#141 Anoles are FAR BETTER than you think! |@HerpTime​

it's just so fascinating me that such a small being has so much intelligence and it's just so fun to work with them and um also I get to work with you know I have like 40 species of anoles it's just cool to be able to have such a variety of stuff to work with and learn so much um while if I was breeding water monitors this room would probably be able to house one or two breeding pairs [Music] welcome back to the animals at home podcast my name is Dylan Perrin and thank you so much for tuning in today if you are watching on YouTube you can see that I'm filming this intro from a slightly different angle than normal that's because this room is kind of a disaster right now I'm in the middle of this big project and I don't want you to see some of the stuff that I've worked on on a and also I don't want you to see the disaster that I'm surrounded by if you are not subscribed on the YouTube channel and you want to watch this room transform into an incredible not only reptile room but also podcast Studio definitely go subscribe this entire room will be decked out with custom reptile habitats enclosures I already released a video on just setting some of them up we are slowly gonna be releasing videos out throughout the fall as I completely you know furnish out the enclosures and set them up properly so if that is something that you want to see make sure you go subscribe to the channel today on the podcast I am talking to Armin Killian of herp time you may be familiar with herp time from Instagram or Tick Tock he has quite a large following on both of those Avenues you may have also had the opportunity of listening to Armin on the project her petticulture podcast just a couple of weeks ago which is a fantastic episode if you haven't listened to that I recommend going to do that as well you can find that on the project her better culture YouTube channel or just subscribe to the animals at home network on any podcasting platform and you'll find the episodes there in this episode we discuss sort of the that dream that people have of being a reptile breeder we all you know that's something that we kind of romanticize I think a little bit in her petticulture and talk about how it's something that we all think about how amazing would be to sort of live that life and and Armin talks about how he you know fell into that role what what drove him to to to have a career that's focused on reptile breeding but then also some of the stresses and the struggles of breeding reptiles and you know talking about overhead expensive just Heating and lighting and feeding and All the Small Things that end up being very significant that you don't think about when you're not actually breeding and I think a lot of us romanticize it in a way we sort of sweep some of that stuff under the rug so it was fantastic talking to Armin about that but then of course we discussed annuls he specializes in in so many different species of anoles it is amazing if you watch his Channel or his page on Instagram you'll see some beautiful species so we discuss what are some of the popular species why aren't they as popular as they should be because they really ought to be and I make the comparison or maybe Armando I don't want to take credit for it but I think it was myself that sort of Compares them to dart frogs and they're small colorful lizards just like small color for dart frogs and they really ought to be more popular than they are so this was a fascinating conversation from the beginning to the end and I know you will enjoy it if you're looking for more information on this podcast or any other show on the network make sure you head to animalsath homenetwork.com if you would like to help support this podcast financially help go towards the editing bills which cost me quite a lot of money a month or just want to be part of the Discord head to patreon.com animals at home you can also head to animals at home.ca shop to pick yourself up a sweater or t-shirt and thank you so much to custom reptile habitats for sponsoring the podcast again we will have this entire Studio decked out in custom reptile habitats enclosures very very soon and if you're looking for anything reptile related or in a new enclosure make sure you check out the affiliate Link in both the YouTube description or the show notes if you do make a small if you do make a purchase a small commission will come back to me at no extra cost to you of course that is another way that you can help support the podcast and think that is it let's jump into today's episode enjoy Armin welcome to the podcast thank you very much for being here thank you for having me I said I'm very excited you're one of those Instagram pages that uh tons of people follow and always catches my eye when I'm coming through you have some great reels and just some amazing pictures of beautiful animals and beautiful enclosures and the one thing that really caught my eye that we'll talk about a little bit later was how you sell your baby animals at reptile shows so I wanna I wanna get into that and that's what really was like I need to talk to this guy I want to talk to more about that you know reptile Expos are one of our probably our weak points in the hobby because it's you know the easiest to be you know to be attacked from outside sources so so I think you have a really cool solution for that but why don't we start with how did you get into all this how where did that passion come from because you have some really cool pictures on your Instagram of you when you were you know a young kid and it basically looks the same as what's happening behind you right now on a small yeah well I mean ever since I was uh probably like one or two years old I mean my mom sat me down in front of the TV and I would prefer to watch Animal Planet and Steve Irwin over like Blue's Clues or Disney Channel or any of that Sesame Street so I just kind of always been into that stuff I was preschool I was catching lizards and doing I mean what everyone does as a kid but I was obsessed so I would catch him I'd make little jars and put snails in the jars and keep them alive as long as I could and my parents got me my first um they got me a snake before I lizard I got a snake for my fifth Christmas and then lizard was my sixth birthday Leopard Gecko and it just all went down hell from there so so they started you earlier yeah yeah well they my mom has likes animals but not reptiles specifically my dad hates all animals not I mean he's just not a fan of them he's uh not from the US so he's more like accustomed to being grossed out by reptiles and stuff but they were they knew I had a passion for it and they were very supportive when I was young so I don't know if that was a mistake or not but it I can't remember a time in my life after I got my first snake that I didn't have a reptile I've always had some type of reptile no matter where I was in life so it's uh just always been my thing you know but it's funny you know I have a friend who grew up in Israel and his girlfriend also grew up in Israel and she hates lizards and so I always wondered like why why do you hate them but then I realize it's to her is sort of like having a mouse in the house like for us if you have like a rodent in the house like you just don't want it exactly like in yeah because my dad's from the Middle East he he was born in Lebanon and he came here when he was uh barely a teenager so I mean over there there's reptile if there's a a lizard on the wall the same as a mouse in your house you know it's like just you look you look at it like if there's roaches in your house it's gross so no one being over there they're like they're pests so that's how it is but it's just culture so I mean obviously it is people some people have roaches or rats as pets and a lot of people think that's weird so just teach their own you know exactly yeah so then you know you are sitting behind or in front of a bunch of animals right now and so there was a massive explosion over the years did you just did your keeping just slowly increase over time and then that brought you to where you are today or how did it evolve Yeah so basically um I've always kept stuff I've always been breeding stuff on a smaller scale and then in high school I would usually take out my parents and brother my brother's in the cars and so is my dad so they would always sacrifice and let me use the garage for all my reptiles so I'd fill the garage with reptiles because they didn't want them in the house because I thought I'd smell um so the garage was always full of reptiles and then when I went to college I had to downsize a little but even in my dorm I uh had an unbelievable amount it probably was a health hazard to have them anywhere such a small area where I was sleeping but um I still was breeding leopard geckos and I had all sorts of fish tanks and stuff in there and then I've been out of college a few years and just started picking back up the collection uh whenever I had money uh from other jobs it would just go back into the reptiles and it's not like they're just pets you know I was made I was able to capitalize on them and get stuff that I could breed so that it would self-sustain itself or even more I wouldn't have to take money for my other stuff um to support it I could use the money I would make from them to keep building my collection So eventually just by having other jobs I started uh it got so out of hand I