Brian Barcyzk - My opinion

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Agree with Sdaji 100% here.
Another one on the BB hate campaign.
I dont know how the guy gets out of bed every morning when every "wanna be" reptile keeper around the globe takes pot shots at him.

There are plenty of dicks out there who deserve attention but everything Brian does is scutinised to the point of insanity...
When you have had 20 years or so of keeping different species and done as much for this hobby as Brian has then feel free to be critical. (If you can support that criticism with some evidence to back it up).
 
I don't think the original post was an attack, just a statement of personal opinion. With a view to starting an open discussion about the housing and care of animals in large commercial collections.

If I state my opinion, and my opinion is that you are stupid, doing something wrong, doing something others should disrespect, my opinion is that people should disapprove of you, or anything similar, it's fair to say that my statement of my personal opinion is an attack on you. Negative criticism is a form of attack. I don't mean to play that up, but if you want to cry that you're being treated harshly after being harsh to someone else, it doesn't really hold weight.

This whole "It's just my opinion" nonsense is meaningless and just used as an empty decoy strategy or to justify being wrong as being okay.
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@Sdaji Brian puts himself out there and that's why people say stuff about him. It wasn't an attack on him and I used him as an example because he is the only large scale breeder I am very familiar with

And the way you started your original reply was straight away on the attack

You also put yourself up there by starting this thread. You are happy to attack someone else from a position of basically no experience or knowledge, but cry foul when being called out yourself.

Yep, he puts himself out there, people talk about him, that's what we're all doing here. I don't think he has a problem with that, I don't fear for his feelings. He's a nice guy with clearly thicker skin than you have.

You make a clear attack on someone and defend that.

Hey, here's my opinion, and it's not an attack, it's just a statement of opinion. You don't know what you're talking about, you're being silly, you should learn more before criticising, your assertion that having kept one single snake for 5 months doesn't mean you only just recently got into snakes is completely stupid, you made an attack, you are a hypocrite for happily dishing it out buy sooking when being called on it, you are cowardly by hiding behind the pathetic 'it's just my opinion' nonsense.

All of my words in this post are my opinion, thus, by your standards, they are not attacks.

Haha, when I phrase it in your terms it even actually reads like an angry attack!
 
@Sdaji Brian puts himself out there and that's why people say stuff about him. It wasn't an attack on him and I used him as an example because he is the only large scale breeder I am very familiar with

And the way you started your original reply was straight away on the attack

With respect, if he is the only large scale breeder you're familiar with, I don't think it's fair to say his husbandry is wrong.

He makes videos for the love of his hobby (yes as well to advertise his reptile building, good on him.)

the only evidence you have shown on your claims are some "articles", and if I know which articles you're talking about, they're made by his competitors/ other people who want to get attention.
as you can see by this thread, posting your opinion of this scene gathers a lot of attention. I don't think I have seen Brian name and shame, anyone?

The hate against him started with him defending The spider gene and as you say it's his "opinion", let him have it and move on, look up some primary articles, from people actually going to his reptile zoo whatever thingy, go for yourself even. Lots of vids are picking out the negatives to make him seem all negative
[doublepost=1554789154,1554788614][/doublepost] This video is one of the biggest reptile morph creators and suppliers to America. Go find something to attack him about.

I post this one again Because it stands to my point that a lot of people are picking and just talking willy nilly, and people like this guy can debunk those statements in half a second.
 
Poor old brian B ,everyones into him ,next thing the vegans will be walking away with his snakes because they know better .
Okay, vegans are a bit extreme with their views
[doublepost=1554803081,1554802077][/doublepost]You guys are saying things that benefit yourselves. Snake tubs are more cheaper for breeders, and saying that snakes don't need human interaction or mental stimulation and just tolerate handling is actual bull in some cases. Ive seen and heard many cases of snakes interacting with their environments and using objects placed inside by the owner for mental simulation. I have also seen snakes that actually like being handled, they want to come outside and be with their owner. They also treat their owner differently to other people
 
