just as bad, and can also kill your animal. Use water that is simply room temperature, when you stick your hand in the water, it should feel, well, like nothing, neither hot nor cold. (You can also use a Temp Gun to nail it to room temp exactly.)

Another important factor is drowning preve ntion with small animals. If left to float, and swim, many babies will become exhausted and drown. They simply cannot be left to swim for 2 hours straight. Either use the paper towel method, use appropriately shallow water (body depth), or put some props in the soaking tub that the animal can perch on, avoiding total submersion.

We use our soaking program with all of our monitors and lizards. We also use it for many snakes. It helps significantly in keeping our Blood pythons, Emerald Tree boas, and other higher humidity animals well hydrated, in great health, and free of shed problems. We don't have any more stuck sheds, no shed scarring, no dehydrated and listless animals, nothing....it simply works great.

Many other keepers love to debate me about the soaking, saying how "it isn't necessary", "a well set up monitor shouldn't need it", blah blah blah. I can only tell you that it works for us. Customers that have incorporated it into the husbandry have also loved it. If you don't agree, that's fine, but it is hard to argue with the most polished and healthy reptiles in the land, and the husbandry techniques that were used to get them there.

Very simply, you don't. There are very, very few instances when it is ever productive to force feed a snake, and the negatives of the force feeding by far outweigh the positives. Getting an anorexic or stubborn rep tile to feed is most often a matter of understanding the causes of the refusal. Experience with the subtleties of a type of animal (a snake, or a monitor, etc) makes most feeding problems fairly simple to solve, but they can be extremely challenging for a novice keeper. If you have tried EVERYTHING, and the animal still won't eat, or has lost significant weight, see a vet, don't force feed. But first try tackling the problem yourself, like this.....

Ask yourself some questions about why the animal is not eating (Boas don't go on hunger strikes for political reasons). Could the problem be environmental? Is the snake feeling stress due to its caging and refusing to feed because of it? A snug fitting hide box makes a snake feel more secure and hidden from danger. Without this a young snake may not eat because it does not feel safe.

Is the cage too big? Many new herpers, in their zest to make the perfect snake habitat, will put their newborn Boa in a large cage or tank. The snake may just not find the food in such a vast home. A small, compact, well setup cage is often the key to getting started on the right foot. The giant atrium setup can come later

What type of substrate are you using and is it safe? Cedar chips are lethal to reptiles and other substrates may also be harmful, or less th an ideal, adding to the overall stress of your animal.

Is the temperature too hot or too cold? A cold snake won't eat. Many new herpers will keep their pets too warm because a pet store stressed to them to keep them "really hot". New keepers may also have a poor grasp of the actual cage temperatures that they are running. Use a temp gun, or a quality digital thermometer and really understand what is happening in your cage. An 82-90 degree temp should be good for most (see individual care sheets for specifics). Understand the necessity and benefits of proper heat gradients.

Is the humidity ok? If you live in a desert type area it may be too dry. Clean water should always be present but spraying/misting may be needed several times per week.

That's a basic look at environment now what about the food types?

Are you feeding it correct sized prey items? Something too big may intimidate the snake. Something too small may not stimulate a feeding response (baby Ball pythons are notorious for having eyes bigger than their stomachs). Typically, the prey item should be as big around (at it's fattest point) as the largest part of the snake, the width of the midsection. Baby Ball pythons and baby Redtail boas don't eat pinkies, they eat hoppers or small adult mice. Baby cornsnakes will have no trouble fitting their little heads aro und an appropriately sized pinkie mouse (they can do it, I promise!).

Is the snake refusing rats or mice? If it is refusing one try the other (baby Blood pythons often refuse mice, but take rat pups with gusto!). We have had snakes prefer either or as their first meal.

Are you feeding live or frozen? Some snakes may take to live over frozen/thawed. The body heat seems to trigger the feeding response. Others will take to thawed over live because the movement discourages them.

What time of day are you trying to feed the snake? Some snakes will feed better in the evenings while others will feed better in the mornings, try both.

Are you giving your snake enough time to feed? Over zealous herpers will check on their new pet every few minutes while feeding. Your snake will develop a strong feeding response over time, but at first they need privacy to feel secure. Also try to keep the prey item in over a 12-hour period without disturbing the snake (be careful with live prey and aggression). Novice keepers will remove the prey after just a few minutes in the cage thinking that if it did not happen immediately it won't happen at all.

Now as far as how often to try and feed? Don't do all these suggestions in a day's time! Check the cage environment and try 1 method every 2-4 days until the snake eats. That's not to say try it every day for 4 days straight! Try it on ce and if it does not work try again in a few days with another method. Offering all these different things to your snake at once will confuse it and may prolong the feeding process.

FORCE-FEEDING should be the last thing on your mind! Too many people are too quick to force a meal on a snake. After weeks of pulling out your hair, trying all things under the sun and thinking about just freezing the "damn thing", one day you will walk in and find that the pinkie is gone. You'll check the entire cage, under and around the water bowl, under the substrate/newspaper. You'll even look around the outside of the cage as if by some miracle this small, blind, hairless animal climbed out of the cage to safety. Then it will hit you, oh my god it ate!!!

(many thanks and much credit to Jim "Hoppy" Hopkins, whose great post from the kingsnake.com Boa Forum was reproduced, nearly word for word, here : )

A "primer" gets your reptile in the mood, raring to go, and as responsive as can be.

You can prime your snake by feeding two meals in one sitting. Go with feeders that are 50-60% of the regular weekly size, one mouse, and one rat. Feed your mouse meal first (you are feeding thawed, right?!?), and then pay attention. A smaller prey item should be consumed pr etty quickly (that's the "prime"), and that is when you pounce. Immediately after the snake has swallowed the first item (allow for that full "get in the stomach" stretch), offer the rat to your snake. Snakes are instinctive feeders, and it is hard for the animal to shut off the triggered feeding response. Your animal should snap up the second item (the rat) with gusto. Anyone that has handled their snake too soon after feeding (sometimes an hour or two!) will be familiar with this instinctive strike. Your hand doesn't smell like food, but dagnabbit, that snake is ready to go, and any old target will do! Make that target your thawed rat, and you are good to go.

Follow the two in one primer plan for three or four weeks. For the fifth week, offer a full sized, high quality thawed rat, and watch your previously mouse addicted animal snap it up without a second thought. The slightly different smell, or flavor, of the thawed rat will be old news to your animal by now, switch made, problem solved.

This technique also works well for making the rat-to-rabbit switch. Follow the same gameplan.

BEWARE!! Once you have worked so hard to make the switch, DON"T LOOK BACK!! Once your animal is eating rats (or rabbits) you can reset the whole system by offering a mouse again.

I can't tell you how FRUSTRATING it is to work for weeks, or months, to get a big burm feeding on thawed rabbits, only to have an employee wander through with "extra" thawed rat feeders one day, and think he is doing us all a favor by feeding them off to our rabbit eating burms! Now we have to start the whole process over again (rats must taste better than rabbits), and if I wasn't so tired from switching four burms back to rabbits again, I would be whipping some employee tail!

Better to skip a week of feeding if you run out of rats (or rabbits) than to revert back to a previous feeder and ruin your whole program. Reptiles can be quite stubborn, and feeding is as much a game of strategy as anything else. Let it be YOUR strategy, and not the reptile's (this stubbornness goes for all reptiles, especially Monitors. Don't get punked out by your own pets!).

Feeding live rodents is by most accounts an outdated husbandry practice, and in this day and age, should very rarely be necessary.

Live feeders are ticking timebombs waiting to explode on your animal. Mice and rats have extremely sharp teeth, and can do a lot of quick damage (not to mention rabbits, which are a whole ?nother level of switchblade). Leaving a live feeder rodent in the cage with your snake, even for a half an hour, can lead to serious damage to the animal. A snake that doesn't eat because of shed, sickness, or for whatever reason, is a sitting duck for a scared, desperate, aggressive rodent.

At the same time, even a snake with a quick feeding response can pay the price to a live rodent. One small slip in the strike of your animal can leave the rodent's head and teeth (or rabbit's kicking claws) exposed and ready for damage. It takes only one quick bite to puncture an eye, or chew through a throat, or back.

I can't tell you how many times I have seen a ball python constrict around a mouse's rear end, leaving the head completely free to move about. While the ball is occupied, and completely defenseless (coiling with all it's might), the mouse is free to fight back, using the best weapons that it has, it's teeth. Not even the quickest keeper is going to be able to jump in and prevent an accident everytime. If you insist on feeding live prey, over time the odds WILL catch up to you, and your snake is going to pay the price for your ignorance. There is a very dramatic picture that perfectly illustrates the live feeding problem, an instance of a mouse left overnight in the cage of a "feeding" Ball python. I hate the picture. It breaks my heart. But it is certainly an effective deterrent, and one I think should be included here. If this FAQ is enough to convince you otherwise, don't look at the pic, and even then, don't look at the pic (this Ball python is still very much alive, but must be put down as soon as possible), but if you must see it to believe it, it is here.

I told you so.

There are instances when live feeders must be used. But 95% of the time, it is just not necessary. If I get 100 emails about stubborn animals that "won't eat", and the keeper wants to feed live, in 99 of those cases, there is a better choice, and live is not necessary. The anorexia of the reptile is almost always due to the inexperience of the keeper, and not the appetite of the reptile.

If you mu st use a live feeder to spark an appetite, you are courting disaster. But it is your responsibility to get your animal switched to either prekilled or thawed prey as soon as possible. Feeding live prey over the life of your reptile is simply ignorant and barbaric, we have come too far as a hobby to encourage such a practice.

So how do you switch? It really is not that difficult. Once again, failure is typically the fault of the keeper, and not related to the appetite of the reptile.

Most healthy snakes will take a thawed rodent without hesitation. Offered on a pair of hemostats, or feeder tongs, a fully thawed rodent of high quality, held in front of the snakes mouth will get a full blown strike and constriction (NEVER feed a snake from your hand! Now THAT is a novice technique!). Hold the mouse or rat by the back, below the neck, high on the spine. "Dangling" by the tail is less effective, and gives poor "aim". If the snake is puzzled by the stillness of the prey item, give it a little wiggle, a little movement, and it will become quite enticing.

Some snakes like a lot of movement. Some don't. Common boas will often strike a thawed mouse that "pops" them on the head a time or two. Ball pythons, on the other hand, are extremely head shy, and it is best not to touch t he snake, but instead hold the mouse completely still in front of it's nose. A Ball python may take it's time, but it will strike (and often miss, they seem to have the WORST aim in the reptile kingdom). Using a high quality thawed feeder, hemostats, and a little patience, will usually give you success in making the transition.

But sometimes, the snakes will be more stubborn. A "primer" might be of use.

You can "prime" your snake by feeding two meals in one sitting. Go with feeders that are 50-60% of the regular weekly size, one live (ugh!) or fresh killed, and one thawed. Feed your regular meal first, and then pay attention. A smaller prey item should be consumed pretty quickly (that's the "prime"), and that is when you pounce. Immediately after the snake has swallowed the first item (allow for that full "get in the stomach" stretch), offer the thawed rodent to your snake. Snakes are instinctive feeders, and it is hard for the animal to shut off the triggered feeding response. Your animal should snap up the second item with gusto. Anyone that has handled their snake too soon after feeding (sometimes an hour or two!) will be familiar with this instinctive strike. Your hand doesn't smell like food, but dagnabbit, that snake is raring to go, and any old target will do! Make that target your thawed mouse, and you are good to go.

Follow the two in one primer plan for three or four weeks. For the fifth week, offer a f ull sized, high quality thawed feeder, and watch your previously stubborn animal snap it up without a second thought. The slightly different smell, or flavor, of the thawed feeder will be old news to your animal by now, switch made, problem solved.

I mention high quality frozen rodents for a reason. Years ago, frozen rodents were more difficult to find. I can remember receiving full size trash bags of frozen mice, various sizes, perhaps 1500 in the bag, and it certainly looked less than appetizing. Convincing our snakes to eat such ugly mice was not quite as simple, and the smell was terrible. "Feeder Suppliers" sold mice and rats that had been refrozen two or three times, or rodents that were wet when they were frozen, and the resulting thaw was one gooey, unusable mess.

A cricket tank is easy to setup, and it is not expensive either.