can just use a garage anymore I had to go rent a space where I started breeding my stuff and um it just kept going and going until I quit my day job and this is kind of where I am now it's amazing and so before we get into you know the the animals that you breed are do you have animals that you consider pets are there things that are outside of the breeding operation that are just yours yeah the only things I really I just have a few lizards that I would consider pets I just have like my crocodile monitor which I would consider a pet which even then I might I'm considering trying to find a female Forum uh but he is definitely a pet and then besides that I don't I don't really have any pets I I haven't had a cat since like uh six or seven years and I haven't had a dog since I was uh 10 years old so it's just kind of Strictly Reptiles and mostly for the breeding even though I I mean I love each and every one but um the only pet I would consider that is kind of Priceless is my crocodile monitor do you keep the Croc monitor at the facility you're in right now yeah yeah yeah yeah I do so what is the facility you're sitting in this is just a like a warehouse type thing that you rent or yeah so it's a warehouse type thing it's a two level uh building so upstairs this is all my breeding stuff and I just moved into this bigger one the past few months so this is all my breeding is upstairs and then downstairs I'm going to be building some more display type um enclosures like I built I'm almost done with my crocodile monitor enclosure it's uh um I know you're in Canada but it's a 12 feet by six feet by seven feet so I don't know how it's like three three four almost four meters whatever you want to convert honestly most Canadians operate in feet for closure Dimensions yeah so they know so it's it's a huge enclosure so I'm building a few huge enclosures down there just to display some of these things because um it just that you can do so much with the stuff I have like any reptiles it's just so much more fun to watch them in a enclosure they enjoy you know I mean I'm not totally against uh rack systems or anything but um I just think it's it gives me more pleasure to watch something enjoy its life uh to the fullest so why not do it because that's what I like too I like building them so the downstairs is all going to be displays and upstairs is all my breeding this is one of the rooms I have four rooms up here so so for the downstairs the display area is that just going to be a place for you to hang out and bring people in or or what what's the purpose of that for you besides the enjoyment of it the the purpose is well I do a lot on social media so the purpose is I'm going to be filming all of it building all these enclosures and then I hope I'm able to start kind of a movement where more people want to build these showcase pieces like you can imagine people in their living rooms they have a 200 gallon fish tank why doesn't everyone have a 200 gallon vivarium you know and it's just as cool to watch dart frogs or Knolls or geckos just do their thing so that's that's my goal is I'm able to you know kind of move people in that direction because yeah it's it's cool to have a ball python that you can hold or a bearded dragon and even then you can build something beautiful for them but there's so many underrated species that just like a tropical fish you can't hold but people spend crazy money on their tanks you can still watch these and then enjoy them so that's just my take on it and hopefully I'll be able to I'll build some samples down there and then maybe start building for other people so that's my goal with that well it is interesting the way the like you know we always compare the aquarium Hobby and the reptile hobby together and the aquarium hobby it's sort of a known thing that you are going to not everybody does this but a lot of people will buy an aquarium to create a display right you're creating this this feature in your room where reptiles even though there's huge potential for that it doesn't happen as much and yeah it's sort of like a there's a gap in the sorry I don't know what's going on with my voice today I think I was sawing lots of stuff and I got like sawdust in my lungs but but there's like a gap in the in the education with the buyer almost I know it's so strange to me because you go I I've always been into I've besides this I'm into planet takes and reef tanks as well so it's like you go to a fish store and before you buy even a fish six months you're spending 10 grand on a reef tank before you put the first fish in that's a clownfish that maybe costs 20 or 30 dollars yeah so it's like there's so much more to it than just the snake or the lizard you know people have rack systems and each rack has a snake that's worth 10 or 20 grand but it's displayed terrible and I'm not a bashing rack systems I mean if you're if you're trying to make money breeding snakes this is not much of a better way but at the same time if you have a pet snake it doesn't make sense to just put in a 20 gallon on Aspen with a hat a coconut hide I mean how does that that doesn't give any any beauty to what you have you know so I think there's just so much and the way the reef and the the um Planet tank hobby has taken off in the past like five ten years I think it's something that can happen with the reptiles and I'm more than happy to at least do my part because I enjoy it so if no one else likes it at least I will you know yeah yeah well I mean that's what's really cool about a lot of the species that you work with is their perfect specimens for that type of thing right because they are so small all and I personally I like I'm trying to promote this idea the listeners are very familiar with me talking about this is promoting smaller species and you know trying to move people away from keeping larger species even though I keep larger species myself but that was sort of nature of just growing up in the Hobby and end up buying a boa because that's what everybody does but I wish I didn't in a lot of ways because of how much more potential there is for a small species and you know keeping a small lizard so you could make these wonderful displays with these little species yeah exactly and no I mean the great the big species are great but uh a bearded dragon in a 40 gallon won't I mean I don't I hate bashing on people for the size of their enclosures because some people just can't help it but it's just so much more rewarding to and then these are 18 18 24s and the lizards that are in them are like four or five inches yeah so just imagine the amount of space they have compared to a bearded dragon in a 40 gallon which is half the length of the enclosure so it just it's just way different and these aren't all set up beautiful these are more for breeding even though they are they have live plants and stuff they're not like total built up vivariums it's more it's still functional for breeding but they still have plenty of room and everything they need and you can still see them beautifully so it just I mean I hope the hobby starts going that way and a lot of the bigger people are starting to try that as well I mean even Brian barchuk has said he's gonna move away from the rack systems and is getting out of the you know breeding of all that type of stuff so I mean everyone everyone knows where it's going it just uh it depends who wants to be on the Forefront of it and I'm more than happy to be on the Forefront of it so that's my take on it so as far as your breeding setups go like you said even though you say they're not high quality setups but they are still they have lots of enrichment there's you know obviously substrates and lots of plants and climbing things and whatnot is that just made by the sort of virtue of the species that you're keeping in there or is that because there's like why use such an enriching breeding setup when you probably could save money by taking some stuff out uh well one it's more pleasing to the eye for me to walk in here and see it it's like gives me some motivation like wow these are beautiful and I can imagine it and like what if I want for for example if I want to put a colony of a really brightly colored anole and like a seven foot tall four foot wide cage which is what I want to do down there this gives me some idea of how they're gonna interact in it um not only that it makes them feel more comfortable and more likely to breathe like you you can um this the anodes are easy to breed but only if they're happy if they're happy they're like breed like roaches but if they're not they won't breed at all so it's just giving them what they feel comfortable with and I could get fake plants but it just doesn't look the same to me yeah and uh I can I can get I don't know like the Zoo Med ropes but it doesn't look the same to me as real branches so it's it's more aesthetically pleasing for me and the Wizards appreciate it as well and it gives them more um area to use in the enclosure rather than just a flat a wall in the bottom it gives them much more surface area to you know do stuff which they're very active so give them as much space as they can use yeah I mean I I like the way it looks and I think it definitely is eye-catching for sure and it looks a lot better even even something as simple as on social media you know you standing in front of all those enclosures it's just something that the a person who's not a reptile keeper might stop and go well what