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I need some help w/ idea's for...

SnakeLady1990

SnakeLady1990

~Miss Christina~
I have started a local reptile club in my area. I need some help thinking up topics for the first meeting (tomorrow…yes, I am a little disorganized) and for future meetings.

Here are some I have came up with for the FIRST meeting
Starting with introductions, what do you own, what do you want to own, ect. Names, species, where did you get them, just general chit chat intro’s.
Then about feeding live and what it can do to harm your animals (snakes anyways)
What to look for when obtaining a healthy animal…

What are some more topics AND where are some good resources to look up this information.

THANKS!

www.christinascritterclub.weebly.com
 
Brumation??? It's getting close to time to start thinking about that.

Any local guest speakers? Reptile shop owners, successful breeders, herp curators from a zoo...

Show and tell is probably always fun.

I wonder if USARK has any kind of media you could rent. To tell about their cause.

Show the DVDs "Herpers" or "Reptilemania."
 
A younger corn snake breeder is coming. But she is wanting to learn about ball pythons, haha. She is on here some. She is 14.

I have made a list. Is there a way to upload a document?
 
Good idea Nanci, posting two different sides of the argument. Christina I think that if you jump straight into "preaching" about f/t mice, you'll alienate a lot of people. Instead of that, maybe decide on dues. My club has a $20 year round due that comes with a membership card that allows certain discounts at reptile shops (obviously you'll have to talk to the shops about this first) as well as allowing a hugely discounted fee when adopting animals the club takes in. Here's the page that describes all the benefits of membership and goals of the club http://www.azreptiles.com/about.php

You want to purchase a copt of Herpers or ReptileMania to show; easy way to knock out one meeting and it allows discussion afterwards. Also, you'll want the meetings to be at a static, comfortable place. Mine meets at the Phoenix Zoo.
 
I was on the board of directors of the MN herp society for about a year and some months. I had to bail out due to work.

A few suggestions, do you not have a local herp society?
I see Maryland has one. http://www.marylandnature.org/

First thing I recommend not to be disorganized. This is the best way to get rid of future members. You gotta have your crap together or people will walk.
Try for being an actual club and take membership dues. Do a Monthly Newsletter. This could be presented online or email. We did actual print and mailed them out. It cost us about 5k for the year in printing alone for our 300 membership.
Use the money you get from the dues for speakers to come in and talk. The MHS has had some great speakers, we actually got Kathy Love to come up and speak.
Start off slow and just work your way up but by all means be organized. Have a raffle as well every month to bring in money. We also do rodent sales. They purchase rodents and then sell them at a slight increase to make money. But to let you know, we are a non for profit organization. We have a board of Directors and by laws.
I guess the best way to say this, if you are going to be half ass about it. Just have the one meeting and be done with it. Organization is the prime key to having a great society.
 
I have made out a list of 'helpful links' and this place is one of them :) My meeting went great. We just did a general chit chat and introduction meeting this time. I have made out some 'questionnaire's' that I will be having people fill out and make a notebook so when new members come later on we can let them flip through the notebook and look at intro's before or after a meeting so that every meeting we do not have to go over them again. I will post more info up later :) I love all the ideas.
 
Once I was given a very long lecture at a local pet store about how nutrients break down when the rodent is put in the freezer, and your snake will not reap as many benefits as feeding live. Just how true is this and how much of a difference does it make?
 
windowswisher said:
Once I was given a very long lecture at a local pet store about how nutrients break down when the rodent is put in the freezer, and your snake will not reap as many benefits as feeding live. Just how true is this and how much of a difference does it make?
Click to expand...

That is thier way of saying 'since we feed ours live, frozen is bad' haha. As long as it's not in the freezer for more than 8-10 months is what I hear. I buy all my frozen mice every month. If you are super worried about nutrients then every once in awhile (like once a month or every other month) just dip it in calcium powder. Just not too often for snakes. I have never used calcium powder for snakes and more than half my snakes eat frozen and are find and still grow like a charm.
 