It is much cheaper to buy your crickets in bulk by mail order, but where to put 500-1000 crickets is a pain in the butt for a lot of people. Some folks use glass tanks, or Rubbermaid sweaterboxes, but it can be even simpler than that.

One of the easiest containers to use is a large Rubbermaid trashcan. The 30 gallon (or so) size. That will hold 500-1000 crickets no problem. It is tall, and the sides are slick, so you won't need a lid, and the crickets can't escape (as long as you don't include any "climbing branches").

The key to keeping the crickets alive and ready to feed to your animals, is food, water, and space. If lacking food and water, they will die, often cannibalistically, and they will turn to one big rotting stinking mess if not given enough "space" to air out.

When you mail order your crickets, they will come in a box filled with "egg crates". This is the "space" part of the equation. Simply transfer these egg crates into the bottom of the trashcan. Also toss in 10 or 12 empty paper towel rolls. The crickets will hide in and around the crates, and the rolls. The rolls are what you pull to get your feeder crickets. Simply tap a roll full of crickets into your feeder cup, dust with your calcium supplement, and then off to the cages!

As the number of crickets drop, you will need to pull out the crates and rolls. Always leave th e rolls until the end, as those are where you are tapping crickets from. So pull the crates first, and after they are all gone, start pulling the rolls.

You want to keep enough rolls and crates available so that the crickets don't get crowded, but also so there are not just 4 or 5 in each roll. Play with it a few times, and you will find a good balance. You can toss the crates, but hang on to the rolls for next month's supply, you can keep using them until they literally fall apart.

As for the food and water, you have LOTS of choices. Some folks feed store bought grains and dog food mixes, some folks feed a commercial cricket food, and some folks feed whatever leftover scraps they have sitting around. Try and go with the first two options. You can sprinkle the food in the bottom of the can, or you can use a couple of feeder cups (remember that 1000 crickets are going to swarm this cup trying to feed, so best to use a couple of cups). Make sure you keep a constant supply of food available, adding some everyday, but not too much. Balance, always balance.

For the water, you can use a damp sponge, damp paper towels, water gels (like cricket "water bites"), potatoes or moist fruits (apples, carrots), a commercial cricket watering device, or any other method that brings enough moisture to the crickets.

Be car eful not to cross the water and the food. That creates mold, and rot, and a nasty smell. Try keeping the dry food on one side of the can, and the water more confined to a container on the other side of the can (wet paper towels in a cup for instance).

Keep this simple setup in a temperate part of the house, not too cold, not too hot. If you are not concerned with breeding the crickets, you can keep them in the 60's, say in a garage or basement. With very little attention and effort, your 1000 crickets will live for a month or more while you work to feed them off. No more cricket runs to the store 3 times a week! Crickets at a tenth of the store price! What a magical world!

(for a good mail order cricket supplier, see our LINKS page)

An experienced herper can give a lot of medical attention to his or her reptiles themselves. But that comes after a lot of experience, and typically after helping another experienced keeper, or a vet, worm or treat some animals previously.

Without knowing you or your situation, I would recomm end that you see a good reptile vet, and let them do the jobs they are trained for.

But if you feel you are ready to tackle this yourself..

You are going to need the medications, the dosages, and the techniques to administer. Some of the more popular, and safe, meds can be obtained through mail order companies like Big Apple Herp, Bush Herp, or the Bean Farm (see our links section). These meds would be stuff like Flagyl and Panacur. Other popular (and often necessary) meds like Droncit or Baytril must be obtained through a vet.

To best tackle a parasite problem, you need the knowledge, and you will find that knowledge in Dr. Roger Klingenburg's book Understanding Reptile Parasites, available here. This book is invaluable, and an essential part of any serious hobbyists or breeders collection. You will refer to it time and time again, and it will most likely save an animal or two (or fifty!).

The book covers the parasites, how to identify them, how to treat them, the proper meds, the proper dosages, and the proper techniques to administer them. Once again, this book is a must for any collection, and it would be most wise to get the book, read the book, and understand the book, BEFORE you ever run into a problem!

I can't think of a single instance where using full spectrum lighting would affect your animals negatively, but is it necessary? That's another question.

For some reptiles, Chameleons in particular, UVB seems to play an important part. But for most reptiles, monitors included, you can probably do without the added expense and hassle of the UVB.

We keep many different monitors, we breed a number of them successfully, and we don't use UVB in their setups. We have dabbled with it at times, but it does not seem to make a positive difference. Certainly we supplement our food items generously, and I think that i s a key aspect of the diet, and important for many reptiles that don't get significant natural Sun exposure.

But setting up elaborate and expensive full spectrum bulbs is just not necessary. Of course, there is quite a bit of debate on this topic, with literature pointing to UVB as an absolute must, but a majority of the successful monitor breeders that we associate with do without the UVB lighting. There is a lot of successful breeding going on without it, a plethora of EXTREMELY healthy animals that grow, thrive, reproduce, and live long natural lives without any natural light exposure.

I have spoken recently with large Bearded Dragon breeders that do without full spectrum lighting as well, and certainly most geckos and snakes can be setup successfully without the UVB lighting.

Once again, setting up your animal with UVB (or other "full spectrum" visually pleasing lighting) is unlikely to do any harm, and it is your choice whether to pursue it further or not, I can only tell you what works for us, and that is regular ?ole bulbs.

Starting with a cooling season around mid December, the females will begin blah blah blah blah blah.....

There are a lot of books on breeding reptiles. There are reptile communities like the forums at kingsnake.com that have discussions about breeding reptiles. There are a lot of knowledgeable reptile breeders that like to share info on breeding reptiles. And when you add a ll of that info together, you end up with one giant, confused, murky mess.

For every reptile breeding expert, there is a separate reptile breeding strategy. Each breeder has their own theories and strategies, some sound, some goofy (but effective), some ignorant, and it can be difficult to wade through it all to get the basic breeding info down pat.

Kingsnake.com is an excellent resource for meeting and talking with other breeders that have varying degrees of success. There is still a lot of dissension there, but the information IS THERE, if you know how to read between the lines, how to find it.

But all the literature and chit chatting in the world won't really help you breed your reptiles until you have put in your time and work (the blood sweat and tears part). Very simply, the best way to learn how to breed reptiles, IS TO KEEP REPTILES.

The more time you have under your belt, the longer you have worked with a particular species, the more intimately familiar you will be with that species, and the better you will understand the needs and requirements of that animal.

If you are a first time monitor keeper, and you are two months into your first group of monitors, you are much better off worrying about how to best keep the animals alive than worrying about breeding success at some point down the road. There are untold secrets and subtleties that your anim als can communicate to you, to make you a better keeper, and your best bet is to figure those subtleties out, REALLY get to know your animals, and after that familiarity has developed, the breeding will come much easier.

If you have tried breeding a pair of corns for a year or two, failed and switched to geckos, only to fail and switch to rosy boas, then you aren't going to be breeding anything anytime soon.

Find an animal you really enjoy, one that really fascinates you, and most importantly, one whose husbandry requirements are within your grasp, and put that time in. Once you know your animals inside and out, their feeding habits, their temperature habits, their shedding habits, their behavior habits, it will be a much smaller step to get to successful breeding.

Successful breeding in many ways is a reflection of ideal husbandry. The animals will only breed successfully when all the other conditions are right, and when all their needs are met. Once you have mastered a particular species, the breeding can happen. If you don't have a true clue what you are doing, then you are just spinning your wheels.

Just about every single employee we have ever hired has been a reptile hobbyist. Most are "experts" and have a nicely sized collection of animals at home. Most of them feel like they know what they are doing when it comes to the animals. And I can tell you that after a couple of weeks, every single one has faced the facts of how much they truly DIDN'T know, once exposed to a breeding operation in full swing. It has taken us years of hard work to get the breeding right, and for many (MANY) species, we are STILL trying to figure out the secrets to success.

Breeding reptiles is just a lot of trial and error. It is a lot of hard work and application of theories and ideas, as you are constantly trying to idealize your husbandry and the animals themselves (What can we improve on from last season? What didn't work last season? What did?). You can read step by step info from sites like vpi.com, or salmonboa.com, but that info may or MAY NOT apply to you and your animals. Certainly it is a good start, in fact a good enough start (for boas and pythons) that you should go to those sites and absorb that info, which is presented well enough that I won't replicate it here.

The key thing to understand is that there is no "one" proven way to breed reptiles, and it is up to the expert keeper to find his or her best path to success. Don't forget the foundation of your program. As I said, find an animal you REALLY enjoy, learn as much as possible about it (mostly from observation and time, supplemented by books and websites), and in time, you may very well be a successful breeder and expert, and then YOU get to answer the questions from all the new enthusiastic reptile keepers!

Good luck to you and your animals!!

There are LOTS of different theories and husbandry strategies out there, ours is just one. The way that we keep our monitors may differ significantly from the way another hobbyists keeps his or her monitors. The same goes for the way that we keep our snakes. I can only tell you what WORKS FOR US. We have gone through plenty of trial and error, and the information that we give out is as accurate as we believe possible. But it still might be different...

First of all, with the proliferation of the internet, just about EVERYBODY is an expert. A 13 year old kid with his first Savannah monitor feels like an expert after keeping the animal for 3 months straight. That happens ALL THE TIME! All he has to do is get himself an email account from Yahoo and he can call himself "SuperCool Reptiles" or whatever. Beware of your source, and lo ok carefully for experienced keepers and great reputations.

As for the reptile literature out there, to say that it leaves a lot to be desired is being generous. There are indeed a number of quality snake books out there, as intelligent and quality husbandry of snakes (as well as captive breeding) has been around for a few decades now. But there are many more books with BAD or inaccurate information available. Just visit your local petstore.

There are a ton of handy "pocket guides" on reptiles available, but muc h of that information is misleading, in error, or out of date, you still have to weed out the bad info to get to the good.

It isn't necessarily the fault of the author, as it is quite an enormous task to convey all the subtleties, nuances, and common sense techniques of successful husbandry into a 50 page book. It just can't be done.

When I write a caresheet, or give out husbandry advice by phone or email, I can only tell you WHAT WORKS FOR US, period. If you don't like our advice, don't follow it, plain and simple. Our success and high standards for our animals speaks for itself. We are by no means experts on every reptile, and in fact only specialize in a select few, but after years of trial and error, exploration, study, and discovery, we are happy to share whatever knowledge that we have. Our success is your success. Great reptiles, gr eat service, great support, a great experience.

We use a couple of different substrates for our monitors, including paper towels (for very new hatchlings), cypress mulch, and a soil mix.

The cypress is a great substrate, and works well for us. It holds humidity well, is easy to clean, and the animals can burrow into it easily. It is not available across the country however, so many regions of the country simply do not have access to it (it is plentiful only in the East and Southeast), and it can be frustrating. I have been able to locate cypress mulch at just one location in Colorado, and I am happy to have that source. For other folks, they cannot locate it at ALL.

The other substrate we use regularly, and a substrate that is a good substitute for the cypress, if not simply better overall, is soil. Plain old dirt (well, kind of).

We use a soil mix for our breeder monitors, and it can be used for lizards of all sizes and stages. Soil holds moisture, and burrows very easily as well. But where to get a good soil...

Some keepers are lucky enough to have natural dirt that can be dug up locally, screened (to remove large rocks, sticks, etc.), and put right into the cage, ready for burrowing, egg laying, and everyday use by their monitor. I remember visiting one keeper in the Northwest that used a silty dirt that he dug up at his local river bed. It was the thickest, finest, cleanest, heaviest dirt I have ever seen. With the right amount of water, it held the perfect burrow, compacted easily and firmly, and yet was simple and light for the lizards to dig in. I sure wish we had access to that dirt!!

But we don't, so we make due. For our soil mix, I start with a screened topsoil that I buy at a local landscaping wholesaler. I try and choose the "cleanest" dirt possible, that is, with the fewest organic additives. No manure, no fertilizer, just straight dirt. We then mix in playsand, and vermiculite. Our soil/sand/vermiculite mix is 50/25/25. Once you adjust your moisture (water) content correctly, this mix does everything you need it to do, and it does it well. The animals seem to enjoy it, and it is easy to dig, but also holds a good burrow for egg laying.

The water content is up to you. If you play with it a bit, you will find the right balance, including how often to add more water. We never "mist" the soil, that is a waste of time. We just use a gallon jug of water and dump it in accordingly. After a while, you will have a good feel for how much to add, and it is not exactly scientific, you will find a generous range that works.