i don't really care about tub systems, they can be done well. him stressing his animals out so they bite him for views, the time he let his monitor drop down 2feet? from it's arm(luring it out from it's enclosure, waiting until the monitor had it's frontal body down half way from the enclosure, then luring that part of the body back up just to lure back away from the enclosure to let it fall, all while recording when he could've either just not done it, or put his camera down and guide the monitor properly up himself, his lack of any regards towards the fish he brought other than the factor that they're "cool" without caring about how big they get (getting a common pleco for a very small enclosure when it was a baby, not knowing that it was capable of getting 2+ feet) keeping bluetongues in imo horrible conditions for breeding, letting his retic get mouth rot dating back over 3 years ago and denying any sorts of neglect to such an animal and then when more than a quarter of the jaw was off just saying "a little accident", ect.
him breeding the spider morph and defending the breeding with his example being miniscule while knowing that the spider gene can get MUCH worse than what he showed and can lead to the snake not being able to keep itself onto something, barely being able to eat and at times needing assistance eating and so on.
i don't necessarily like his rack systems either though, anacondas, tree boas, etc shouldn't be kept in the dark with no uvb, and i'd definitely either call such neglect or abuse. (i'm not against rack systems in general, a lot of species thrive with racking systems, and well made rack systems with uvb etc are able to hold even more animals, but his are not a prime example of a good, or even decent racking system.)
 
i don't really care about tub systems, they can be done well. him stressing his animals out so they bite him for views, the time he let his monitor drop down 2feet? from it's arm(luring it out from it's enclosure, waiting until the monitor had it's frontal body down half way from the enclosure, then luring that part of the body back up just to lure back away from the enclosure to let it fall, all while recording when he could've either just not done it, or put his camera down and guide the monitor properly up himself, his lack of any regards towards the fish he brought other than the factor that they're "cool" without caring about how big they get (getting a common pleco for a very small enclosure when it was a baby, not knowing that it was capable of getting 2+ feet) keeping bluetongues in imo horrible conditions for breeding, letting his retic get mouth rot dating back over 3 years ago and denying any sorts of neglect to such an animal and then when more than a quarter of the jaw was off just saying "a little accident", ect.
him breeding the spider morph and defending the breeding with his example being miniscule while knowing that the spider gene can get MUCH worse than what he showed and can lead to the snake not being able to keep itself onto something, barely being able to eat and at times needing assistance eating and so on.
i don't necessarily like his rack systems either though, anacondas, tree boas, etc shouldn't be kept in the dark with no uvb, and i'd definitely either call such neglect or abuse. (i'm not against rack systems in general, a lot of species thrive with racking systems, and well made rack systems with uvb etc are able to hold even more animals, but his are not a prime example of a good, or even decent racking system.)
These were my points as well
 
You guys are saying things that benefit yourselves. Snake tubs are more cheaper for breeders

I dont see any difference in the cost of keeping in enclosures or racks and I have several of each to compare. (And I actually breed in nothing but enclosures just for the record) And while on the subject, without breeders finding ways to absorb/reduce costs you would never be able to buy that little noodle of yours that you paid peanuts for.
Get sick to death of hearing this argument from people who argue the toss over $20 when buying from a breeder.

It will be appropriate for me to use a quote of Brians here. If i put as much time and energy into anything else I would make a **** load more money than i do from breeding snakes.
Very few people make decent money from breeding snakes and unless they breed decent numbers they wont even cover their costs.
 
I dont see any difference in the cost of keeping in enclosures or racks and I have several of each to compare. (And I actually breed in nothing but enclosures just for the record) And while on the subject, without breeders finding ways to absorb/reduce costs you would never be able to buy that little noodle of yours that you paid peanuts for.
Get sick to death of hearing this argument from people who argue the toss over $20 when buying from a breeder.

I think this is a key point. Lets be honest, reptiles are too cheap. They're living things and selling them off for $20 each is poor statement for the health of the market and the health of the animals being sold.

I'm not proposing a solution, the reality is breeders probably wouldn't make any more money raising their prices (due to demand falloff) so we're stuck in this situation. :(
 
Sounds like the post of someone who recently got their first snake, probably has very little experience, and has an axe to grind for some reason.

