I guess it all started out when I was young, just like any one
else in the herp trade, I used to catch all kinds of snakes in
our back yard of Weare, NH. There were garters, grass snakes,
toads, huge bull frogs and leopard frogs, newts, you name it.
And that pretty much continued on until we moved to Florida when
I was 11. We moved into this house that had a big ground-level
planter that was about 4' square inside our screen porch. So my
dad had decided to turn that space into a large terrarium. We
made Plexiglas walls about 4' high, put in a waterfall, a couple
basking spots, rocks, the whole shebang. We had two green
iguanas, a collard lizard, and red eared and map turtles. They
all got along fine for a couple months, but one day I came home
and found that the collard lizard had been eaten by ants. Then
the iguanas found a hole in the screen and got away. Then we
sold the rest because we were moving again. So anyway, I kind of
lost interest because we no longer lived in the woods like we
used to, and it was hard to stay into field herping when there
was no where to go.
At age 15, my girl friend, Joanna, became interested in
owning a turtle. She
had always wanted her own pet, and I remembered my old map
turtle had been one of the coolest pets I had ever had. So
that's what she got. Then my brother, 11 at the time, wanted to
get a turtle also. So Joanna and I started looking up turtles on
the internet, trying to find the best one for Josh, because of course, I
would end up taking care of it, and I wanted an interesting pet
if that were to be the case. We came up with either a spotted
turtle or a pink-belly. Both of which were too expensive. That
was when it all started...
All
of a sudden, Joanna had the great idea to
open a reptile shop, and sell almost exclusively turtles. So we
got to work, and found out what we needed to know; whole sale
prices, retail prices, average turtles per person in the U.S., I
called and talked to breeders, etc. I had it all set up. Then
Joanna and I made "Reptile Refuge" flyers to put all around our
schools (we went to different high schools). I got a couple
calls from people that didn't want their iguanas, turtles, and
all other exotic lizards. At this time, I had no interest in
bearded dragons or ball pythons. Well, or any snake for that
matter. Then I needed to get some spare tanks to keep everything
in, so we started going yard-saling. I got 10 gallon tanks for
$3, 20 gallon, long and short for $10, and even found this lady
that was getting out of the hobby and sold me over $500 worth of
tanks for only 85 bucks. Then Joanna and my parents came home
one day and brought two dragons with them: Pebbles and Bam bam.
They came with a 55 gallon tank and all other accessories. Also,
they came with a Florida king snake and a custom terrarium for
him - all for $90! So that really got me started. I tried
breeding the two new dragons, but only to find out they were
both males.... Not very successful... Then I found out my
neighbor had a snow and amelanistic sunglow corn snakes, and
decided I liked them too. By now, I was completely out of the
turtle fad and getting back into the lizards and snakes. Plus I
met two of the most helpful kids in school with the herping
because they had seen my flyers everywhere. They were Kevin and
Kyle. Kevin was the field herper and was into the colubrids
(along with wrestling alligators, but that's another story) and
Kyle was the ball python expert. Then I was the lizard man, but
I quickly became obsessed with their hobbies too. Soon I knew as
much as they did, even more is some cases. No offense, I still
refer back to them when things get too sticky.
I went to my first reptile show in Tampa. It was so
cool! There were all kinds of reptiles there! From colubrids to
pythons and boas, from monitors to iguanas and geckos. At that
time Joanna had been looking for either a chameleon or a gecko.
After looking through a couple booths, she dragged me over to a
group of fat tailed geckos. By the time we left, she had a
breeding trio of them. Of course, I was only going there for the
pictures, but we managed to leave with much more. When I had
gotten back to the car, I found my dad had gotten some new pets:
Achiles and Candy from Georgia Reptiles, who are staples in my
bearded dragon breeding stock today. He figured it would help me
out, and said they were his, but I could have the offspring.
Once I got home, I decided I wanted more bearded dragons, and
bought Star and Nova, my sunburst and blood dragons, both
females from Kevin Dune. The obsession grew.
A couple weeks went by, and I had been flipping through
corn snake pages all day, all week. Finally, I had found where I
wanted my corns from: Don Soderberg. His prices weren't the
best, but he helped me more than anyone else, and that's what
made him stand above every one else. He even sent me two extra
homozygous recessive double hets, which made an awesome breeding
pair.
Eventually, I needed another tank for the bearded dragons,
and I had found a 40 breeder for 100 bucks, but it came with a 5
foot ball python. No biggie, I figured I would just sell it
cheap, and it would almost pay off the tank. But I read up on
them, and got pretty interested. That's where Kyle came in. Then
the Clearwater reptile show rolled around, so of course I had to
be there, again, mostly for the pics. But once again, my dad
felt the need to lighten his wallet or something, but he bought
me 20 baby ball pythons. He didn't expect me to keep them, but
he did know I knew plenty enough to care for them. His plan was
to get me to practice selling animals, and to learn how to ship
them. All he really told me was he just wanted his money back. I
managed to sell all of them in just over a month, which I
consider pretty good for a newbie. After all that experience
handling the ball pythons, I decided to breed the 5 foot female
ball. After trying a couple of times, nothing happened, but it
was still early in the year. I tried to find someone with a
pastel male, but no luck. Me and Kyle made two plans: first was
to go half and half and get a nice breeding size pastel, and
then the second was to buy a juvenile lemon pastel each, then
trade opposite sex of offspring. We decided the second was the
best.
By this point, I have 9 snakes, and power feeding them
costs a lot. So I looked into rats. I bought 4 from the local
pet store and managed to get a litter out of each one. Then, one
day the A/C in the reptile room shut off all day. It got 95
degrees in there and 105 in the rat tanks. Every rat died,
except for one that had had a litter the night before and was
brought into the house. Devastated, I knew I would have to
re-build a breeding colony. I kept all four females from that
litter and Joanna raised them. I bought a couple hairless and
high whites and created my own breeding projects with them, to
really keep me interested. Joanna found rats, when home grown,
make the best pet rodent, by far. So my stock of them grew, and
now have between 20 and 30 breeders, which should yield about
225 babies a month. A little more than needed, but the corn
snakes eat f/t, so it works.
Now, I am running my own business and studying
JavaScript and Graphic Design, still and animated GIFs. I am big
into science, and all science is, is one man using another man's
work. The main objective of a scientist is not only to do
wonders himself, but to keep
stepping in the right direction, and hope one day someone will
take his place, and eventually make a difference. That is what I
try to do. I want to become the most popular reptile breeder (of
course) but also be the one most people will know as the one to
call if "something goes wrong". I try to add a page onto my
Information Page
every time I learn something new. I want to make sure
others get the information they want, as easy as possible. My
goal is to also create magnificent reptile morphs, be it bearded
dragons, ball pythons, and/or corn snakes. Please, Contact me by
phone or E-mail if you have any questions, comments, or
concerns. Or if you just want to talk reptiles, that is what I'm
here for. Please, check out my site and I would very much
appreciate any input, good or bad.
Storefront opened on
February 8th - come check us out!
Thank you for visiting ReptiCenter.com, and I hope you
find everything you were looking for!
Nick Isabelle 727-278-2055
nick@repticenter.com
& Joanna Johnson