If Home Depot is your only source of soil, don't despair. We have used retail topsoil many times over the years, and it has worked fine. Once again, try to get the cleanest soil possible, with the least amount of additives, and you should be able to create your own usable mix.

Best of luck to you and your animals!

Has the search for terrific soil reached its conclusion!?!?! Oh, the suspense!!

We have indeed stopped using the topsoil/sand/vermiculite mix described in the soil mix FAQ. It is still a very workable mix if you don't have other choices, and it beats straight potting soil, dirt and cypress mixes, and straight cypress mulch itself. But at PE, we have moved on to a new soil, a decomposed granite that we were lucky enough to find locally.

We found our new soil at a local landscaping supply wholesaler (no walk in retail sales). This supplier was situated outside of town, on a number of acres, and there were dozens and dozens of 30 foot piles of different materials. Topsoils, potting soils, manures, rocks, gravels, mulches, and aha! Decomposed Granites. There were many different types of decomposed granites, different grades, diffe rent colors. Some were rockier, some were finer, some thicker, etc. We simply went through the same steps that YOU should be going through in finding a workable soil.

We sampled a number of different granites, a few hundred pounds of each, and found that the "Pink Breeze" (which is actually more orange) was the one for us. It digs great, it holds burrows really really well, it holds moisture well, it has a nice consistency, and the animals have absolutely loved it.

It is significantly more expensive than the topsoil mix, but the benefit to the animals is immeasurable. They really dig this dirt, so to speak : )

We have had nearly 50 tons delivered to our facility, and we have all of the monitors on this soil, as well as a number of other reptiles that are in "experimental" and, dare we say, "revolutionary" setups using this same soil.

"Pink Breeze" Decomposed Granite is apparently from a mine in Utah. Is it available in your area? I have absolutely no idea. Get off your duff and go find out. Do some footwork, some homework, some phonework, and see what your options are.

And don't forget your local soils. If you are very lucky, perhaps you can go outside town, down into the forest, or into your local streambed and find a terrific reptile dirt. I know that a certain monitor breeder in Arizona digs up his own local soil, and it works great. It is also very similar to our decomposed granite, but it is even less rocky (he screens it). Of course, you probably can't haul out 50 tons, but you probably won't need to (did you know that a full 4 ft. metal trough holds (literally) a TON of dirt? It is A LOT of digging and hauling, you better pack your lunch).

The whole soil question/problem/puzzle is yet one more piece of the monitor pie. Like so many other aspects of successful monitor husbandry, it is largely up to you to figure it out for yourself. A lot of trial and error. Hopefully we can at least give you some ideas. Best of luck to you and your animals!

We get this question quite a bit, and since it is difficult to type out directions to what is really a simple technique, we made these 10 second video clips to help you visualize it for yourself...
Clip 1

Clip 2

Sometimes the simplest questions get the most bizarre, crazy, over-thought, over-engineered, and over-worrisome responses...

I have seen posts on the internet about "how do I get off this stuck eye cap?" perhaps a hundred times. Instead of a simple, sensible answer, responses are laid out that come from all over the place, particularly left field. Whenever you are asking for advice on the internet BE VERY CAREFUL about what/who you accept as a "reliable resource".

Getting a stuck eye cap off of a recently shed snake is SIMPLE. First of all, if the shed has gone so poorly that there is stuck shed, consider soaking your animal for an hour or two to rehydrate it, it is probably fairly dehydrated at that point anyway. Ninety-five percent of the time, the stuck shed, including eye caps, will come off during the soak, or it will slide off with very little effort right after the soak. That is the simplest answer.

If you will not or cannot soak an animal, then a dab of Neospo rin over the eye, applied three times a day, will slide that stuck puppy off within 24 hours. No tape, no tweezers, no needles or pointy objects (that is "sensible advice"?!?), and no hassles. This works for small patches of general stuck shed as well.

Now that the shed is completely off, spend some time to reevaluate your setup and husbandry. Properly setup, reptiles will be able to shed on their own 99% of the time. If you have having stuck or dry sheds, there is a very good chance that your husbandry philosophy and application is not quite what it could be. Do some more homework, do some research, make a few phone calls, and pinpoint the problem so that you can address it in the future.

If the stuck shed is more than a single layer deep, remnants from more than one previous shed, these simple techniques may not work. But at that point, nothing simple will. You should not let your reptile get to this point, but once it is there, a vet visit would be the smartest move you could make. Multiple stuck sheds and other skin problems are best left to a professional, and often require medications to remedy. Skin problems don't magically get better on their own, so be a responsible keeper and see a vet. Once you have that experience, once you know what to watch for, and how to handle it, you will be better able to prevent it in the future. In the meantime, have a good vet bail your animal out of a bad situation.

Your reptiles really don't need fancy water (frogs and amphibians are another matter). Water from your tap is good enough for you to drink, and it is good enough for your animals. But there are a couple of simple things you can do to "prepare" that water before using it in your cages.

At Pro Exotics, we go through perhaps a hundred gallon jugs of water every day. In a small collection, maybe you go through one or two. But pulling water right from the tap into your caging can have some negatives. Tap water typically has chlorine, and it is usually either too hot, or too cold, to use immediately.

This is easily remedied by keeping some gallon size water jugs always on the ready in your reptile room. If you fill them the night before, not only does the chlorine have a chance to evaporate out overnight (toss the caps, you won't be needing those anymore), but the water will also come to room temperature, that is, whatever temperature your reptile room is.

This room temperature, chlo rine free water works great for filling water bowls, cleaning cages, and even soaking your animals as necessary. Once you are done for the day, fill the jugs back up, and stick them behind your cages, or in the corner, somewhere out of the way, and they will be ready to go again tomorrow. The plastic jugs are quite durable, and even with rough daily use, we don't replace our jugs but once every four months or so.

Having water on hand and ready to go is a nice trick that can make your reptile life just a little bit easier.

The "Retes Stack" is the term generously applied to a "new" type of hidespot configuration that is generally used for monitors, but can be applied to cages for all types of reptile, including snakes and geckos. It is named after Frank Ret es, who was the one to popularize this type of hide spot in the monitor world.

It is a very simple design, and is basically a series of platforms that stack under the basking light, allowing for multiple levels of both hidespots and temperature gradients.

You can use a number of materials to construct your stacks, simple is generally best. At PE, we use 2x2's, thin wood paneling, and wood screws, all purchased at Home Depot. Don't make your paneling too thick, get it as thin as you can. Thicker paneling/plywood acts as a heat sink and thermal mass, and you will get poor heat dissipation through the bottom of the stack with half inch thick paneling. Use quarter inch or less if you can.

We cut the paneling into 12 inch squares, but like many of the details, the size of the pieces and spacers is pretty arbitrary, you can make them smaller or larger to fit your cage or application. The 2x2's run down opposite sides, and create a 2 inch gap that fits many baby monitors, and adult dwarf monitors, very nicely. A screw in each corner, and that is it, for one level.

NOTE #1: 
We need to use these levels in any one of fifty 10 and 20 gallon long tanks for baby monitors. In order to make that work, we usually need our stacks to be very consistent in size. It is designed for a tight fit on one end of the tank, leaving only one exposed side, so we add holes to each level to allow for better movement and even temperature gradient.)

We generally use 3-5 levels to create the whole stack, and you want to adjust the height of the stack so that your top basking temp is close to ideal.

For monitors, we are shooting for a basking spot of 130 degrees F and up. Using the right amount of stacks to get us that temp on the top level, gives us a declining gradient towards the bottom of the stack. The animals can choose to hide on any level, still have a "crevice" to hide in, and can choose a comfortable temperature.

We have modified the stacks somewhat by cutting an access hole through each level, allowing for easier climbing and animal mobility, and our animals certainly seem to enjoy it. You are welcome to work with your own stacks and method to get the best results for your animals. One additional thought I had was to skirt each level with a denim or cloth "flap" so that the crevices are even darker and more hidden, but for hundreds of animals, that is not really practical for us. If you only have 6 cages, perhaps it is practical for you : )

We use the stacks in addition to our other cage hidespots, but we have found nothing better for getting good, reliable access to a high basking light and high temps.

NOTE #2:
Frank Retes insists that "our" Retes Stacks are not "his" Retes Stacks. He is correct , and a stubborn bonehead, all at the same time : )  Frank was the one to popularize the IDEA of the stacks, we have indeed taken them in our own direction, and modified them to best suit our needs. You can do the same, in fact, you SHOULD. Always look to apply the THEORY of great husbandry, if not the exact recipe, because there is no exact recipe : )

This picture here is ALSO a "Retes Stack", even though it looks completely different than the pic above. Layers of the wood stacks, loosely assembled under basking lamps, allowing for different temperature gradients, as well as hide spots. It is hotter on the top of the pile, cooler underneath.  We use this particular "setup" with our Ornate Uros, and you can find a couple of animals in the stack at all hours of the day. You can achieve the best results with your animals by APPLYING your knowledge properly! Use theory and strategy, don't get stuck in the trap of verbatim regurgitation!

NOTE #3:
This is ALSO a "Retes Stack", a pic sent in by one of our monitor customers. Same theory, slightly different application. Here there are blocks only on one side of the level, creating an angled hide that the monitor can use to vary both security and temp comfort levels. Fine application of the theory, without being exact copies of the PE stacks.

NOTE #4:
This is another customer submitted "Retes Stack". Nice sanded wood, well made, but I feel the panels are too thick. The wood used here for each level is about one half inch thick. That is a lot of heat sinking material, and the first few levels will gobble up heat MUCH faster than the thinner paneling, making for a shorter, less useful temperature gradient. The monitor still uses the stack extensively, including as a hide, but I think it would be better served to have thinner panels, for a wider and deeper thermal gradient.

PE Monthly Tracking Cards will help you get a better handle on your reptile collection. The Tracking Cards cover a month's worth of husbandry info (over 30 categories) including feeding, shedding, breeding, production, meds, temps, and more. They are easy to us e, easy to follow, and the value really comes down the road, when you can refer back to your card and interpret behaviors and cycles.

We have looked at other cards, computer programs, and of course the good ole' post it note, but we have really improved our understanding and access with our animals by using these PE Tracking Cards, which we designed ourselves to cover as much husbandry range as possible, and to make up for the shortcomings of other products.

We have separate cards for lizards (monitors) and snakes, and you can download a free copy of each. You can take the master Tracking Card down to your local Kinkos, and print up as many as you need. Have them printed double sided, head to head, on some heavy card stock paper, and just 6 copies will cover a year's worth of progress for each animal. Download your PE Tracking Cards today, and get a whole new outlook on your reptile collection.

Download Tracking Cards here.

No, we sure don't. We have in the past. But I got tired (and scared) of seeing customers come back in with melted and scorched caging from the 11 inch tape running too hot. That is a thermostatic control issue, but I have never had caging get to a melted scorched state with the 3 inch heat tape.

I would rather run two spaced runs of the 3 inch heat tape than a single wide piece of the 11 inch. You can get 11 inch heat tape from Reptile Basics, but BE VERY CAREFUL WITH 11 INCH HEAT TAPE!

These are the settings we use at PE for a typical python setup:

SP- "92F" (Setpoint)
dIF- "1" (Differential)
ASd- "1" (Anti-Short Cycle)
SF- "0" (Sensor Failure)
OFS- "how many degrees of night drop" (Offset- if appropriate)

Johnson Controls Thermostat Night Drop Instructions

The Johnson Controls Thermostat with the Night Drop feature can be programmed for a night temperature drop. To set your nighttime temperature you will need a 24 hour appliance timer/lamp timer. These can be purchased locally at Home Depot, Target etc. An inexpensive analog model will work fine.

1) To set the time that your night temperature will go into effect, set your appliance timer to turn “on” at the desired temperature drop time (i.e. 10 pm). Set it to turn “off” again at the time you wish the temperature to return to its daytime setting (i.e. 8 am). Now plug the thin black power cord (2 prong, without a ground) into the timer, set the timer to the current time and plug the timer into your outlet.

2) Following the programming instructions included with your Johnson Controls unit, program the temperature offset (OFS). For instance, if the daytime temp setting is 85 degrees, and you want to drop to 75 at night, you would set your offset at 10 degrees (85-75=10). When you wish to discontinue your night drop settings at the e nd of the breeding season simply unplug the cord from the appliance timer.