is that that looks pretty cool it looks a lot cooler than a you know a room of drawers which no one knows what's going on if you're not in the hallway yeah exactly so um what was in this there's something I was gonna say oh yeah that's right you were talking about you know utilizing the space and that's the other that's another really cool thing about smaller species is you can you can use the vertical space a lot easier because they're so small and so light you can really pack it full like with a bearded dragon you can do that as well but the branches are going to be a lot bigger it's going to be a lot harder they're not as Nimble as something like a small anole so it did something draw you toward actually why don't we just start with what species are you breeding I mean you're not just breeding a nulls but you can kind of list off you don't have to list off everything but tell us a little bit about what you are breeding at your facility So currently I'm breeding the majority probably 75 of what I'm breeding is a Knolls uh I just gone crazy with them because they're just so amazing to me I've always loved them but just really gone crazy the last year or two and then I have other like smaller gecko species like sparodactylus um sort of dactylus uh uh uh like it activists fosuma um what else let's think I have some dwarf monitors like varanus King Gorham just tiny you know miniature version of a monitor um and they're just so awesome and then what else um I have different type of just really all I'm working with is really small species like tachyderromus um they're grass lizards they're just they're like I don't know if you know gastropolis the green keeled lizards yeah the tachydromis are a third of the size and not never gonna bite you and they are so friendly and they're just the better version of those and I think that those are and the gastropolis are a better version of a tree Mars so these are just like the ultimate I think um so there's just so many tiny species that I work with that um they're just so cool to me but yeah it's mostly nulls I would say I'm going in a circle answering a question no no that's good yeah it's all it's a it's 75 of Knowles and then the rest are like random stuff so what what Drew you to keeping smaller lizards obviously that sounds like what you pretty much gravitated towards was there something specific about that that you said besides you know all these other bonuses that we've already talked about um I just think it's so cool that such an intelligent life can be in such a small package you know what I mean like I I look at these in nulls and they look back at me and they're like thinking do I need to run away are you going to open it and throw crickets in what are you doing like just how a monitor is thinking these are almost as smart as a monitor lizard you know what I mean so it's just so fascinated me that such a small being has so much intelligence and it's just so fun to work with them and um also I get to work with you know I have like 40 species of anoles it's just cool to be able to have such a variety of stuff to work with and learn so much um while if I was breeding water monitors this room would probably be able to house one or two breeding pairs yeah so it's just cool to be able to to have so much variety and I've I love I mean All Reptiles so it's the more I can have I'm like essentially a hoarder that tries to do it the right way so the more I can have the more species I have under my belt the more accomplished I personally feel so that's just why I do it because they're just easier to fit in a smaller space yeah well and it seems like you know looking at your Instagram page there's so many species of a Knoll that I've actually never even heard of or seen before which is really incredible and it seems like there's huge potential for anoles to sort of emulate the dart frog Community right where you have very similar lizards but are very similar species but you can do so much with them and and so why why don't you list off some of these species or some of your favorite species that you're working with you don't have to listen to whole 40 but yeah well there's anolis is actually the largest genus of any animal in the world like when you account for fish birds reptiles mammals anolis has the most species in any genus so there's over 450 species of anolis and then that doesn't include subspecies which each species has like four or five sub species it's just insane so I have uh one of the favorites everyone really likes is anoa's Grandma which is uh the Jamaican turquoise and all they have like a turquoise body that Fades into a uh bright purple tail it's just so cool um another one that everyone seems to like even though it's so simple is the brown anoles but the extreme red face it's a lime bread trait that um there's naturally occurring kind of rusty red color ones in like Florida and stuff so people wild catch them and then they just start lime breeding them to create these insanely fire truck red anoles so um and then another favorite of mine is anoas roquette they are the Martinique and all they just come from the one tiny island of Martinique in the Caribbean um this whole wall is full of them there's six different subspecies of them and within each subspecies the variation is so insane that I'm literally taking getting all the babies from this this rack of what is this at 24 cages and I'm holding everything back and growing them up and then I'm just gonna start line breeding them as well just because some have like blackheads blue and green bodies huge yellow spots white bodies with black stripes and it's just so cool so I'm and each baby pops out different from the same pair so it's like I'm just trying to refine this to make them even cooler than they already are um so those are just some of my obviously those are the big ones like the blue Beauties everyone's going crazy about um those are awesome there's also larger species like anolos garmoni the Jamaican China Knoll um I'm get I just got a pair today actually from my friend David Aldean in Texas he's a super cool guy breeding some big annuls and um I'm getting some more from Europe uh next month but they are like in an oldest big and they are bright green with stripes they're just such an amazing species um it's just I could rattle off species all day but they uh just like dart frogs like you mentioned they they display so well and in a tiny area and some you can even keep the dark Vlog there's a lot of people in Europe Europe's way ahead of us in a lot of stuff with reptile keeping um but um they a lot of people keep the roquettes with their dart frogs and they work out perfectly because they don't bug each other so there's lots of opportunities for that type of stuff it seems so bizarre that this entire group has really flown under the radar in our hobby like what the hell's going on because you know green and Knowles obviously are sort of a staple in brown and olds and whatnot but but that that's kind of it I think the issue is everyone gets the wild caught green and brown and all from Petco for six bucks and it dies in two weeks so that's just their their uh experience with the Knowles and they're like oh and then all it's just gonna they have a lifespan in one year when in reality they live like 15 years you know it's just online if you type in a no lifespan it says two or three years but that's only because those are the wild caught ones from Florida so it's like um they they've just everyone's I feel like almost every reptile person started out with an anole or had one at one point or at least got them as feeders or something and they just they have such a undervalued reputation um because they just usually get the wildcon ones that have already been dehydrated and no food and the parasites are taking over so it just no one has a good first experience with them usually so then it just deters everyone from giving them any time of day in the future which is really unfortunate so that's kind of the whole point of why I film all my stuff and I can show you a baby that I hatched a year ago and is making babies now and their baby's already six months old they have such a quick turnaround time it's so cool so yeah they're just underappreciated it sucks but it is what it is yeah well maybe maybe you'll uh work at changing that I I know green and Knowles were one of the first reptile that I wanted to get you know that I just thought they were so cool but I just couldn't find them here in Canada for whatever reason so I ended up not getting them but they you know they are a staple and like you said I think people just have a bad experience and then they move on from them even though there's so much potential are a lot of the the species are the more obscure species that you work with are those having to come in through wild caught and then you're breeding with wild caught pears to establish a captive red Colony or is there a lot of captive breeding already happening the majority of the stuff I'm getting is from Europe whether that is but I mean Europe has always been into the smaller stuff so they've always had usually all your dart frogs have come from Europe all your Knolls all your geckos all that stuff is coming from Europe Germany and Czech Republic and all those type of places where they focus on that type of stuff so most of my stock is um has already been captive bred there for like decades and no one just it's untapped and uh just