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Originally Posted by snakemaster24
Lauren, I hate to disagree with you because, your experience far surpasses mine BUT even though we don't stop developing until we are 23, is it not the SELLERS job to then, question and ask for I.D.? I mean if you were selling Retics and I walked up and handed you the money would you say, OK heres your new baby retic! No, it is your job to use your brain and say OK, this is a kid. I'm going to ask if
A) He has parents permission
B) Knows what he is doing
C) Has proper husbandry for the animals lifetime.
There is obviously a great flaw in the way that people sell large reptiles/hots. And there needs to be some uprising in the reptile community to fix it so that the gov't doesn't have to get involved!
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No, of course not. I agree with you 100%. I'd ask the same questions of a 40 year old, too, come to that.
In fact this is just the reason Tara and I are not real sure about whether we want to breed anything with a selling price of less than a couple hundred dollars. It seems to me that if someone pays $500 for a pied ball python (I am lowering the price to reasonable amounts two years from now, when our girl is ready) that they will be less likely to ignore said animal when the "newness" wears off. That doesn't mean it's a 100% thing... just that it is a better chance than the person you sell the $15 normal ball python to.
I also do not believe Tara and I will ever sell to anyone who is buying the animal as a pet for a child. I have seen way too many instances of children REALLY WANTING a new pet and then two years down the road the animal is homeless. Or the kid really wants the pet and does great with it and four years down the road college hits-- the dorm won't take the snake-- so again, homeless.
I think if you want to get your kid a pet, get it a mouse, rat or gerbil. They will be long gone by the time college hits.
So what we question then is will we ever be able to make sales? I think so, on the internet. I think we will offend some people because we will ask questions of them about their collection, their experience and their intents for the animal. Does this make us bad sellers? I don't think it will, but like Jeff, I bet there will be a lot of people that complain about it and think it is ridiculous.
I wish that we could take some of the characteristics that good dog breeders have and pull them into our reptile business. A good dog breeder interviews a purchaser. They always ask questions, and they expect you to ask questions. It's much more of a working relationship than the "exchange of goods" that so many reptile sellers practice.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kokopelli
I personally have pointed people to other directions when I thought that even a dwarf boa wouldn't be a fit pet for them.
Some people forget that these are animals rather than furniture... and once they consider them as furniture, it's just a matter of getting rid of the cheap merchandise.
Venomous snakes also cost very little when compared to non-venomous morphs... and in some places they are very easy to get... it's not a snake thing, it's an animal thing- wild and potentially deadly animals are being sold irresponsibly world-wide.
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Yeah, the venomous thing is bothersome too. We were at Hamburg once, which is in Pennsylvania, a neighboring state, and stopped to admire a sellers wide band copperheads. He started talking to us and offered to take money off the asking price to get us to buy. I said "Oh, thank you, but we live in Maryland and they are illegal to own there."
His reply?
"No one stops you at the border."
Edit: I wanted to ad (before David goes ballistic) that I know there are young people who are seriously into herps and willing to make sacrifices to care for their collection. But those young people seem few and far between in what I have experienced.