3) Your Johnson Control thermostat does NOT cool your room. It simply keeps the heat off until the ambient room temperature drops naturally to the set point.

If you have any questions please email us at Andy@ProExotics.com or give us a call at (303) 347-0500

I have sent folks to Home Depot for supplies for years, I love that store. But for reptile supplies...

SUPPORT THOSE THAT SUPPORT YOU!

Please consider the years of hard work, and the effort that folks like LLL Reptile, VPI, NERD, Pro Exotics and many others have put into the reptile hobby. They spend so much time developing and marketing terrific reptile products and tools, developing successful husbandry techniques,  and then SOOOO mu ch time SHARING the secrets to success (with you!), they absolutely deserve your consideration when purchasing this material. Shopping with a store that doesn't care for or contribute to the reptile community, all to save two bucks, is shortsighted and crippling to the reptile specific businesses that work so hard. At Pro Exotics, we are busting out butts to win your business and support!

I don't care if you buy a Digital Thermometer from Pro Exotics, LLL Reptile, or ReptileBoobies.com, just buy it in the reptile industry, and support herpers that work hard to support you!

Well, this is pretty funny...

This is also pretty funny. One of our monitor customers, showing a recently acquired Hissing Roach (feeder roach) to his son, while Mom films. Roach drops, Mom screams bloody murder. Ha!

Mistakes? Ha! I know nothing of these "mistakes"!

In actuality, we have made LOTS of mistakes : )

In fact, I would venture that we have you beat in the mistake department, hands down. We have cared for thousands and thousands of animals over the years, and statistically everyone is going to make mistakes, even the most boneheaded ones, so we have racked up quite the tally of ignorant and stupid decisions, and we have paid the price for those mistakes many times over.

I have done the whole "multiple snake species (of different sizes) in the converted stereo cabinet with absolutely no idea of current or proper temperature s" thing. Hey, a white bulb was the daytime heat, and a red bulb came on at night, who cares about wattages and temps, right?

Wrong. And I have paid the price.

(that stereo cabinet cage was many many YEARS ago : )

The whole point of the FAQ is to touch on all these different topics and adventures that you typically learn about through firsthand lunkery, we are trying to provide you access to the knowledge you need so that you DON'T make those same mistakes and missteps, so read each piece a few times, and try to really comprehend the thought behind it, and then apply it to your animals, setup, or future purchase.

Best of luck to you and your animals!

No more Spotted pythons, no more Sawu pythons, no more Pueblan milks, no more Chondros, no more Nile Monitors, no more retics, no more burms.

In the past, we tried to have a little bit of everything, we wanted to have the "super" collection, with every snake imaginable breeding, and selling.

What a goofball idea that was ! The truth is, it was unrealistic, and it just got out of hand. We realized (years after folks like the Barkers told us) that if you try and breed a little bit of everything, you won't breed squat. If, however, you concentrate on breeding just a handful of animals, you have a better shot at success.

So we have identified those reptile projects that are most important to us, both in personal appeal and from a business standpoint. We try and breed reptiles that we feel make great pets. We have worked with a ton of different animals over the years, each having their own pros and cons, and we are trying to offer a selection that has the most upside available, the best choices for most everything you are looking for. But like I said, we can't stock everything, and there are varying reasons for that..

I can't sell a Spotted python to save my life. They are a fairly cool animal, small and easy to care for, but demand is just nothing, and I would often end up tagging them on to orders for $20 ea.(well below "market value"). That is not worth our time or money. Unlike a private hobbyist, we have to pay good salaries to employees to care for the animals, and time spent caring for and breeding Spotted pythons is money down the drain, as it ends up costing more in labor than the animals return in sale. We will leave the Spotted pythons, the Pueblans, and other similar reptiles, to the private hobby ists (and there are plenty!).

Other snakes, like the giant pythons, retics, burms, and Afrikan Rocks, are also quite popular, but largely inappropriate for pets. Retics and Rocks are big, and most are mean, and naturally, t hey are a favorite choice for novice and ignorant keepers. That doesn't make any sense. People that buy snakes because they are "huge" or "really mean" have skewed ideas on what it is to keep reptiles, and we can't contribute to that any longer. Obviously, there are hundreds and hundreds of "giant snake" breeders out there, and numerically, whether or not Pro Exotics breeds a few dozen burms isn't going to make much of a dent. But we are taking our own road here, on principal, and we are willing to stick to it, and defend that stance.

When we stop getting a dozen calls a week from folks wanting to unload neglected, sick burms, iguanas, retics, etc., then perhaps we could reconsider, but the hard truth of it is that people buy these reptiles as babies, with no thought or plan as to caging and care for a giant, mean animal, and then when they get out of hand, or more typically, when "Spur of the moment Sam" gets tired of the novelty, they dump the animals. That is unhealthy for our hobby, and it is that type of ignorance that fuels legislation against owning ANY KIND of reptile.

We really do breed more animals by concentrating on a smaller selection, even though that is a relative term (going from 3,000 animals at a peak to perhaps 1,500!), but that strategy works better for us, and for our customers.

As for the reptiles you were looking for that we DON'T carry, well, drop us a line anyway! We still try and offer something in most every category. We have small snakes, medium snakes, and even big (but not giant) snakes, and each animal is one that we enthusiastically stand behind, a reptile that we believe offers a lot of enjoyment and fun for you over the coming years. We are happy to make a recommendation or give you the breakdown on a particular reptile.

The same goes for our monitor selection. We have the big guys, and the dwarfs, but we don't carry Nile monitors because they get both BIG and MEAN, and that isn't an appropriate lizard for most keepers. Add that to the fact that there are perhaps a hundred thousand baby Niles available each year, and there is absolutely no reason for us to sell that animal. I would much rather steer someone towards a great Blackthroat monitor, or even a Water monitor, either way a monitor that you can interact with, without an everyday fear of losing your hand! (see our Nile philosophy HERE.)

There are many fantastic and rewarding reptiles that we don't carry, and a quick email to PE can get you some mighty good references (or check out our LINKS section!). For example, we decided that breeding Chondros was best left to the Chondro specialists. We were having success, but it was limited, and Chondro customers are a picky lot, making the sale a difficult one. It is MUCH easier to refer Chondro enthusiasts to the Chondro forum at kingsnake.com, and u.s. breeders like Greg Maxwell because ALL THEY DO IS CHONDROS, and they are best equipped to meet that customer's need.

We are in this business to further the reptile hobby, and we want all reptile keepers, both experienced keepers and novices, to be enthusiastic about their reptile adventures, and making a wise and informed choice is the first step towards that success. Whether or not you get your animal from Pro Exotics, we want you to start off on the right foot!

Uh, well, none. None of our snakes are "cheap". All of our animals have great value.

Some of our more inexpensive snakes may start at $35 or so, but if you are asking for simply the "cheapest" snake we have, then perhaps Pr o Exotics is not for you.

We want our customers to be reptile enthusiasts. We want our customers to make informed, intelligent choices with their reptiles. Simply buying the cheapest damned thing you can find from "Stinky Butt Reptiles" is not exactly a smart strategy. Anyone asking such a question has obviously done very little homework, and is most likely not ready for a snake, or any reptile.

If you are on a budget, let me know, we can discuss the possibilities and alternatives. Let's talk snakes. But don't call us up and expect that we will sell you hard on a $15 cornsnake just because you happen to have the 15 bucks. We want each customer to get the best animal, and each animal to go to the best situation possible.

When anyone calls and asks for "the cheapest snake you got", it always just so happens that we are "all sold out."

This is economics, my friend. Most of our customers are reptile hobbyists, meaning that they keep reptiles for the sheer joy of doing it. But we are a business. We have a passion for the animals, no doubt, but Pro Exotics is a business, we put in a ton of time with our animals, and time costs money.

We sell babies, and that is pretty much it. If we have had particularly heavy stock in a certain animal, we will occasionally have yearlings available, but for the most part, we sell out our babies each year, leaving us nothing to raise up and sell at an older age.

All of our older animals are our BREEDER animals, and those are the animals we rely on to make more babies for the coming seasons. Those are the animals that our customers are relying upon for the great baby reptiles that they have come to expect from PE.

But let's say that we DID want to sell an older Water Monitor for instance (a common request). Can you calculate the costs involved in raising up a choice Water Monitor (beautiful pattern and color, "dog tame", of course)? If we were to raise such an animal to an adult, a healthy 6 ft. animal, 50 pounds of monitor vibrance, that animal would be easily worth $2000 to us. Blood, sweat, and tears went into raising such a specimen (along with a few hundred pounds of food), why should we give it away for $200? You see, that's the funny part, as most of these folks requesting such an animal are also expecting to "find" it at the same price as a baby animal.

That's ridiculous. Business or no, if YOU were the one to raise such an anima l, and to put in all the hard work and love, you would be a fool not to ask for such a price yourself, any reasonable person would.

Of course, there is no shortage of adult animals on the market, "proven breeder" this, "long term" that, and cheap too! There is a reason for that. Take a look at the animal. It surely is not PE quality, and should not meet your standards either. Once again, any reasonable person is not going to give away the farm for a hand full of apples.

Do yourself a favor, buy the animal you so desire, as a BABY. From that point, everything is controlled by you. Ideal husbandry, lots of TLC, your own strategy, and within no time, you will have that very adult animal, perfect in every way, that you were looking for, while Joe Dimwit is still shopping for the perfect "shortcut".

For more on this subject, see our Monitor Breeding Strategies

Not only do we not buy reptiles from people, we don't even allow outside animals in our retail store.

We feel we offer the very best reptiles in the country. We have EXTREMELY high standards for the animals we carry. Most keepers do not meet those same standards (oh, not you of course : ).

If you had a chance to SEE the scary looking animals that folks try and bring in our store, or try to dump on us (getting rid of your unwanted, neglected, sick iguana is not "selling" it), you would adopt your own "no outside animals" policy as well.

We get weekly horror stories about the "other shops" in town, their mites, their dead animals in the cages (on display!), the "grand central" cages (with 3 iguanas, 2 ragged burms, a wild caught adult Ball python with mites and ticks, and 10 anoles, all in the same 20 gallon long), we hear it all, and you better believe we work very hard to keep that nightmare out of our store.

Even for animals that we have sold, fine Pro Exotics specimens, once an animal has left our store, it is beyond our care, out of our control, and there are too many negative variables involved, we can't have it back in for a "visit". I'm sorry, I know that many hobbyists are very proud of their snakes (and they should be), but in a situation like this, it has to be all or nothing.

Do you really want to shop for a gorgeous new Redtail boa, right next to a guy that has brought in a mite infested burm he just picked up "across town" looking for "help"? Where do you think those mites are going to go? Right into our collection!! That CAN'T happen. And so, NO OUTSIDE ANIMALS IN THE FACILITY. And no, we don't want to buy any reptiles that Joe Impulse has grown tired of.

We bust our butts to sell animals that folks will ENJOY. For the long term. No more giant snakes, no more mean lizards, no more iguanas. Every other "pet shop" in the country has those animals, and we get tired of hearing from their disillusioned, dissatisfied customers. Come to Pro Exotics, and we will get you started with the RIGHT animal, one that fits your needs and abilities, one that you can enjoy over the long term. Keeping reptiles should be rewarding, not a pain in the butt.

We try and breed as many of our reptiles as we possibly can. But even in our best year, we can't meet the demand for babies, so we do need to buy from other sources. But even in that circumstance, we work with only a small number of trusted, reliable sources, once again, trying to eliminate as many negative variables as possible. We have developed a solid working relationship with these folks, and they know that we have the highest standards around, and they take the steps to meet our standards.

If you have reptiles to sell, do it the smart way, the right way, and the effective way. Put up an ad at kingsnake.com, in the classified section, and get the buyers to come to YOU.

We get a lot of emails and phone calls about trading animals, and the bottom line is, WE JUST DON'T DO ANY TRADES.

We have tried it in the past (a few times, long, long ago), not with private parties, but with other "good" breeders/dealers, and off the top of my head, I can't think of a single instance of when it has worked out for us. You get burned every time. The animals promised are never the animals received. The "fat and healthy monitor" has hip bones showing, the "proven breeder" boa has never dropped a healthy baby in her life (plenty of slugs though!), and the "captive bred" adult Suriname has ticks AND mites!