ship them over here nothing's really sideies so just easy to ship over here um with any exporter or importer and uh I ship stuff to Canada to friends in Canada who braided Knowles too and it's usually never an issue so it's uh it's all there it's just untapped and um once people start real like and it's also unfortunate because over there the people that are into it are the old timers that don't have any social media or reach or anything they don't care at all they're just they've visited a place and they found these lizards and they've loved them and they've been breeding them for decades and I bought out I've literally bought out some of the collections over there that have been going on for like 20 or 30 years and now I'm the only one with a certain species in captivity like for example um at Jamaica you can't export anymore so I have the Jamaican twigginal I had I basically the only breeder in Germany I bought out his whole stock and they want me to send back some babies when I can because now no one there is breeding them so there's like three of us breeding them here so it's like it's just crazy how everything fluctuates and when people lose interest just species can die off in the hobby so that's kind of my goal is some of these things I don't want them to die off because they're so amazing and it'd be a shame to lose them because a lot of countries you can't export from anymore so whatever we have activities where we have left right you know that's a good point and then you know you were mentioning there's obviously such a wide variety of species and subspecies and I'm sure a lot of these animals could easily interbreed and and or or you can cross breed the subspecies are you are you pretty careful or concerned about keeping things tight or yeah so I I uh I haven't I definitely don't try to crossbreed any subspecies or species at all um all these are even localities and I try to keep the localities uh kind of separated so that's why we can talk about it in a little about I've been using little jars to house each individual lizard and I write down the pairing their locality their species their hash date versus you know throwing a bunch into one enclosure um I'm starting to do that now that I uh I'm holding back stuff and I still I'm keeping track of Who's Who and I could put siblings together in one bra enclosure but um when they're small I'm keeping track of each and every baby that I hatch so that I can keep track of who's who who has what um locality and stuff because I want to keep stuff as pure as possible because who knows the day when um Martinique doesn't allow you get stuff anymore and then these lizards are never accessible wild caught and uh we're just stuck with what we have so I want to try to keep as many variations of what I have um going you know yeah I know that's really good well why don't we spend a little bit of time I kind of just want to cover just basic care of of the anoles because there's there you know we don't have to go over into Super detail but want to give people just a little bit of you know how you're caring for them and then I want to get more into the the breeding side so so just in general maybe you could just outline the basics of the Care are most of the species quite similar as far as you know temperature ranges humidity and whatnot or do you are you having to be quite Dynamic with how you care for all the different species uh majority are very similar because majority of the species in captivity are from the Caribbean so the Caribbean all has very generally the same climate uh so I keep it's pretty hot in this room this room is literally 82 degrees oh my God and um yeah so I'll explain how I keep them and I'll explain how the general person at home might want to keep them so this room is 82 degrees so that's the ambient for the the substrate temperature where they would want to lay the eggs and then I have these dual T5 UVB fixtures that um put off quite a bit of heat so at the top of the enclosure when there's a branching at the top there are hot spots around 95 to 100 degrees uh which they love to hang out in and then the midsection of the enclosure is uh mid 80s to 90. so that's how I keep them and obviously if you want to keep them at home you might need a little more of a basking spot than just the Dual T5 fixture but you'll want to achieve a hot spot uh around 95 give or take and then Ambi in the 80s and then the cooler and the bottom of the enclosure uh maybe around 80 degrees so um that's what I found with the Knolls they really it doesn't really matter about a certain coolant and a hot end it's since it's a vertical enclosure you just need gradient so the top of the enclosure in the mid 90s and the bottom of the closure around 80 and then everything in between they'll find what they like so that's how I do it and then the way I breed them I just use one potted plant and they'll lay their eggs in the pot and I just dig out the pot um every few weeks and collect the eggs through there do you do a night drop or anything in that room as far as temperature yeah well when the lights go off the uh the night drop is probably 75. okay so I wouldn't advise going below 70 for the nulls uh but in in a it depends how cold your house is I guess but I would if you need to do something to keep the enclosure above uh like 72 degrees for a night drop that would be ideal because I think below is a not not necessarily kill them but they won't be happy and they definitely won't breed with the night drop below 72. yeah I mean the Caribbean is pretty stable as far as the temperature goes I imagine it's not fluctuating too much right exactly so they are pretty basic there's it's not uh over complicated how you keep a day gecko is basically the exact same care I would say that's a if someone's kept the day gecko and bread day geckos they can breed these very easily so is that night drop you're talking about is that you were saying that's just due to the lights like when you turn off the lights that's so much temperature you lose in the room yeah well I have like I probably have 50 lights in here all putting off a crazy amount of heat so that's why it gets so warm in here otherwise this room would be like not even 75 degrees right if I turn off the lights for three days this room and be 70 degrees you know it's just the residual heat stays around that keeps it warmer yeah so that's just how yeah I go through it the overhead to breed all these I mean people get mad or are like blown away when I charge like 200 bucks for a lizard when my my overhead is just insane to you know keep them going it's different when you have a pair by your bedside you know yeah you can sell them for whatever you want but when you're trying to like keep a species going and like actually do something with it it costs a lot to you know feed everything and keep everything going and like actually have a few pairs so that you don't lose if you lose one you don't totally lose the whole species so there's a lot more that goes into it than just uh you know the hobbyist with one pair by their bedside yeah I know definitely I I want to jump into that in a second but as you said mentioned feeding it made me think as far as feeding goes are you mostly just feeding just small crickets and whatnot or do you is that the easiest yeah crickets are the easiest uh for the adults I feed crickets and then sometimes I'll throw in mealworms or if I have like black soldier flies uh I'll let them the larvae morph into uh flies and then feed those off stuff like that I try to vary it a little but the majority will be crickets just because that's the easiest for me to get um but they do good with that and I uh I don't dust the calcium too heavily some species do better with more dusting but I found that uh they can develop enlarged calcium sacs and naturally you won't ever find a known with those so once I start seeing those I get a little worried because they aren't supposed to have those calcium sacs on the side of their uh jowls you know so I've kind of gone back on the feeding because I don't think they can there's not enough research on them but I don't think they can process the calcium like other reptiles do I think they get get it more through the the UV and uh just they naturally don't need as much but um yeah I try not to do too much calcium maybe I'll dust every like three feedings I'll dust the third one yeah it's interesting that you say that because my day gecko because we see the same thing in day geckos with the females having large glands and mine does have that and I got her that way and uh and I always and I know that's you don't see that in the wild at all people say you'll never find a female like that in the wild so it must be from oversupplementation it's the same with it's the same with digger because I've noticed too I think it just and I think it can be fatal because I've seen it happen to my friends day yet because I've seen it happen with some of my Knowles that I didn't I didn't catch on in time just when this that they just calcify and it's it just becomes almost like a tumor I mean it's not a tumor but it's just like it's a benign thing that I'm sure eventually weighs down on their neck and it just kind of starts to immobilize them and it's uh it's something we still have to figure out I'm sure someone is doing some research or I hope someone is but something that I've noticed and I'm just that my lizards are doing fine with less calcium