SnakeLady1990 said:
That is thier way of saying 'since we feed ours live, frozen is bad' haha. As long as it's not in the freezer for more than 8-10 months is what I hear. I buy all my frozen mice every month. If you are super worried about nutrients then every once in awhile (like once a month or every other month) just dip it in calcium powder. Just not too often for snakes. I have never used calcium powder for snakes and more than half my snakes eat frozen and are find and still grow like a charm.
Click to expand...

But this starts off a bad debate. One of our founding Members and a known and upstanding person in the herp community.
He feeds live only to his rats. He has a major business.
What he does though is different. When you feed your ball pythons, if you fed frozen all the time, you may waste 1 or 2 rats. If you have 1000 snakes, you could waste about 200 rats.
What he does is have hides with the hole in top of them. The rat would typically go into the hide if the hole is on the side. Since its on top it doesnt go into it and may harm the snake.

Now most of these big breeders feed live due to the fact its easier economically for these snakes. For most who just works with corns and alot of no difficult feeders, its easier to feed frozen thawed. But economically there is a reason to go live.
 
tricksterpup said:
But this starts off a bad debate. One of our founding Members and a known and upstanding person in the herp community.
He feeds live only to his rats. He has a major business.
What he does though is different. When you feed your ball pythons, if you fed frozen all the time, you may waste 1 or 2 rats. If you have 1000 snakes, you could waste about 200 rats.
What he does is have hides with the hole in top of them. The rat would typically go into the hide if the hole is on the side. Since its on top it doesnt go into it and may harm the snake.

Now most of these big breeders feed live due to the fact its easier economically for these snakes. For most who just works with corns and alot of no difficult feeders, its easier to feed frozen thawed. But economically there is a reason to go live.
Click to expand...

Yeah but what happens if something does go wrong and the rat/mouse ends up hurting the snake...medical care is not cheap either. I adopted a ball python that had 5 horrid bites from rats chewing on it while being constricted. (had the bites before I got it, btw.)
 
SnakeLady1990 said:
Yeah but what happens if something does go wrong and the rat/mouse ends up hurting the snake...medical care is not cheap either. I adopted a ball python that had 5 horrid bites from rats chewing on it while being constricted. (had the bites before I got it, btw.)
Click to expand...

But here is the point, if you are going to run a society or a club like this, you are going to have to give all the opinions, and not just the ones you like.

As for that, odds are they left it to long. typically a rat will not chew on a snake if its left unattened for a few hours.
Like i said, if you put the hole in the top of the hide, the snake will not get harmed. It comes out for the rat while it cowers in the corner.
 
tricksterpup said:
But here is the point, if you are going to run a society or a club like this, you are going to have to give all the opinions, and not just the ones you like.

As for that, odds are they left it to long. typically a rat will not chew on a snake if its left unattened for a few hours.
Like i said, if you put the hole in the top of the hide, the snake will not get harmed. It comes out for the rat while it cowers in the corner.
Click to expand...

I never said I choose frozen over live. I have snakes that eat frozen and some that refuse so they eat live. But as far as losing nutrients...I don't think so. There are a TON of breeders and reptile keepers that have fed frozen for a long time and it not hurt the animal.

And I get what you are saying about a hide w/ a hold on the top, but what I was saying was when the ball python was in the middle of constriction, the rat would take a bite out of it then. When I got my male spider ball python, he was eating weanling mice and once he got up to smalls and mediums I had to start 'thumping' them and feeding fresh because as he was constricting the mouse would chew on him.

Also, that is another alternative depending on how many snakes you have. Get a live mouse, 'thump' it then feed. So basically you would stick the mouse in a bag and hit it hard against something to kill it and the mouse would still be super fresh when fed to the snake. If snake doesn't take, you can stick it in the freezer for a f/t eater or just throw it away.
 
As far as the live vs. thawed. That topic would revolve around what would happen if you do not supervise when feeding live. Not that you should not feed live. Guess I should have clarified that.
 
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