At Pro Exotics, we bust our butts to provide our customers with the highest quality reptiles available. We have amazingly high standards, and if I was to make a trade (I'm not going to), I would expect the same in return. Unfortunately, it just doesn't work that way.

It is not that we are trying to discourage our customers from trying to t rade with us, we are discouraging you from trading with ANYONE. You have not yet felt disappointment until you have sent out your pride and joy reptile in exchange for some bag o' bones that has passed from owner to owner and isn't worth a quarter of the value implied. Try and return that unhealthy animal, and see what happens.

In fact, you can see for yourself what happens at the Board of Inquiry site. There are hundreds, upon hundreds, of stories there about bad trades. It is a great site to get a horrible feeling about poor ethics, and poor trades. How many times are these people going to post a "Bad Guy" complaint because their trade went bad? And why do those same folks keep trading, again, and again, and again?

It goes something like this.....

"I sent Billy at screwyouserpents.com my aggressive male 5 ft Iguana with 3 legs, and he was supposed to send me a long term captive (note: read that as 3 weeks out of the jungle) Suriname boa with back scars and one eye, but it also had MITES! That's not right, and he won't email me back! What do I do?"

I'll tell you what you don't do......DON'T DO TRADES! Please, read the site, you will get the idea. And we still won't do trades

A cheap, giant, mean lizard bought by a neophyte keeper with absolutely no clue on how to keep monitors period, much less one of the biggest, meanest lizards you can buy. And people wonder why we get so frustrated with "popular" lizards that are such poor choices (Niles, Iguanas)

We don't sell Nile monitors because there are much better choices for a large pet lizard, most notably the Ionides and the Water monitor, with the Ionides being the best choice overall.

As stated in our other FAQ's, whether or not PE sells a half dozen Niles a year is going to have little impact on the hundreds of thousands that are sold, but if we can convince a handful of new keepers to make an informed and intelligent choice in a new monitor, then the effort and frustration are well worth it.

I will leave the real "Nile comments" to a couple of experts, the first being Daniel Bennett, taken from a post on kingsnake.com's Monitor Forum, capturing in just a few words the real meat of the issue:

"There are few animals less suited to life in captivity than the Nile monitor.... Animal dealers who sell Nile monitors under the pretence that they can be kept as pets are a despicable breed. Generally I don't think they should be kept in captivity, captive bred or not. It's one of the biggest lizards in the world, any idiot with $40 can buy one, but there are very few people prepared the give them the facilities they deserve. Hundreds of thousands of them die in horrible conditions."

Wow, thanks Daniel.

Another great Nile post from the Monitor Forum is by "Nessie's Mom", a regular forum member that not only keeps Niles, but breeds them as well, and she also captured the complexities of realistically keeping Niles with her words (and challenging questions):

"Why do y ou want to purchase a Nile? Because of the size they get to? Have you done any reading and research on Niles? For your information, for you to grow a large Nile monitor, it takes daily food feedings of 1 - 3 mice (rats later) along with crickets, meal worms, snails, etc.; can you afford to keep up this daily regiment of food?

Also, you'll need to have adequate heating such as basking spots with temperatures ranging from 85º to 130ºF for maintaining proper growth and digestion. Do you have the proper heat lamps for this to be accomplished?

Next is the temperament, not temperature, I am talking the attitude Niles are famously known for: being mean-tempered. They wil l bite (it hurts like a vice grip), whip their tail (feels like a wet towel snap), scratch (have long, sharp claws), and poop (meat is their main diet, so you can just imagine the smell and looks of that). Are you ready to take on that type of treatment, DAILY?

If you can seriously take on these three criterions (daily feeding expenses, proper heating, and daily temperament treatment), not to mention the large enclosure you'll need to build to accommodate the size of your growing Nile, then you are almost ready to take on Nile raising.

The part that will make you completely ready is the emotional commitment. Most of us on the forum are reptile lovers from way back and we are dedicated to the survival and safekeeping of these wild reptiles, therefore, we tend to be highly critical of newbies that "want to buy a monitor because they think they are so cool," not realizing that taking on a monitor is a lifelong commitment (we're talking 25 - 50 years). When you get tired of being bitten by your new Nile, are you going to want to get rid of him? When you get frustrated, and you will, with the constant whipping of the tail, if not hiding from you, are you then going to throw in the towel and say the heck with "this monster?" If you find you cannot hold or pet your Nile, like a dog, are you going to discard him and ignore him? Look deep inside your soul and answer these questions truthfully and if you find yourself saying "yes" to any of these commitment questions, then you are NOT ready to take on a monitor, let alone a Nile monitor.

Please, if anything, do some research first. Read some books on Niles, like Nile Monitors by Robert Faust. It is a complete Pet Owner's Manual in a paperback book that we sell on our site. I also recommend, Monitors, Tegus, and Related Lizards by R. D. & Patricia P. Bartlett, which sells for the same and comes in paperback as well.

Please, seriously, evaluate your situation here. Are you ready to take on ALL the above? If not, then don't put an innocent wild reptile in your charge, because the outcome would only be more upsetting."

Once again, very eloquently captured, by a committed Nile keeper.

Niles are simply not for everyone, in fact, they are appropriate for very few keepers, and experienced keepers at that.

If you want a large lizard, seriously consider the Ionides, a large monitor that can also be tamed, and has a great personality. If you are after great personality, consider the Ackies. They are small, but terrific to work with, and believe me, the "BIG MONITOR" thing gets old, quickly.

Best of luck in selecting a great monitor!

For the same reason that we don't sell Niles, Burms, Retics, and other largely inappropriate reptiles. They are a poor choice for a pet reptile.

There are HUGE Iguana farms in Central America that ship out hundreds of thousands of baby iguanas to the u.s. each year. They are easily the most "well known" lizard on the market. And probably the worst choice for a beginning keeper.

I will keep this short and sweet. I am not interested in arguing this point with Iguana keepers or enthusiasts.

Iguanas get big. Iguanas need a large (and not inexpensive) cage. Iguanas typically get quite aggressive.

Great, a big, mean lizard that needs large and elaborate caging, what better choice for someone that has never kept a reptile before (Iguanas are a frequent "first reptile purchase").

Baby Iguanas are cute enough, sure (can you say "impulse purchase"?). But Iguanas also go through perhaps the worst puberty and maturation stage of any reptile. They become extremely territorial and anti social, and male Iguanas in particular may attack any "intruder" in their territory (most often a female, of any species). Iguana bites are nasty and serious, and very common occurance.

I will never forget the one time in our retail store, explaining this very FAQ to a new customer, when "Enthusiast Jill" the Iguana keeper chimed in to say "That's not true! My Iguana is GREAT, I love him, and he CERTAINLY isn't mean!"

I told "Jill" that I was happy to hear of her success, but that we get A LOT more feedback from keepers with negative Iguana experiences than positive ones, and they most often involve aggression, so yes, it does happen.

And then "Jill" says...

"Well, he did bite me on the nose once and I had to get stitches, but I am careful now when I handle him!"

As if that makes ALL the difference!

We get perhaps a dozen calls a week from folks looking to "get rid" of their Iguanas, for many, many, negative reasons. In the meantime, just about every other pet shop in the country sells these heavily marketed, cheap animals. You can buy an Iguana from those stores, not Pro Exotics. We would rather educate you about lizards that would make a better "pet" choice. Great Reptiles for a Great Experience, and no neglected Iguanas.

For more on our selection of animals, try here.

We have in the past, but not for many years.

No question Croc Monitors are one of the most intriguing and beautiful monitors, but they are also the most inappropriate for captive situations.

Croc Monitors have Raptor like claws, and loooong sharp teeth. They seem to be more thoughtful and intelligent than other monitors, and they can give you the creeps when they stare at you from the cage, almost like they are thinking something devious. That is anthropomorphic, and wrong, but that is the FEELING they often give you : )

Crocs are perhaps the LONGEST monitors in the world, with the super long tail. They are not the biggest monitors, body wise they are on the small end of the large monitors, but absolutely a handful.

So why do they make for poor captives? POTENTIAL FOR DAMAGE. The potential for significant damage with Croc Monitors is on an entirely different level than it is for any of the other large captive monitors.

I have seen bites from full size Waters or Blackthroats. No fun for sure. There can be bruising, blood, and even a broken bone if you get a finger or hand in there. But it heals ok.

The Croc Monitor bites I have seen are bloody, but also include muscle, nerve and tendon damage. This has happened to multiple keepers. Good, experienc ed keepers, just caught off guard one day.

One keeper had a juvie Croc Monitor in a stock tank. Very cool animal, not flighty or high strung. "Tame". Care was easy enough. Then one day just reaching in for the water bowl, like he does every day, he got a quick strike and release. Tore up his forearm. In fact, because of the damage and worry of infection, the doctor cleaned the wound, but left it splayed open, only covered with a bandage. For a week. He was left with muscle, nerve, and tendon damage. And all from changing the water bowl of a very "tame" animal. The potential is scary. 

Other keepers get dozens of stitches in their head, or have a thumb that doesn't work well anymore...

There are breeders that have had captive success with the Croc Monitors, but then they are faced with the question- "Who can I responsibly sell these babies too?". For the most part, the answer is no one. Like PE, they just don't want that potential catastrophe hanging over their heads. And so you see virtually no domestic breeders producing captive Croc Monitors. There are plenty of wild caught and imported Croc Monitors available , but that only makes the situation worse.

Croc Monitors are an unbelievable display animal. Go to a great zoo and check them out, but don't dabble in the danger yourself. We don't.

"tame" Croc Monitor head damage

"tame" Croc Monitor hand damage

another pic submission of Croc Monitor damage. these pic visuals are something else!

Another lovely bonding experience between Croc Monitor and keeper

....an excerpt from a Monitor forum post at kingsnake.com by Rob Carmichael of The Wildlife Discovery Center-

The Croc monitor poses, in my opinion, more cause for concern (when compared to other easily obtained monitors) due to their behavior. We experienced this first hand at my facility. Two years ago, one of my animal keepers was giving our croc monitor (a YOUN G male at only 7') it's daily warm shower. He took his eyes off the lizard for a split moment and the croc must have seen some fingers moving around on the spray nozzle. He came over and just nipped and let go in a millisecond. I heard a blood curdling scream and ran over only to see blood splattered on the glass, the floor, everywhere. This little nip just about severed off one of the fingers of my staff. He went through 4 hours of intensive surgery and has a very nice scar to this day and has never regained fully feeling and mobility in that finger. Just something to think about before making a mistake.

Savannah Monitor FAQ coming soon

No more Nile Monitors, no more Retics, no more Burms, no more Spotted pythons, no more Sawu pythons, no more Pueblan milks, no more Chondros.

In the past, we tried to have a little bit of everything, we wanted to have the "super" collection, with every snake imaginable breeding, and selling.

What a goofball idea that was! The truth is, it was unrealistic, and it just got out of hand. We realized (years after folks like the Barkers told us) that if you try and breed a little bit of everything, you won't breed squat. If, however, you concentrate on breeding just a handful of animals, you have a better shot at success.

So we have identified those reptile projects that are most important to us, both in personal appeal and from a business standpoint. We try and breed reptiles that we feel make great pets. We have worked with a ton of different animals over the years, each having their own pros and cons, and we are trying to offer a selection that has the most upside available, the best choices for most everything you are looking for. But like I said, we can't stock everything, and there are varying reasons for that...

I can't sell a Spotted python to save my life. They are a fairly cool animal, small and easy to care for, but demand is just nothing, and I would often end up tagging them on to orders for $20 ea.(well below "market value"). That is not worth our time or money. Unlike a private hobbyist, we have to pay good salaries to employees to care for the animals, and time spent caring for and breeding Spotted pythons is money down the drain, as it ends up costing more in labor than the animals return in sale. We will leave the Spotted pythons, the Pueblans, and other similar reptiles, to the private hobbyists (and there are plenty!).

Other snakes, like the giant pythons, retics, burms, and Afrikan Rocks, are also quite popular, but largely inappropriate for pets. Retics and Rocks are big, and most are mean, and naturally, they are a favorite choice for novice and ignorant keepers. That doesn't make any sense. People that buy snakes because they are "huge" or "really mean" have skewed ideas on what it is to keep reptiles, and we can't contribute to that any longer. Obviously, there are hundreds and hundreds of "giant snake" breeders out there, and numerically, whether or not Pro Exotics breeds a few dozen burms isn't going to make much of a dent. But we are taking our own road here, on principal, and we are willing to stick to it, and defend that stance.