than people normally would do so I'm just sticking to that so in your experience if you see the glands starting to develop you pull back to calcium do you actually see the glands contract and like do you see this they do if you do it soon enough yeah they they'll go away within a few months but if you don't do it soon enough then they just it seems like they'll still Harden and you can literally feel like a hard thing moving around underneath the skin and then then it's kind of too late I just totally stop or I really slow down on it and uh that's only it's only gone to that point when I've gotten lizards from other people I got some mature female anoles uh yesterday from someone and uh they obviously no there's no information about so they didn't know better and I never explained it to anyone but their adults all the females had those and so now hopefully I can uh I can reverse it if it's not too late but it's just how it goes when everyone is pushing to oh you have to dust all your crickets every time it's like well not all these lizards are eating calcium-filled bugs every day you know so it just it's uh there's a lot more that we need to learn about everything especially the lizards that people have in a long time yeah no I think you're so right and I think I think you're probably right about that if you probably catch it soon enough it's okay but if you if it gets it probably gets to a point where they do solidify and that's what I think happened with my dead gecko because I got her she was like five or six and they were already huge and I tried to cut back on calcium because I sort of speculated the same thing and there was no change in and so I guess that's just what happens they eventually basically turns into like a small bone like you know it turns into a stone I'm sure and I haven't had I mean whenever I've lost a female like that I haven't had the heart to cut it open and check but maybe I should next time and just I mean I don't have any more females like that except once I've I I got some from someone else recently but hopefully it doesn't happen anytime soon but it'd be interesting if someone has a day gecko or an a no like that and they checked um because that would be interesting to see what's going on in there yeah and it's funny how the hobby looks at that you know you I've you see people on Facebook that's the sign of a healthy female like big you know big neck it's like I don't think so no I know I hate when people say that it's like oh yeah she's chunky no that's like that's like a the calcium deposit that would never be there in the wild you'll never find a wild animal or de gecko with any of that you know what I mean exactly it's just like when people over think their bearded dragons need to be like their gut needs to be hanging over the brain it's like no bearded dragons in the wild are thin lean lizards that almost look like a frilled Dragon you know what I mean exactly so it's like it just just it's just how it is I guess PetSmart Petco kind of ruined everyone I feel like but this is how it is yeah yeah they definitely didn't help well so let's talk about your your business venture then you know you talked about the breeding and you kind of mentioned you know that it is it's it's taxing on you and I think many people want to get into uh breeding reptiles as a full-time living so maybe we could talk about that transition because you were breeding it sounded like kind of on the side and you were you had a job and then at some point you realized you gotta dump the daytime job and move into reptiles can you just tell us a little bit about that yeah so definitely don't quit your job immediately and think you're gonna make any money on reptiles in the first year or two because you're not [Music] um the where do I start you just have to be kind of insane and crazy to do it because there's no other you're gonna just half the days you're just going to pull all your hair out and just go crazy because nothing goes to plan nothing is gonna work out the way you plan you can say for example if you're breeding crested geckos you can see I'm pairing this one and this one and half the babies are going to come out like that well first and you're gonna get 10 eggs this year first of all you're only going to get hat you have to plan on getting half the eggs that they should give you and then probably cut that in half again and then expect your 50 50 odds to be 25.75 not in your favor because nothing ever is gonna happen the way you want it to you can make all the plans in the world oh yeah each of these each female in each one of these cages lays an egg a week so that's five eggs a month so that's this many a year and I'm gonna sell this many babies in this it's net just cut all of that in like into 25 of what you're planning because it's it never goes to when no matter how hard you try it never works that way so that's my biggest thing it's it's uh don't make a spreadsheet and plan out how are you going to become rich from breeding this ball python of this ball python and your odds because you are just setting yourself up for failure you have to just it just has to be a passion that um you that I don't know how to you just have to be crazy about it every waking moment has to be what you think about otherwise you're better off still you can still have a large scale operation and as a hobby and still make money from it I mean no doubt if you're breeding stuff have a rap like a rack of nine cages in on your bedroom wall you can still breathe crested geckos and make more than enough money to pay for them and keep buying more and you know have some spending money afterwards but when it comes to like a full-time thing to pay for your rent your gas your food your health insurance everything it's like it's the scariest thing ever because one you're relying on your animals to breed you're relying on raising up the babies and then you're relying on other people to want what you have so it's just it's just crazy it's uh like I said before it's not for the light-hearted and it's uh you have to really be really really really disciplined because you're Your Own Boss but you're also in charge of keeping not only things alive but like caring for life that you need to be happy if you want them to you know produce more so I don't know I wouldn't suggest it to anyone so but what was that what was the transition like when you're working was it a when you when you had a you know a regular job we'll call it and you had the breeding operation was it a point was it like a time thing where you thought I don't have enough time to actually like I'm I'm spending way too much time in the reptile room in order to do this so I got to get rid of my job or was it a monetary thing you were starting to see it pay off in a way that made more sense the thing I mean I no matter whether I was making one dollar a month or 10 grand a month or however much I was making a month it was it was uh I would still spend the same amount of time just because I enjoy my animals you know I would still before work I'd spend hours of you know if I started work at 10 I'd I mean even when I didn't even when I had my job I still had my animals at somewhere else to say my work started at 10. I would literally wake up early go spend like two or three hours with my animals before I'd have to go to work get off work at six or seven and then go back to my animals till like midnight and then just go home and pass out and repeat oh so that's literally all I would do and um yeah the the moment I real when I started to make more money from it and realize okay this could be sustainable is when I really considered um quitting and pursuing it full-time and uh so that's kind of when the money started making sense uh that's when I decided I would do it but I still would spend the same amount regardless so it just I did take it I mean I make much less money than I used to having another job on top of this but uh it's I'm able to dedicate more time to it in long term whether I make more money than I used to or not I don't really care because I'm enjoying what I well I'm enjoying my life you know I you only have so much time so I might as well spend it doing what I like even if it's annoying I know I I chose to do it and I'm not doing it for someone else you know yeah and yes you have like a sort of a sense of Freedom there and yeah you know we're talking about the lights and everything you have behind you so the overhead and just the initial investment and I'm sure all this equipment sort of accumulated over time it's not like you went out and opened up a breeding operation but if you did that have been thousands and thousands of dollars worth of equipment just the equipment alone yeah it's it's crazy uh how much everything costs just imagine how much you spend on your one you know little vivarium and milk and besides buying all the fancy plants multiply it by however many I have I mean I have hundreds of pairs of lizards so it's uh you can only imagine how much it can cost yeah well and that's I think one of the things that when people want to get into breeding reptiles as a full-time business it's sometimes easy to forget like all those I bet it's one of those things where you you make the spreadsheet like you said and you see this bottom line you're like okay I'm gonna make decent profit and then and then when it actually comes into reality you forget about all these little weird bills okay the electrical bill