Introducing Me. The Story So Far.

Hello! 

Thanks for clicking on my blog. As you can probably tell, it's a blog that I want to dedicate totally to reptiles and the herp community, and it will probably mostly be rants about my opinions on some of the topics in the community. 

I am NOT an experienced keeper, but I think I have a lot of knowledge on reptiles and husbandry, especially snakes. It all began when I was bored, stuck at home on a summer holiday back when I was in high school. I've always loved animals, and I've had many in my life but I was never that into reptiles before. I liked them, I would always be up for holding one at reptile educational shows that would come to my schools, I would always be the kid that everyone would volunteer to hold the animal when the educator would ask "So, who's brave enough to hold the snake/tarantula/lizard/bug" - It was always me, I would be down for it any time. But I wasn't specifically interested in them. Until I discovered "pettubers". 

So, like I said, I was bored at home on a break from school when I was about 14/15, and I was watching youtube and somehow ended up binge watching pet youtube channels and I stumbled upon Snake Discovery. I LOVED this channel from the very first video, and I became obsessed. I subscribed instantly, and I binge watched all of their videos in about 3 days. I fell in love with their videos, and most importantly the topic of their videos which is education about reptiles, specifically snakes. 

From their videos and learning everything I could from them, I then went on to find channels like Goherping, Clint's Reptiles, Brian Barcyzk, Chandler's Wild Life, Emilee Rose, the list goes on. From watching the videos on different snake species and the husbandry of those creatures, a new obsession grew in me and after a few months of watching these petubers, I decided I wanted a snake. 

Well, it wasn't that easy. Years and years and years of begging my snake-phobic mother, at the age of 22 I was finally allowed to purchase my very first snake - queue Sylvester. 

I knew I wanted a ball python, because from growing an interest and passion for reptiles, I was specifically interested in pythons. Ball pythons, burms, retics, green tree's, woma's - out of all of the snakes in the world pythons are my favourite genus. I knew I wanted a python, and ball pythons (in my opinion) are the best beginner snakes in the python genus. 

I found a reputable hobbyist breeder on a facebook group after I posted something asking about breeders close to me, the breeder I chose was Royal Passion Reptiles. I very much recommend them if you're looking for a breeder in the UK north west, or even internationally because I think they might ship to you, although I'm not 100% sure. They're great, and she helped me pick out a hatchling that was perfect for me budget wise. On top of that, she helped me by telling me that the pet shop I was originally going to buy a normal morph hatchling from was priced way too high for what it was. 

Long story short, I set up the enclosure, and then brought home my very first snake, Sylvester my male lesser ball python hatchling. I was thrilled, excited and the passion in me for the hobby kicked off. 

7 months into my hobby, and I'm loving it. I have experienced the good and bad sides of the community, and I always have a lot to say about topics within the community that are slightly controversial. That's basically where I'm at with my journey into the world of reptiles. I'm loving it, Sylvester is my pride & joy and he's doing great. And yes, much to my fiance's dismay I am already planning a rack system for when we buy our first house so that I can add new snakes soon. 

Enjoy my ramblings, and I hope you either learn something from them, or interact with me and help me learn more about reptiles! 

Thanks for enduring this long intro, bye!