When we stop getting a dozen calls a week from folks wanting to unload neglected, sick burms, iguanas, retics, etc., then perhaps we could reconsider, but the hard truth of it is that people buy these reptiles as babies, with no thought or plan as to caging and care for a giant, mean animal, and then when they get out of hand, or more typically, when "Spur of the moment Sam" gets tired of the novelty, they dump the animals. That is unhealthy for our hobby, and it is that type of ignorance that fuels legislation against owning ANY KIND of reptile.

We really do breed more animals by concentrating on a smaller selection, even though that is a relative term (going from 3,000 animals at a peak to perhaps 1,500!), but that strategy works better for us, and for our customers.

As for the reptiles you were looking for that we DON'T carry, well, drop us a line anyway! We still try and offer something in most every category. We have small snakes, medium snakes, and even big (but not giant) snakes, and each animal is one that we enthusiastically stand behind, a reptile that we believe offers a lot of enjoyment and fun for you over the coming years. We are happy to make a recommendation or give you the breakdown on a particular reptile.

The same goes for our monitor selection. We have the big guys, and the dwarfs, but we don't carry Nile monitors because they get both BIG and MEAN, and that isn't an appropriate lizard for most keepers. Add that to the fact th at there are perhaps a hundred thousand baby Niles available each year, and there is absolutely no reason for us to sell that animal. I would much rather steer someone towards a great Blackthroat monitor, or even a Water monitor, either way a monitor that you can interact with, without an everyday fear of losing your hand! (see our Nile philosophy HERE.)

There are many fantastic and rewarding reptiles that we don't carry, and a quick email to PE can get you some mighty good references (or check out our LINKS section!). For example, we decided that breeding Chondros was best left to the Chondro specialists. We were having success, but it was limited, and Chondro customers are a picky lot, making the sale a difficult one. It is MUCH easier to refer Chondro enthusiasts to kingsnake.com's Chondro forum, and u.s. breeders like Greg Maxwell, because ALL THEY DO IS CHONDROS, and they are best equipped to meet that customer's need.

We are in this business to further the reptile hobby, and we want all reptile keepers, both experienced keepers and novices, to be enthusiastic about their reptile adventures, and making a wise and informed choice is the first step towards that success. Whether or not you get your animal from Pro Exotics, we want you to start off on the right foot!

Ok, so this is not a real question I have been asked, but it does give me the chance to address something I find completely absurd and ridiculous.

There are a number of reptile classified sites on the internet, most notably at kingsnake.com, and they are a great tool for breeders, dealers and collectors to reach the reptile buying market. But have you looked at some of these ads?!?!

I can't count how many ads are posted with fuzzy, confusing pictures. You wouldn't be able to tell a decent animal out of these anyway, but thankfully, the fuzzy pics are most often filled with crappy animals, so it is a double whammy. I have seen pics of animals posed in front of empty beer cans, and of course, in front of horribly dirty cages. I have even seen ads with sellers holding snakes on the floor of their bedroom. With the unmade bed in the immediate background. With the seller IN THEIR UNDERWEAR! And only their underwear!! I swear this is absolutely true, and I saved the pic to prove it.

It bums me out that there are folks buying animals from these types of folks. As hard as we work at PE, and I couldn't convince someone to get a great reptile from us, instead losing them to some dude in his skivvies. It's a tough business!

And it is not that we are so much better than everyone else, don't get me wrong. We are as humble, attentive, and as committed to customer service and quality reptiles as anyone in the business, I guarantee that! But we are PROUD.

When you have all these hucksters, straight thieves, selling junk, taking money, and stomping on people's reptile hopes and thrills, it is just sad.

It is all about being PROFESSIONAL. It is about having PRIDE in what you do, and what you are offering. If you want to sell reptiles, you have decided to compete with Pro Exotics (among many others), and you had better bring your A-Game, because our animals, and our customer service, will send you straight back to fuzzy underwear land.

PRO EXOTICS, WE TAKE PRIDE IN WHAT WE DO.

QUALITY REPTILES. PERIOD.

The reptile industry can be a dirty, sad, discouraging place. As we try to cover on our site, and in this FAQ, at Pro Exotics we are committed to raising the bar, expectations, and standards for high quality reptiles and service. We want to offer nothing but the best reptiles, along with the most accurate husbandry info and support that we possibly can.

Not everyone has such lofty goals, however : )

Many pet stores sell reptiles that are in horrible shape, and they have done it, and will continue to do it, until they are forced to stop.

I have heard the story a thousand times.

"I was down at the pet store and they had these really skinny ball pythons, 10 of them, all crammed into one tiny cage! You could see the mites on them, there was a dead baby in the corner, and I don't think any of them had been fed! I felt so bad for the poor little guys, I rescued three of them, and now I have them set up at home, I hope they make it ok"

You can vary the story by substituting a sick iguana, a scrawny bag-of-bones imported monitor, or any other neglected, ill reptile that you have all probably seen at some point. The situation remains the same. You feel sorry for a neglected reptile, and you make the purchase in order to "save" the animal.

But this only creates more problems!

This crappy butt pet store didn't get these animals by accident! They ordered these animals, and purposely so. You don't get mite infested, non eating, imported, half dead reptiles from Pro Exotics, you get them from the importers that do huge volumes of bad animals, at bottom dollar prices. You get those animals because you are too cheap to buy from a reputable breeder or source. You get those animals because that is all you are willing to buy, and if they are selling in your store, well hey, what is the motivation to change? This "pity purchase" is a bankable tactic! It is common knowledge in the retail industry that you can use this type of animal and cage setup to encourage these "rescue" sales! THIS IS NOT AN ACCIDENT!!

You see, THAT'S THE BAIT!!

If these stores can sell you the scrawny ball python, that is good for them. Their next step is to buy another scrawny ball python to take it's place! It is "sure to sell", right?!?

Each time that you make a purchase, you put money in that stores pocket, and you help to cover the bottom line, encouraging that store to keep with the same type of business.

Now, if, magically, every customer refused to patronize such a store (and that is not a bad idea) they would go out of business, and they wouldn't be buying, caging, and selling, any more sick animals. If that store goes under, then money has just been yanked out of the bottom dollar animal market, and that IS A GOOD THING! As long as folks can make a living selling bad animals, they will do it. As long as you are a big enough sucker to fall for their okey doke, they will continue this sad and horrible chain of supply and demand. Every dollar that they can get from you, whether it be for reptiles, crickets, hide spots, or caging, that all goes in the cash drawer, and allows that store to run another day. Your cricket money gets pooled to buy more half dead animals. If a store won't correct their animal problem, you should absolutely REFUSE to spend another dime with them! Hold your ground, have a principal, and stand on it!

It is up to each of us to break this cycle, to demand more from ourselves, and the businesses we patronize, in order to give our hobby respectability. We owe it to the animals as well, for they are the real losers in this situation, dying from simpl e negligence, ignorance, and greed. We are supposed to all be reptile lovers, let that be reflected in the choices we make. Healthy animals. Responsible, caring breeders, dealers, and retailers. Enthusiastic, committed, knowledgeable, and qualified keepers.

Pro Exotics Reptiles. Great Reptiles, for a Great Experience!!

We have over 800 pics up now in our galleries, but very few of those animals are actually for sale. The pics make it to the galleries typically 3 to 4 months after they are shot, and by that time, the animals in question are usually sold.

The photo galleries are more so a representation of our own breeding stock, and animals that have been available in the past. They are an excellent place to get an idea of what to expect from a Pro Exotics animal, for instance if you are looking to buy a Water Monitor or Red Blood python baby, you can see a large number of animals we have sold in the past, and get a good feel for the quality and level of reptiles that we work with. But don't bother sending me a copy of the Water from page 3 "third from the left" and ask if that animal is available, it has long since sold.

If you are looking for pictures of currently available animals, send me an email, and I will be glad to provide you with the appropriate pictures. Buy a new monitor today, and three months from now it will join the crew in the photo galleries, and you can be the proud parent : )

We accept Visa, MC, Discover, Amex, and PayPal through our site, and the credit cards all by phone as well. You can also mail in a money order to cover your purchase.

When mailing in a money order, be sure to include your name, address, phone number (important!), and a list of what you are ordering. We will give you a call as soon as we receive your payment, and we will set up shipping with you from there (typically same day).

If you have questions about availability, or need any clarification, feel free to call us at (303) 347-0500.

You can mail payments in to our address here:
Pro Exotics
3911 Norwood Dr. unit C
Littleton CO 80125

Yes we do : )

You can hit up our PayPal account at robyn@proexotics.com

We will email you with a confirmation as soon as we receive the payment, and we will get your order right on the way!

This question sounds silly, but I get in one form or another all the time. At Pro Exotics, we try and be as professional as possible. We want to convey a professional image to the reptile public, and in order to put over that image, we will run the best print ads we can, the coolest Internet banner ads that we can, and we will hold ourselves to the highest standard possible.

But that doesn't mean we don't have time for the customers!! The whole point of the ad campaign is to get those customers knocking on our door! My job is to keep them coming back for more! It doesn't matter to us whether you are buying a $10 T-shirt, or a $10,000 python, every customer matters, and every customer will get our best effort.

As long as you are willing to pay the shipping on that single Ball Python, you had better believe that I am more than happy to help you with your selection. Talking on the phone and emailing customers is my whole life (it seems!)

Convincing a customer to buy from Pro Exotics is what I am here for, and we are prepared to do what we must to convince you that not only our animals are the best, but our customer service is the best as well. Give us a shot, we guarantee you'll be happy!

We have a handy dandy online shopping cart that allows you to order dry goods directly from the site. Go to our Online store, go to the section listing the items you need, and add them to your cart. Checkout is simple and safe with a major credit card or Paypal, and we will send you a confirmation email to let you know that we received your order and it is underway. Shipping is generally within 24 hours.

The only way to order live reptiles with PE is by phone. You can reach us at (303) 347-0500, and the best time to call is between 12 p.m. and 5 p.m., Colorado time. If we miss your call, leave us a message with your phone number and we will get right back to you.

It seems I spend a great deal of every day on the phone. I even have a headset to try and alleviate the neck strain of a regular receiver. I am on the phone A LOT! I often miss calls because I am on the other line, but if you leave me your message, with a phone number, you will hear back from us right away, and we will get your questions and needs taken care of.

This one really isn't too hard, but I can walk you through it...

For 99% of our live reptile orders, our standard shipping box works just fine. As explained in the shipping cost and detail FAQ below, we can ship multiple animals, all in the same box (assuming they fit), and the charge is the same. If your order is large enough as to take a larger box, or multiple shipments, we will let you know, and give you an individual shipping quote.

But for the vast majority of orders, we can use our standard box, and that is $45, plus the $10 box charge, to be overnighted to your door.

So simply add the cost of your desired animal , say for example a Sumatran Water Monitor baby at $200, add the shipping cost, add the box charge, and there you go, a total of $255 ($200 + $45 + $10). Pretty simple and straightforward.

For dry goods orders, we ship FedEx Ground domestically, and US Mail for exports, Alaska and Hawaii. Our online cart will automatically calcul ate the shipping rate according to your order and location, and this is done before you have to enter payment and finalize, so you can see the shipping rates simply by adding the various items to your shopping cart. There are a few large and heavy items like Cypress Mulch and gallon jugs of Virosan that carry their own special shipping rate, but again, the cart will calculate this for you.

For live reptiles, shipping is typically $35 for FedEx Priority Overnight, booked through ShipYourReptiles.com, and there is a $10 box charge.

We have worked for years to hone and perfect our shipping techniques. This is "Pro Exotics", not "Amateur Exotics", and we do not cut corners to save ourselves a buck, and in turn put the animals we sell in jeopardy. We expect your order to arrive on time, every time, as healthy and strong as it left our facility, and we have set procedures to insure that.

A well insulated box is an important part of the shipping process, protecting the animals (cold blooded reptiles) in times of both extreme heat and cold. We use the insulated boxes sold at ShipYourReptiles.com. These boxes then work well through the heat of summer and the cold of winter. When shipping between the ranges of 40 degrees F to 95 degrees F, we have not had a single shipment arrive dead due to temperatures. These insulated boxes work very well, and protect your new investment.