the water and all this things adds up and you're like okay I made eight cents off that lizard exactly well yeah you once you add up your electricity your water your feeders you know you're gonna obviously unless you have some type of bioactive setup if you have snakes where you're going to change the bedding you're gonna run out of your light bulb is going to break your whole you know light fixture might just go out you have to account for all that and then also you have to account for your time is your time you know how much do you value your time you know if I'm honestly the amount of work I do I probably am making under minimum wage yeah you know what I mean yeah because it's like just an insane amount of work the overhead is crazy even if I'm making more than even if I'm more than breaking even on a in a month when I go back and count the hours I worked versus how much I take home it's just you don't want to do that math yeah I don't even want I don't even think about it I try not to because it's just literally every waking hour besides taking a shower brushing my teeth and going getting lunch I'm here so it's just it's nuts how far is the facility from your home like three minutes oh okay that's great so you just walk there is that close enough to walk or about three minute drive it's probably it would probably be like a 20 minute walk okay but so it's close yeah okay that's good but yeah I mean that's expensive too renting out a facility and doing all this but you sort of have to do that you can have all that in your home yeah exactly I have three thousand square feet so it's uh bigger than my house was it a commitment to do that like was that a little bit scary yeah it's awful because obviously you have to put your security deposit and first and last month and it's like oh my gosh yeah and I'm I'm in California doing this so it's like the most expensive state in the United States it's like it's like oh my God and then I think in terms of selling lizards like how many lizards do I need to sell to for it to make this much and I'm like oh my gosh I never it's like I need to make that many lizards yeah yeah yeah yeah so but and so that brings us to I mean the other side of the business which is actually selling the lizards right you know that that is a process in itself so is that how are you in the in that department being able to sort of Market yourself I'm sure you also go to lots of Expos and whatnot do you do you enjoy that part of the the job yeah I like it a lot I like being well because a lot of these lizards are stuff people haven't had before because I'm the only one with them in the United States so it's like I'm I'm more than happy to explain to someone how to take care of it how to breed it and stuff and when they send me a picture of their first egg or the first baby they hatched from something that I hatched originally it's just super rewarding to me so yeah I do most of my sales online uh I do obviously I do stuff at Expos but honestly the stuff I have like the stuff I breed doesn't do well at Expos because people are going to Expos for um you know their first time pet at least around here so it's not very uh it's not like the California Expos are pretty hit or miss and they're mostly like kids and families so like the the we I had one last weekend but the one two or a month ago was literally um across the street from Disneyland so basically the Disney Island crowd came to the Expo so you can only imagine how it is selling you know little annuls not I mean that are a few hundred bucks so it's not that easy but online people appreciate them and uh also I've built a following and I can show off how incredible they are through video and photo and um that has definitely helped and also what I've all this is uh something that all reptile people need to consider and a lot of people have been doing it forever but a lot of the newer ones don't understand it trading is really important so um for example I've been doing it like all week I've gone to shipments and stuff and shipping out the stuff I've traded like other reptile people that are super interested in this stuff um I can ship them a pair of my lizards for one of their lizards or a pair of their lizards that is much easier to sell because they're much more um sought after uh by more people in the hobby so for example if I don't know I ship out a bunch of anoles for someone and I trade them for a frill Dragon you know it's much easier for me to post the frill Dragon a more morph market and sell it in a quicker time than the nulls if it's the same value it's it that's one way that I've also been able to do good until the the nulls are picking up more but that's one thing I had been doing a lot in the past and I'm still doing is trading to equal or higher value animals I mean I hate putting value on animals but it's since this has become my living it it's just what I've had to do yeah uh so it's just the way it is unfortunately but uh that's just what I've had to do and it works and obviously when I get an animal I don't just flip it the second I get it I'm spending you know at least like two weeks a month with it making sure it's all good because I my reputation is much more important than any dollar I'll ever make right so I don't want to send anyone whenever a sick animal so that's just that's just the name of the game if you want to survive doing it and it's the unfortunate name of the game but how I've been doing it well especially when you're working with species that are slightly more obscure and slightly more or less known it's like you said you can't just post it on morph Mark and assume somebody's gonna want it you gotta find like that specific person that wants it and and goes from there yeah let's talk a little bit about those jars because you mentioned it earlier and I mentioned at the top of the show that that really attracted to me what you were doing so what maybe you could just tell us you know what you know how you use those jars and how you sell them so the jars I uh I raised my babies up in those for the first month or two just to it's easier to keep track of them they can't get bullied by the other babies I can make sure they're eating make sure everything's going well and then um it's also easy to take the show because well even the babies most baby nulls are born brown and they don't get color till they're more mature but regardless um it looks weird to just have a baby and no one like a deli cup or any you know in a deli cup because they just immediately fire completely down and look like a brown anole so that's where the jars come in at the shows the jars I use like I'll put sticks or this last show I put like branches and then air plants and all sorts of stuff so now these and nulls are firing up like how they would here and now you can totally get an understanding of what I have they're not just brown anoles they're like these insane colorful lizards that look like a tropical fish um so that's that's the way I found that um displays them best because just like a uh a gecko they fire up and down but they're I would compare them to a chameleon but even more intense with the way they can fire up and down it's just within seconds they can go from insane bright blues and greens and yellows to completely Brown you would think it's brown and all wow it's just crazy so that's uh that's how I do it and it's been working so so what I guess for the people that are just listening and and that have not seen them are those jars they're are those jars like baking jars or something like you would store sugar in them or they're called they're called sprouting jars for people who are growing micro greens oh okay so it's a jar that has a lid that has screen on the top so usually you're sprouting different um micro greens for your smoothies or your salads or whatever I don't use microgreens but whatever vegan people use that's yeah of course and then you actually sell that jar if someone was to come to the Expo and buy one of the animals they go home with that yeah I give them the jar just so that um if they don't have a setup for the anole yet they can put it keep it in there for a few days rather than the deli cup you know all you have to do is I mean obviously they need UV but they can go a few days without it you just miss them in there and they they're fine in there um and yeah it works out well so it's worked out that's what I loved about that solution is it sort of solves two problems the first is optically it looks a lot better to see these like little planted jars with a tiny little lizard in there if someone would walk into an expo it looks like okay this person's selling animals and it has you know each jar has a high quality of care and then the second thing is it sort of protects the impulse purchase right like if they're gonna go home with their daily cup and who knows what they have at home for a setup this at least gives them like you said it's a tiny lizard it could be in that jar for a long time if you gave it UV it would be good for quite a while I assume yeah for sure and also it's uh it's kind of a better wrap on reptile shows at least my Booth doesn't I don't have a ton of Little Deli cups with snakes that are packed in because I go on Tick Tock and I see videos of like other people posting videos of reptile shows and the people who understand no it's just temporary it's like the snakes are fine they're not gonna and the LA and the crested gecko is fine