One of the things that has continued to keep the reptile industry growing has been online communities.  It is easier than ever to buy, sell, trade, and find information about different reptile and amphibian species, and one of the things that has improved upon that even further has been online communities. They have brought reptile lovers together more than ever and these online forums can be a great way for you to grow your knowledge, reptuation, or market as much as possible.  Here is my list and tribute to what I think are the top 10 reptile communities on the web!  Check them out and join today!

Top 10 Online Reptile Communities:

1. Cornsnakes.com – This is probably one of the most active and friendly snake communities on the web today.  A site mostly dedicated to the discussion of everything Cornsnakes, they also have plenty of members who have multiple snake species (like us!).

2. BP.net – Another online forum that is dedicated strictly to one animal, the ball python.  This forum is awesome and has some of the biggest breeders on the planet heavily involved in this forum.  If you’re looking for everything BP, this is the place to be!

3. FaunaClassifieds.com – Definitely the LARGEST Reptile community on the web!  This site has everything from the Board of Inquiry where you can find information on how a prospective buyer or seller does business, to the classified sections for just about every type of herp in the market, to the forums strictly for the discussion of different species.  This site has it all, just be warned, it can get a little hot at times between members and there are strict rules when posting to the BOI!

4. FieldHerpForums – THe Field Herp Forums are an amazing place to interface, learn from, and connect with other field herpers around the globe.  Bill Love and Donald Schultz frequent the site quite often and this is a great place to share and learn from other peoples’ experiences in the field!

5. ReptileGeeks – This is the MySpace for Herp lovers!  Create your profile, customize your wall, and connect with others.  ReptileGeeks has been growing ever since its creation and now features just about everything you can imagine when it comes to the Social Networking of Herp Lovers!

6. Twitter – Didn’t see that one coming did you?  Not exactly a herp-only site, but still a great way to connect and know what other herpers are doing on a day-to-day basis.  Know when @SnakeBytesTV is in the snake room checking out new eggs, or when @RuddockReptiles is in the field finding critters!  Connect with your best friends on and off the forums with Twitter!

7. VenomDoc – For all of you Hot lovers, this is another awesome forum created and moderated by Dr. Bryan Fry, the Venom Doc himself.  There is some great scientific discussion that is happening at this site and the latest venom research is always being discussed here.  It’s a great way to stay on top of the Hot world!

8. SnakeBytesTV – As the tagline says, it’s “not just a TV show”!  Brian has set up an awesome little forum at Ning.com to interact more with the thousands of fans of SnakeBytesTV.  If you haven’t caught this show, do it!  They give you a first hand experience of what its like to enter the working lives of the team at a big-time Snake Breeder.  Check it out!

9. Facebook – Another stretch, I know.  But, Facebook can be another great site to interface with the reptile community.  I know I get updates on Facebook from other breeders faster that I’ll get it almost anywhere else.  Another great Social Networking site that doesn’t just have to be for your everyday friends, it can serve your herpaddiction as well!

10.  RedTailBoas – A forum that I just found and began tuning into, this is another breed-specific forum that has tons of great information and members that span the globe.  Definitely give it a glance, especially if you’re looing for everything Red Tail!

These are just some of the hundreds if not thousands of herp related networking sites on the web.  Got a favorite you’d like to share?  Ping me with a comment and let me know what community you’ve grown to love or hit me up on twitter and facebook!

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So I was at my local Petco the other day to  get some supplies for my cats and dogs and, as always, I decided to walk past their reptiles section and just see how their animals were doing.  I always feel bad for the poor animals and I know that big chain distributors like PetCo and PetsMart are touchy subjects in our industry, but I’m going to address this anyways.  As I was walking past I noticed that almost all of the corn snakes and ball pythons had gone through bad sheds and some looked like they probably had multiple eyecaps still attached.  Now, most days I’d walk away, but I guess the mood caught me just right or maybe I read the right Bible verse the other morning to make me want to stop and do this.  Instead of just walking by, I decided to ask if I could “see” one of the animals in the display cages.  The store manager immediately bounded over and started talking about how well they were eating and asked if this was my first.  I stood firm and just answered with polite answers that didn’t give too much information about my intentions, but just asked if I could see one of the animals.

After she got out the only snake that looked healthy and handed it to me, I asked if I could please see the other snake (the one with the poorest shed) and she explained to me that she had trouble getting it to eat so I probably didn’t want that one.  Again, I didn’t say anything and after a few moments of inspecting the animal, I asked if I could have a spray bottle of water please.  She didn’t seem to know what I was planning on doing, but she ran off and grabbed a water bottle for me.  Needless to say, an hour later I had helped close to 12 different animals finish their sheds without any mishaps and was feeling pretty good about what I was doing.  Not only did the store manager stay and watch and ask me questions while I worked, but other employees walked up, listened, and asked questions as well.  By the end of it I was explaining the humidity needs of the snakes and how spraying them when they go into shed or offering a moist hide box would help them shed much better.

Now, given in most situation I’ve never experienced such a positive reaction from the PetCo employees when I’ve tried to correct mistakes or husbandry issues, but I’ve also never approached it in the same way I did in this situation and it made me think.  How often do the more knowledgeable in our industry scoff those who don’t know?  How often do we blame PetCo for all of the atrocities their animals face? And how often do we reach out and kindly try to approach them and teach them how to better the care of their animals and ultimately, improve their sales of healthy individuals?  Unfortunately, from what I read on most forums, I think that the last question has fewer “yes” responses than the others.

What I learned from this experience is that maybe we CAN make a difference when it comes to these types of establishments.  Yes, they are a competitor and take money from the small breeders like myself, but I’ve always preached that we should be in this for the animals and not for the money.  Doing the right thing pays off and in this instance I’ve been greeted with smiles ever since and in a month I haven’t seen another unhealthy looking animal.

Moral of the story: Next time you’re in PetCo and see some atrocious husbandry, don’t immediately scoff the negligence of those running the store.  Instead, try to educate them and excite them about the animals their caring for and approach it in a positive, polite, and somewhat quiet manner and see what happens, and this is coming from a guy who is banned from multiple PetCos and PetsMarts around the country. lol.

Until next time, try and get out there and make a positive impact on the herpetocultural world.  Whether it be as simple as removing a few eyecaps at a PetCo, or as elaborate as going to a school classroom or contributing to USARK, make it count!

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After fighting with WordPress for the past few months, I’ve finally decided to completely overhaul my database system and start new across the entire site.  So, Payton’s News, The Field Blog, and Chase’s News are all starting fresh and will hopefully be running better although I’m still having issues with the plug-in NextGen.  Anybody else running into issues with that one?  It’s driving me nuts!!  It’s a great plug-in, but if it isn’t working and it’s completely shutting down my blogs, what are you going to do?  Guess I’ll just have to find another one, any suggestions?

Anyways, keep checking back as I’ve got to update the entire colony when it comes to new pictures and just posting what we’ve got here in the dungeon. *Hint*Some pretty sweet new corn morphs!! *Hint*

Check back again tomorrow for more updates at Ruddock Reptiles!

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