But the boxes are not free, we do not recycle our cricket boxes or use old boxes we find behind the supermarket (I can direct you to reptile dealers that do, however). No matter which way you look at it, when we spend $1000 on box supplies and the labor involved to put them together, that cost has to then be worked into the order, hence the $10 box charge.

For the well insulated box, the heat packs that we use generously, and the peace of mind that comes with a professional, well packed shipment, the box charge is well worth it, believe me. The first time that you receive dead animals from "Shady Sheister Reptiles" in a thin cardboard box with no packing material, no insulation, and little thought as to the health of the animal, you will kick yourself for not ordering from a professional, and one that goes to great lengths to insure not only great animals, but great delivery.

We ship our animals FedEx Priority Overnight, booked through ShipYourReptiles.com, which comes right to your door (typical delivery is by 10:30 am). We are flexible with our shipping dates (FedEx only delivers during the week) to accommodate your schedule as necessary. It is crucial that you are home to receive your shipment. All of the work and attention is fruitless if you are sleeping, out running errands, in the backyard, or otherwise unable to sign for your shipment when it arrives. Negative variables increase a thousandfold if the FedEx driver puts the animal back in the truck, and slates your box for redelivery the next day. You have to be available when your animal arrives, there are no two ways about it.

Folks have asked us to ship Airborne Express, US Express Mail, Delta Dash, Joe's Delivery, etc., and except for Delta Dash, it is just not going to happen. We book through ShipYourReptiles.com, and you should too!

We may use Delta Dash for large orders, and for expensive orders that we need to insure for large amounts of money. But the airport is a 2 hour round-trip drive, which makes it inconvenient for frequent shipments, and that, added to the $100+ shipping costs, makes it impractical for the vast majority of our orders.

As for the other shippers, well, they have had their ups and downs. No one single shipper is perfect, but FedEx does a terrific job for us, they are a very reliable service. Airborne Express has had spotty delivery times, and too often, shipments by US Express Mail sit on a delivery truck until late in the day, suffering long bouts of either extreme heat or extreme cold. FedEx gets our orders delivered, 99.9% of the time, by 10:30 in the morning, and that is what we need.

As for shipping rates, it is typically $35 for most orders. That price can vary a bit if the order is larger, but for 99% of our customers, the $35 applies.

FedEx charges us for the size of the box (the dimensional weight), as most shipments only weigh a pound or two, and that charge is for the space that the box takes up in the truck. The $35 is a flat fee, whether you are buying a $1000 snake or a single baby monitor. It is $35 one time, for however many animals we can safely pack into the standard box. There is no way around that, and no way to make it "cheaper", sorry. For the sense of well being, and the reliability, it is well worth it!

See what happens when shipping goes bad.

Ok, but it's your funeral, bud.

What happens when you go with a hustler that shortcuts on shipping? Just take a look at the pic below. These Ball pythons were shipped in a CRICKET BOX, with no packing, no bag, no heat pack, no nothing. They arrived just like you see here. The buyer opened the box, messed in his shorts, and then took the picture. Then he put it online, but unfortunately didn't share the name of the scoundrel that did this. The shipper told him "no live arrival guarantee and no refunds" either, imagine that.

This happens all too frequently. I have seen animals bagged for shipping in DIRTY TUBE SOCKS before, you really have no idea of what you are going t o get, unless you deal with a professional.

You should demand the most professional packaging available, and accept nothing less. And if there is a $10 box charge for great peace of mind, it is a small price to pay.

Sorry, but we do not do exports of live animals. That also includes Canada. There is a lot of paperwork and added costs in exports, and it is just not in our plans at this time. It can be a six month process for paperwork, and many reptile companies that export have minimum orders of $2000 or more.

However we do export and ship dry goods. You can order from our Online Store, and during check out, export customers need to select the "Other Carrier" shipping option to activate the export shipp ing selection.

Email is a wonderful thing, an amazing tool that makes life so much easier, but at the same time, so much more difficult, and demanding.

Email is a great tool for us at Pro Exotics, because it lets us keep in touch with our customers, friends, and industry cohorts, all at the click of a button.

But it also can be quite overwhelming, and while I do try to answer all of our emails, at times it is just not possible. At Pro Exotics, we average 40-50 emails a day, every day, and even on our day off. My inbox, at any one time, has between 200 and 400 emails, all expecting an answer. They never stop coming, and every single one of them expects an answer. The truth is, I just can't keep up with each and every one.

Some cooperation and common sense can really help the process along if folks would just structure their emails effectively.

-Have the right return address- seems common sense, but apparently a number of folks have mistyped their email addresses in their Internet settings, and that prevents them from receiving my response. In that case, I am responding, they just aren't getting it because they have provided a bad email address.

-Make sure there are no blocks on your account- some email accounts are set up to block any email with attachments, and aside from my automati cally attached signature card with Pro Exotics contact info, a large percentage of my emails include requested photos as well.

-Get something besides an AOL account, AOL takes the above problem to its worst possible conclusion. I would say that 75% of the emails replies that are returned to me undeliverable are from AOL accounts. AOL restricts a number of things in its emails. File size limits, picture limits, or no pics at all, the service is simply fussy sometimes, working some days but not others, etc. I realize that AOL has spent a trillion dollars on advertising, and they have the biggest push in the world, but really, do yourself a favor, and get a real ISP, one without the goofy limits and controlled access.

-Asking about iguanas or other animals we don't have- if I am buried under 130 emails that absolutely need my attention, and I have received a number of emails asking for information on animals that we don't carry, then I just might not be able to respond. If someone is asking about the health of their Iguana, an animal we have never carried, or about eating habits of Chuckwallas, I am afraid those may get deleted, there are simply not enough hours in the day to answer emails on every reptile that has ever been sold.

-Open ended questions- "How do I breed my boas?" "My bearded dragon just laid eggs, now what do I do?" These are tough questions to answer by email. These folks are asking for an entire college course to be answered in one email. Anyone so lazy as to ask someone "experienced" for the complete breakdown on a major aspect of husbandry gets deleted, sorry. There are books, there are internships, there is kingsnake.com, there are lots of avenues to learn about the animals, you simply can't expect me, or anyone else, to write out six pages of the very basics of boa breeding, much less go into the subtleties and details of being successful. And if I did want to write it out, it would be in our care sheets section, HERE.

-Toooooooooooo many questions- some emails have 23 questions, all strung together, one giant paragraph, some questions being redundant. Once again, there has to be more thought put into the work up of this email. First off, it is often deleted for the same reasons mentioned above, because the subtleties of keeping reptiles successfully are not well communicated through email. This person needs to do more homework and study before jumping into whatever project neck deep. However, there are also plenty of instances where the list of questions are legitimate, and deserve answers. Especially if you are doing the research on an animal you are planning to buy from Pro Exotics. But email is still the wrong format. If you have a ton of questions, it is best handled by phone, where we can knock them all out with a five or ten minute conversation. I am always happy to help by phone, just give me a call!

-I simply can't help you- sometimes, I am just not able to help. It might be a question or request beyond my knowledge, over my head, or something that has stumped me as well. In that case, I usually refer folks to kingsnake.com for the answers, or at least some direction, and that reply is the best advice I can give.

-You are being toooooo selective- "Can I see pictures of ALL of the Cal Kings that you have?" "Thanks for the three pics you sent. Can you take some more from the rear/top/front/bottom of the animal?" "Are you sure that that is the BEST one that you have?" Most breeders won't bother to take an individual pic of a $15 kingsnake, much less ALL of them (it could be hundreds!). If asked politely, and I think the customer is sincere, and if I can get the time, I don't mind. But ask four times, in four different emails, for four different views, or keep changing animals, and I have got to move on, I'm sorry. My time spent spinning in circles with some (non) customers, takes away from my time with actual customers, and like I said above, I have got 200 emails calling my name, I gotta get going.

Every animal that we sell at PE is in top shape. Beautiful, polished, as good as you will find anywhere, guaranteed. For the one very particu lar customer that wants to go over the "best six" Sumatran Waters, and takes a week and a half to make a decision after pics have been taken and emailed, well, five of those animals have already been sold, to other customers that say, simply, "give me your prettiest one", sight unseen. When I tell a customer that this Red Blood is the best one that we have, or best female that we have, or tamest, or whatever, then you just gotta take my word, and I'll stake our reputation on the fact that you will be happy when you receive that very same animal.

Those are the basic reasons that emails go unanswered. I really try VERY HARD to get to all of them, and if I happened to miss yours, I apologize, you are welcome to send another one, or follow up with a phone call. Customer service is enormously important to us, and I want to get to everyone with a question for us. At this point, I really can't imagine life WITHOUT being buried under emails. How boring would THAT be?!

We ship exports twice a week, typically Wednesdays and Fridays.

We get this question ALL THE TIME. And the answer must be NO. Please understand, we ship hundreds of export packages around the world. We cannot jeopardize the health of our very business by falsifying official documents or receipts (including mark ing items as "gifts" with low value). Falsifying these documents is illegal, and we simply cannot do it.

From another viewpoint, we must insist on being fair to all of our dealers as well. If we were to lowball an invoice for one dealer, and not another in the same country, that would create an unfair advantage. If you are retailing our Temp Guns, please consider all importing costs and fees in establishing a fair market price that works for you. And be assured that other dealers in your region are paying the same costs and fees that you are.

We would love to have your business. We hope that you can understand our position and integrity on this issue, thanks.

"I placed a wholesale order with Jerry at Deadherps.com for 100 Ball python babies for $4.50 each. He promised me that they were captive bred, feeding and healthy. I received them through Priority Mail, it took two days, they were in a regular cardboard box with no heatpacks or packing material, over half of them are dead, and the other half are so skinny that they look dead! I can't get Jerry on the phone and he won't return my emails! I am out $450 (shipping was free!) and boy am I mad! What can I do?!"

Well I can tell you what not to do......

There are a million and one "Reptile Dealers" on the Internet, and wading through them can be discouraging and a daunting task. At the same time, 99% of the nation's very best breeders and dealers are on the Internet (they are in the overall minority), and once you can identify who the y are and how they can help you, things certainly look a lot more rosy.

First of all, deal with someone with a good reputation. Get referrals. Do some footwork, and homework. Any 15 year old kid can make a website (or just get a hotmail email account) and call himself "Super Pro Star Reptiles" or some other such crap. Some don't even bother to get a positive sounding name, it seems to me that half the hustlers call themselves "Sh*thouse Reptiles" or "MitesRUs Imports" or some other suspicious sounding name. Why anyone would deal with them is beyond me, but it happens, all the time.

This is not to say that a new breeder or business is a bad choice to deal with, many are quite good. But it is one thing to actually be a professional and have an honorable business, and another thing to create a business, buy a bunch of imported wild caught animals for resale, and get in WAY over your head. A true business can afford the setbacks that inevitably occur, the losses of animals here and there, the occasional rip off. The originally well intentioned "new businessman" is often not prepared for that at all, and the bills still gotta be paid, so those imported monitors or ball pythons that are dying on him left and right HAVE TO BE SOLD, cause the rents gotta get paid. He'll feel bad about it, but he'll gouge you nonetheless. Of course, Hustler Joe will s imply rip you off, no bones about it.

So make your purchases from someone you feel you can trust, someone with a reputation on the line, someone with a (positive) track record.

Your breeder of choice should be able to answer ALL questions about the reptile you are interested in. Never buy an animal from someone who can't tell you how to care for it. Never buy an animal from someone that says "Go ask Pro Exotics how to set it up". We hear that exact thing ALL THE TIME, and my biggest question is, why would you buy from this idiot in the first place?

If the animal is supposed to be captive bred in the u.s., or at their facility, ask for photos of the eggs, or of the hatchlings. If someone has truly bred a reptile that only few others have ever been successful at (Green Tree Monitors for example) they are SURE to have some photos. A true breeder will know his animals backwards and forwards, no question.

As far as making a safe and secure purchase, be sure to use a credit card. Money orders are fine, but if you get ripped off, you have more recourse if you have used a Visa or Mastercard. A true business doesn't ask for cash by mail. Hustlers do. A true business should be set up to accept credit cards, either over the Internet, or by phone. Internet transactions can be perfectly safe, as long as you are using a secure site. Ask if the site is indeed secure if you h ave doubts. Otherwise, place the order by phone, and give your card number directly.