they're not gonna die in the deli cup and they don't they're not they're not in any danger you know but anyone random that Scrolls through and sees all these reptiles and tiny cups exactly under Bright Lights they're like freak the comments are just like oh my gosh poor lizards poor snakes why are they forced into those why do we have stuff like that in America or Canada or wherever and it's like it just I can I totally understand what it looks like from the outside so it just like it's scary if the wrong people see that have power and influence and can influence something where we don't have these shows anymore it would just suck you know so I'm trying it's it's at least I can only do so much I mean we can only all do what we're capable of but at least I try to do it in a way that displays the animals because like my lizards I have to display them that way or they won't look happy at all so uh it just it it puts everything in a better light and I do my part at least and hopefully other people can do it too obviously not realistic if you're trying to if you bring a hundred snakes you can't set them up each in a in a four by two by two at the Expo yeah but at least you know it's just such a it's such a hard balance because there's no right way to do it for for The Outsiders not to freak out but the but I don't know it's just uh it's a weird situation the reptile hobby is in because the Expos they don't have they they look rough from the outside you know yeah absolutely and I mean obviously you have an advantage with the animals that you sell being so small like you said you know it'd be much harder if you were although a lot of the animals at Expos are tiny like you mean even a boa is going to be quite tiny so maybe there's something we could do there but uh but obviously that also adds to your the overhead of the price of the animal right because that's probably I'm sure those jars aren't that cheap and setting them up and putting plants in them it's got to be worth something yeah no it does cost me extra but again I'm selling at expensive and all so I mean I'm fine taking a loss I don't I do it for to make a living yes but I not I don't expect to be a millionaire or be rich on any of this I'm doing because I love what I I'm obsessed and I love what I do and some months I make no money some months I make some money so it's like if I can make if I can make one person excited about what I have and they they want to learn more from me I will I will respond to every single Instagram DM I ever get and I have unless it's some spam weird thing you know so it's like I I just I have a passion for it and I'm happy to take a loss to share the passion for it and give the best chance at someone succeeding with what I'm working with so that's just I don't I mean the jars cost me like seven bucks each I mean I'll bake it into the price of the lizard I'll take the loss on it I don't care it's just just it benefits the lizard it benefits the keeper uh it benefits everyone in the long run because if they have a good experience with that first one they they'll remember my name they'll follow my Instagram they'll take my card they'll message me in a year for more and then they'll become like me one day you know it all starts somewhere yeah exactly well let's let's wrap up finishing talking about the the social media side because you do have quite a large Instagram following and I'm not sure what you're on Tick Tock but I'm sure it's it's probably decent as well and so how did the social media get folded in were you always someone that was quite strong in social media or how did that develop yeah so I've always been into social media I mean it was it was my uh full-time job before uh for a few years yeah managing social media accounts but I still do it here and there just like I said lizard breeding doesn't always cut it so I have backup part-time stuff that I still work for other people when I have to and I still do photography and stuff as well um but um I've always been into the social media and then just recently I decided you know what I really need to push it if I'm gonna if I'm gonna sell what I'm selling uh just to make them popular because there's no other way I mean it's just the age we're in and uh but it's a a beautiful thing because there's no other time when you could have reached as many people so easily so it just uh yeah I've always been into it I've been um the Instagram I really only started pushing it the past like few months and it's grown a lot like uh probably in the last few months I've tripled my followers which is cool so it's cool meeting people at exposing last Expo last weekend was the first time ever someone ever wanted to take a picture with me I'm like yeah I'll take a picture with you but I mean I just post the lizards on my hands it's like not a big deal you know it's not like I do anything it's like someone had me sign my business card I'm like and they're kids and I'm like oh man I feel this is wrong but it's funny because of that especially the younger generation they see the number of followers and I think you're around 80 000 followers right now they they just see that it's just so much Social worth in that I know it's just it's like gold gold that's where someone gets their worth when like someone that's you know so much more experienced than me and has so much more under their belt gets no recognition like some of these old guys at the show that I talk to that were breeding this stuff like 40 years before I was born yeah you know what I mean I met them at the show and no one knows who they are I didn't even know who they were but they're so much more accomplished than me and I'm the one that a kid wants to take a picture with it's like yeah it just isn't what it is but it's just so funny that's how the world we live in so how did you go about growing it the Instagram so quickly is just being consistent with the reels basically making interesting things yeah so the main pointers I give to anyone and this will work for anyone if they keep trying and they eventually catch on it's really it's just catching on to patterns and every month it's different because they're constantly changing the algorithm but Instagram Works in that reels are obviously they're pushing so you're going to want to post at least a reel a day you can even post two a day if you're ambitious and it's good content I I don't think you should post content just post content it needs to be high quality I think quality over quantity always but um if you can get the quantity with quality you can do that too but shorter videos I think under seven seconds is ideal for Instagram and then you need a trending sound so when you're scroll unfortunately you're gonna have to scroll through reels you're gonna watch some reels to post a reel that does good no one uses reels everyone uses Tick Tock but you have to use it for a second go through reels and then in the bottom when it shows the name of the song or the sound if there's an up Arrow that means it's trending so you're going to want to try to use those if you can um you don't always have to you can obviously they have huge Library sounds but those if you just have a random video that you don't know what sound to use those are your best bet and then hashtags also definitely help um relevant hashtags that if someone sees it that they're interested in what you have then that will definitely help as well and uh shorter captions are usually better no big words uh big words that turn a lot of people away I mean I think the average person even adults at like a fourth grade reading level so if you can dumb it down that's ideal so yeah only yeah the only big words I use in my um captions or anything are the Latin names or scientific names of my animals and that's just for the people who um I will always get a comment oh what type of lizard is this even if I post the name in The caption so that I'll just reply it's in the caption so um yeah just keep it simple my the if I was to put it in one sentence if a if you can keep the attention of an eight-year-old the whole video then you're real will do good that's yeah that's funny I mean I I completely it makes a lot of sense to me and it's it's funny the way it I don't say downgrade but it but it is entertainment right it's just this very quick flashy interesting thing and and you know like you know your realtor have this beautiful landscape behind them of all the enclosures and that's what really attracted me to your page at first and and so there is a benefits to it but there's also the downsides of social media like do you do you think social media is a net positive on her pitoculture or do you think that you know there's because there's a lot of bad stuff on there as well yeah well I think it isn't that positive because without it I mean just look at over covid how how many people just got into reptiles like before it was I feel like it was so much more Niche like you were kind of a weirdo if you were into them but now everyone just had nothing to do they were on their phones whether they whoever they saw with a snake or a lizard it just like the reptile shows have like doubled as many people as ever more kids more adults more like grandmas and grandpas that were on Facebook and they somehow saw a video of a snake so it's like I think it is a net positive because now so many more people are are into them whereas it used to be very Niche and uh but it does suck because sometimes there's videos of like stuff that um like if you don't explain a rack system uh everyone is so like what why are these snakes in drawers this that blah blah and um like like I said about the Expo if you have everything in tiny Deli cups everyone freaks out you know so I I just worry that stuff like that can negatively affect us in the future like if legislators just see that stuff and don't take into consideration talking to uh reptile Keepers and understanding the process um it can definitely be a negative but overall it's positive because just it gets so many more people into the hobby which I think um there's strength in numbers so the more people that are into it the safer we are from losing everything which I worry about that every day I mean I have little stuff I don't have reticulated pythons or giant water monitors or venomous stuff but still the second they make like like they were gonna make uh enter like shipping stuff across state lines illegal here I would have just made what I'm doing impossible right yeah yeah it's just scary but yeah so I think yeah obviously you know that there's a huge benefit there bringing people together there's also lots of the connection is one thing but education is as well you know you can show people how to do things and I think that's what your page does well you know that's where I learned about your jars for example you can see how that quality of somebody's care doing a breeding operation so that's really good but I also see this trend and I feel like this trend was first popped up on YouTube maybe like five or ten years ago and that was like the pet tuber thing where people wanted to you know get a room full of animals so they can have a YouTube channel and I'm not sure that's as popular anymore but now I see it moving to Instagram or Tick Tock right it's like animal mom or animal dad or something and you know you know going out and buying these things and you wonder because they're striving for that large following right they want that that social credit and you think well that's not the best use of this tool but at the same time you can see why they want it right you're famous to to a person if you have 80 000 followers yeah unfortunately I mean I still just don't understand why anyone would want a picture with me but you're famous yeah I guess so whatever yeah it's uh yeah so I mean we've got to take the good with the bad I guess but it is it is interesting and and I think that there is potential for social media to be to be quite positive and and obviously it's done some good stuff for us since especially in the last two years like you had mentioned is there anything else that we didn't mention today that you wanted to to mention before we wrap up um no I think I think oh if since we were talking about people that uh want to become want to breed stuff and maybe make a living from it or side hustle or whatever you want to call it um I think you should not necessarily focus on just one thing like don't just focus on one more Professor get-go but focus on one one aspect of the Hut don't get one pair of boas one pair of chameleons one pair of day geckos one pair of Turtles you need it you need to like focus on one like genus or just like desert lizards or tropical lizards or something or obviously you can just do all ball pythons or crested geckos or uh new Caledonian but focus on some just one genre basically that you can provide similar care so you're not getting lettuce for your iguana and then getting chicken for your water monitor and then getting crickets for your leopard gecko and then mixing crested gecko diet for your gecko you need to be if you want to make it something profitable and full scale and save time you need to focus on some stuff that all has similar care and it also helps you refine your um not only reputation but like what what people I guess yeah reputation what people know you for and it also refines your skill level with the with what you're working with so that you're able to better take care of what you have because you have more in-depth understanding of what you have since you focus on only that versus spreading yourself too thin I think it's better to be um master of one thing or maybe two or three things then uh then like being so so at a hundred you know what I mean I I just think that's the way to go if you want to be successful with it and I think that's what most people that are successful with breeding stuff they've they've narrowed it down to a few things and they really focus on that stuff and that's when you will be successful and it's the most rewarding because you understand what you've done has an impact rather than just producing one pair of one clutch of ball pythons a few La a few leopard geckos here and there I think it's it's more rewarding when you can actually make a difference and you see what you're doing pay off in the long term with uh I'm just rambling now but with stuff that all makes sense and is coherent that's just my opinion no I think that's a really really good point is it gives you an image so people think a nulls are going to think you if they think you know your mastics are going to think Philip leads through you know it's just that's just what's going to come to mind it's like for Phil he he has a whole place that is set up for euromastic exactly and it worked perfect and he doesn't he's not trying to keep you know crested geckos in the corner and have AC running on them so they don't cry you know so it's like and this room is 82 degrees and you know it's probably 90 humidity but it's uh I I can't keep you know I used to keep a brony I can't keep Brony in here so it's like you just have to focus and uh yeah just like Phil and all the other guys that are like that are keeping specific stuff it just works better that way yeah well and you you kind of make a good point about you know running to the grocery store or running here you know you would end up like sort of nickel nickel and diming yourself to death by spreading yourself so thin trying to do all these different things so it does make a lot more sense to be perfectly streamlined and you know work with a specific area so that's a great Point can you let everybody know where they can find you online any of the social media and I'm not sure do you have a YouTube channel I do it's small but I do okay yeah let everybody knows yes so you can find me on Instagram Tick Tock and YouTube at herptime h-e-r-p-t-i-m-e herp time excellent awesome well Armin thank you so much for for being on the podcast thanks for doing a great job in in the in your reptile breeding operation and showing the world how enriching and and uh wonderful this this world of this you know the breeding side can be so I really appreciate your time today thank you so much for having me it was a pleasure hopefully we can do it again soon absolutely definitely all right that is the end of that episode Armin thank you so much for joining me I really enjoyed our conversation and as I said in the episode and I've said many times before I think promoting smaller species and having somebody like yourself promote smaller species is a going to be key for us in this hobby we want to show people that we can provide a ton of space and enrichment for our animals and it is just so much easier to do that when you're dealing with a three or four inch lizard than when you're dealing with a four or five foot lizard you know when somebody from who is not in the hobby if they can look at your enclosure and see a huge amount of space branches and live plants and see the small lizards running around and jumping and acting naturally that is a lot easier to convince someone that this is appropriate and ethical than looking at a small a giant monitor in you know a four or five foot enclosure right it's and I'm not saying that if you keep monitors you're doing a bad job but I'm saying it's much easier to promote and keep ethically if we have smaller animals and that's what I love about what arm is doing if you are looking for more information on this podcast make sure you head to animalsath homenetwork.com if you enjoyed the episode share it on social media comment on YouTube let us know what you what you thought of the episode what would you ask Armin if you had the opportunity to ask Armin because I'm sure I can convince him to pop into the YouTube comments and ask any questions or answer some questions if they do pop up if you are looking to help support the podcast financially which I am very very grateful for everybody that does do that you can do that at patreon.com animals at home thank you so much to custom reptile habitats for sponsoring this podcast again the affiliate link is in the YouTube description or the show notes if you make a small purchase through that link a small commission comes back to me at no extra cost to you and again if you want to watch this entire room transform into the incredible podcast slash reptile room or podcast Studio reptile room that I know it will be then definitely subscribe on YouTube so you don't miss any of those video updates and that is it for me this week I will talk to everyone next week seven to eight days the usual time frame we're back into releasing episodes on a very consistent basis so I will see you then

Channel: Animals at Home

Views: 9,334

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Id: EpTszjFs9Gg

Length: 75min 5sec (4505 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 19 2022