At Pro Exotics, we don't take animal orders over the Internet, we only take the orders by phone. I have found that my customers are way too particular to simply place a blind order, and there are always questions about the specific animals they are receiving. Placing the order by phone lets me address those questions, and I can best fill that order.

To specifically address the questions in the headline, you should buy from Pro Exotics because of our reputation for excellent animals, excellent service, and our excellent support. We have been working hard for over 10 years at providing the very best reptiles possible, and I sincerely believe that our animals are heads and tails above the competition.

I wouldn't bust my butt to put together this massive FAQ, dealing with everything I could think to address, if we were out for the fast buck. This industry is extremely competitive, and only our reputation and word of mouth referrals are going to get that business flowing through the door.

But we don't deal with every reptile : ) That is why we have put together a large LINKS section of the site. In the links section, you will find breeders, dealers, and companies that WE know and that WE trust. Dealing with this circle of folks should leave you extremel y satisfied. If not, let me know, and I will either help you address the problem, or drop them from our recommendation list. We are serious about being the best, and we expect the same from our compatriots. Anyone can talk a good game, we expect to deliver, every time.

You gain confidence by dealing with the best. Accept no substitutes, get your animals from Pro Exotics!

For a number of different reptiles, we have care sheets and info right here at proexotics.com.

But for the absolute best resource of reptile information in the world, you need look no further than kingsnake.com.

Kingsnake.com has hundreds of breeder links, nearly every breeder of any importance is listed, a nd linked, through that site. Every significant dry goods supplier is also linked, along with suppliers of feeder rodents and insects, the internet's largest and most active classified section......just about any detail of t he reptile industry can be found at kingsnake.com.

One of the best resources at kingsnake is the forum section. In the forums, you will find thousands of other keepers interested in the very same reptiles that you are. You can find and compare info on popular animals like redtail boas, or in another forum, you can discuss with others the construction plans for a 1000-gallon indoor filtered pond system for your turtle collection. With over 250 forums, kingsnake has thriving communities to serve just about everyone. Believe it or not, you are not the only Galliwasp enthusiast out there!

That seems like a funny question, but I have heard it a number of times, and I am happy to answer.

We work very hard to provide high quality (and accurate!), exciting photos of o ur animals. We often pay professional photographers to do photo sessions with our animals, and we are constantly snapping away with the digital camera as well. Our website has hundreds of photos up, and I think it is great to able to share those photos with everyone. Who doesn't like to see some great reptile photography?

But two things typically happen. I know that for myself, when I am hopping around the web, checking out the latest and greatest, and find some off-the-wall or jaw dropping shot from a breeder like NERD, or VPI, or some Australian collector posting rare monitor shots, you better believe I am going to grab that shot and save it in my archive!

I try and give the pic a name, so that I can hopefully remember where it came from, but I have hundreds of photos with no info whatsoever, and I have often wished I could remember where I got that "Super Pastel Ball python" shot from 2 years ago. Having breeders tag their shots, like VPI does, or like Pro Exotics does, helps you to immediately remember who it was that had the most outstanding Water Monitor you have ever seen, or who it was that had that amazing clutch of snow boas (pssssst....Pro Exotics!).

The other, less enthusiastic use, for the photo tagging, is for copyright purposes. We don't mind you collecting our photos, in fact, we encourage it, knock yourself out! But what we don't approve of, is our photos p opping up on other sites, or in other ads, used to represent some other animals for sale. We have seen our old pics (without the PE logo) show up on other sites representing "breeding stock" for Shady Sheister Reptiles (animals that are still in our collection!). That's not cool, and no one is going to lay claim to our hard work! THAT is why we have our logo on every pic

That all depends on who you talk to

These are all generic, made up terms, and while they are meant to communicate essential information about an animal, they are often misused, or misunderstood.

They way I was taught, 10 years ago, was that "c.h." stood for "captive hatched", that is, animal hatched in captivity from eggs (pythons, lizards, geckos). On the other hand, "c.b." stood for "captive born", or live born reptiles (boas). Both terms implied captive bred reptiles.

Over the years, "c.b." has been taken to mean bred in captivity, with intent, from captive parents. Conversely, "c.h." has been pushed to mean something "hatched" in captivity, but not bred in captivity. In other words, any reptiles (either egg or live birth) bred in the u.s. are "c.b." (captive bred). Animals farmed outside the u.s., or eggs hatched from wild caught gravid females (as in monitors) would be "c.h." (captive hatched).

Now, there are quite a few animals overseas that are indeed captive bred, from captive parents, and sent to the u.s., but those animals, and breeders, typically get lumped together (unfairly) with wild caught imported animals (this most frequently happens with Indonesian or Afrikan breeders).

I think the most important thing to consider when faced with this overall question is the reputation of the seller. First of all, never buy from someone you don't trust or believe in!

If you are unsure as to the lineage of a potential purchase, ASK! A reputable breeder/seller should be willing to tell you everything about your animal. Whether it was bred at their facility, purchased for resale from another u.s. breeder, whether it is a farm hatched baby (very common in the monitor world), or a wild caught import (also very common). The information should be available to you, and it should be CLEAR.

To try and address the problem, PE has switch ed to using a couple of (hopefully clear) terms. We don't really deal with wild caught reptiles anymore, but I would label such an animal as "w.c."

For captive bred animals, bred from u.s. parents already in captivity, we will use the term "u.s.c.b.".

For imported monitors, in most cases, we will use the term "f.h.", or farm hatched, once again, these animals being hatched out in captivity from captive bred animals on Indo farms, hatched from wild caught gravid females, or wild collected eggs. Certainly, we would like to breed ALL of our monitors here at our facility, but monitor breeding and husbandry is far behind that of most snakes, and as a hobby, we are still working on making that a reality. Until that time, farm hatched babies are often the best choice for a monitor project.

Please remember once again, these are generic terms, and there is no agreement or understanding in the industry for their meaning, it is always best to simply deal with a reputable breeder, and let them explain everything you need to know about your potential animal.

I can tell you honestly that it isn't worth your while. If you want to get more involved in the reptile HOBBY, then by all means, go ahead, and I am happy to give encouragement, but if you are interested in making money at this, then you have a whole universe of problems in front of you, and there is not much that I can say that will get you in a profitable position.

Breeding reptiles successfully is a different beast than MAKING MONEY breeding reptiles. Very very few of the "big" reptile breeders out there make a lot of money. Some make a living, and a select few turn a good profit, but it is all about timing, commitment, luck, capital investment, ingenuity, and basically, being a stubborn son of a gun.

I can tell you straight up that there is very little money in reselling, or brokering, animals to stores or other hobbyists. You can't buy a bunch of cheap imported animals from "Crappy Importers International" and expect to resell them and make a tidy profit. It just won't happen. For one thing, the internet has demolished a lot of the ba rriers and advantages that many brokers had back in the day. There is no reason for a store to buy some reptiles from you when they can read a classified ad on kingsnake.com, or read a faxed price list, and buy straight from the very source you ar e working with, for the very same price you originally paid. There is not a lot of need for the middleman anymore.

Your best bet, if you insist on pursuing it, is picking a specific type of reptile, busting your butt to breed it yourself, and then selling the babies yourself.

But that is much more difficult than it sounds. You have to have the right animal, at the right time, and in the right quantity. Some years, leopard geckos are in high demand, low supply, and you won't be able to keep them in stock. Wait a single season, and that whole market may be destroyed, and you may have to resort to selling your babies at a loss before they eat you out of house and home (who wants to sit on 500 leopard gecko babies for an extra four months waiting for buyers?). The market is extremely fickle, and it is difficult to anticipate what the "hot" animal is going to be next year (or in three years, when your breeding stock of redtails is finally ready to go).

So you gotta pick the right animal, it has to be the right time, and then you have to breed in the right quantity. Hatch too many babies, and the surplus will start to eat into your "profit". Hatch nothing for five years (quite possible), and suddenly that great deal on a pair of yearling Ball pythons, "het for albino", are about the worst investment you have ever made. Do spectacularly well, and frankly, you w ill be lucky to make back your expenses and labor.

I will repeat it again, your best bet is to enjoy the HOBBY, enjoy the animals for what they are, get into animals that you can afford, and that you have enthusiasm about, and leave all the economic nonsense on the side of the road.

Chad and I started Pro Exotics many moons ago because of HIS interest in the animals. I knew absolutely nothing at the time, he just thought I had a decent head on my shoulders, could learn quickly, and I wouldn't slaughter his whole collection (100 or so reptiles at the time).

I have been in this business for nearly 15 years now, I have talked with a lot of the old time reptile keepers, many of the new wave keepers, thousands of reptile enthusiasts, and I have to honestly say that Chad is one of the smartest herpers I have ever met. He is a cool guy that loves to chat about the animals, breed the animals, and stare at the animals for hours on end (especially at night). He is also one of those book geeks that can rattle off scientific names and o bscure literature references at the drop of a hat.

You have to understand that Chad spends half the year flying from city to city playing football, and that includes a ton of downtime in buses, planes, hotels, locker rooms, etc. You'll have a hard time catching that herp nut without at least 2 different reptile books or magazines on him, as he is reading (and rereading) constantly. He is also a regular internet surfer, and he keeps himself up to date with sites like kingsnake.com, so that he can maintain his edge, and keep his feel for what is happening in the industry.

Chad is in touch with the me at Pro Exotics every day of the year, and we go over everything from cycling animals for breeding (he helps me choose the pairing dates, as well as actual pairing), what animals are moving well, which projects we should venture into (or out of), gossip about the latest and greatest animals recently on the scene ("Did you see NERD's new Spider Pastel balls?!"), or perhaps a post on one of kingsnake's forums regarding PE that I have not gotten to yet.

If someone on staff has an obscure animal husbandry question, I can ask Chad about it, and he will tell me that "it was covered in Reptiles Magazine, back in October or November of 1997.....there is a big Anaconda on the cover.". Right off the top of his head. Freak.

So yeah, he knows his reptiles, ins ide and out, backwards and forwards too.

As for working at the facility, during the offseason he lives here in Denver, and he comes to the shop a few times a week. His number one goal in the world is raising a great family, so he spends as much time as possible with them, but we see him as often as possible, and still speak everyday.

At this point, he doesn't do dishes anymore, that stopped a couple of years ago, but you will most likely find him running around with temp gun in hand, going from cage to cage checking out every single animal and its progress. Breeding reptiles is my business, that is what I am here for, but for Chad, it is strictly a passion, and he certainly does love it.

I have seen a lot of crazy things on reptile sites. Ugly animals, unrealistic prices, terrible presentations, and completely amateurish hustlers.

But one of the dumbest things I have ever seen was a post at one of the "Inquiry Forums" on the net. One of the big ones. It seems these forums are often populated by an entire cult of people dedicated to crappiness.

On one side you have people that buy the cheapest animals, and subsequently the crappiest animals, possible. On the other side, you have the hustlers, direct importers, and jobbers that seem to be committed to selling the worst reptiles on the market. The funniest part is these two sides keep doing business with each other, keep getting burnt, holler and complain and call each other names, and then do some more deals for some more crappy reptiles. I really don't get it.

One particular poster was "helpfully" responding to someone asking "Does Mites-R-Free Exotics sell good animals?". Here is his reply (the names have been changed to protect the insanely guilty):

"I just picked up a snake from them. It was an import and had a couple mites - to be expected of an import. It was a bit smaller than I was expecting but appeared active and healthy. "Joe Buck" was upfront and told me it was an import with minor nose rub. It was shipped very well and arrived when he said it would. There was a minor mix-up in billing and he offered a 10% discount on my next order. All-in-all, it was a good dealing and I plan to buy another reptile through him."

You have GOT TO BE KIDDING!! "I plan to buy another reptile through him." Why on earth would you do that? Are you sado-masochistic? Let's see...

It was an impor t and had mites. It was smaller than expected. It had "minor" nose rub. There was a "mix up" in billing. Where exactly is the "all in all good deal"?!?!?!

If these are the type of standards you have as a hobbyist, then by all means, please go get ripped off by these hustler warehouses, because Pro Exotics cannot compete with such horrible conditions! I am afraid that WITHOUT the horrible experience, only THEN will these customers actually be dissatisfied.

How odd. It's a mad mad mad mad world!