I'm not going to endorse his handling, but I think we're just getting a little bitchy if we attack a foreigner because we don't like his handling technique. There are better things in this world than how someone else handles. Some are better, some are worse, some are just different, whatever. I am certainly more gentle than the average keeper, he is probably a bit more rough, but his animals thrive, we can't argue with the results. They can't be too stressed. Don't lose sleep over it. The medical system over there is not socialised like in Australia, so if he's bitten it's his problem. Much more than in Australia, his body, his choice. And yes, some snakes are more prone to biting than others. If him getting bitten by tree boas gives people the message that tree boas are not a good snake if you want something to handle without being bitten, I'm struggling to see a problem.

Snakes don't need human interaction. They don't benefit from it. Don't lose sleep over this. After keeping snakes for most of my life (I'm 40 next month, ouch!), dealing with a wide range of species from elapids, pythons, boas, colubrids, vipers (no, none of the exotics have been in Australia) I've been surprised at what works best for most species. My first enclosure had rocks and wood and fancy substrate and three heat sources etc etc, and it worked really badly. Of all the different methods I've tried, the one which snakes get feeding best in, which presumably means the snakes are happiest in, is even more simple than what Brian uses! I don't even generally describe it to people, partly because they'll think I'm lying and partly because it does take a little more skill to get right, but the next best thing is a small tub (smaller than recommended so they feel secure), a water bowl, paper substrate and yep, no hide. For newbies who don't fully understand the situation and for whom I don't have an hour or two explaining things to, a larger tub with a hide usually works okay. And also, this is what everyone else recommends so if I don't say anything unconventional I can't be blamed when things go wrong. But if my goal is to make a snake as happy as possible to get it to feed as well as I can, I will use a setup similar to Brian's but slightly more simple.

I'm not sure about his quarantine situation. I personally think it's important to quarantine, but in all the years I've been interacting with reptile people, I've met maybe half a dozen who actually do practice quarantine. Many many claim to, but most of them only pay lip service, most of the rest try but don't actually achieve anything (very few people understand what genuine quarantine involves), and just a very few actually practice it. I personally put a huge amount of effort into quarantine, but if Brian doesn't it just means he's like virtually everyone else.

Obviously someone with thousands of animals will have had animals die. You won't find anyone in the world who has kept thousands of animals and had none die. I've had thousands of snakes and I've had snakes die. I've never had a disease outbreak.

He doesn't respond well to haters? Wow, unlike everyone else who sends them chocolates and flowers and gift hampers? C'mon, what do you expect? He's actually a really lovely guy. He's not perfect, neither am I, neither are you, no one is.

As Brian would say, make today awesome and please do something kind for someone today :)
Good response John.

Sent from my SM-G955F using Tapatalk
 
You know people know what they're talking about when they decide to attack a foreigner and include lack of UV for pythons in their reasoning.

Trying keeping thousands of animals and see if you never have a single case of any health problem. He doesn't have to share his experience with a mouth rot issue, but he's brave enough to share a warts and all version of his experience so others can see it. Virtually no one does that. I sure wouldn't, because despite what people would learn from it, I'd either make some trivial mistake or some two week expert would bitch because I didn't give calcium powder to a Children's Python and start threads like this.

Enclosures and racks are the same price and efficiency? Are you even trying to kid me or just trolling yourself? How far from reality can you get and still type it out in a post?
 
You know people know what they're talking about when they decide to attack a foreigner and include lack of UV for pythons in their reasoning.

Trying keeping thousands of animals and see if you never have a single case of any health problem. He doesn't have to share his experience with a mouth rot issue, but he's brave enough to share a warts and all version of his experience so others can see it. Virtually no one does that. I sure wouldn't, because despite what people would learn from it, I'd either make some trivial mistake or some two week expert would bitch because I didn't give calcium powder to a Children's Python and start threads like this.

Enclosures and racks are the same price and efficiency? Are you even trying to kid me or just trolling yourself? How far from reality can you get and still type it out in a post?
you know people know what they're talking about when they call boas pythons. he *denied* mouth rot for multiple years and then when it had eaten off most of the lower jaw he still didn't except it as mouth rot, and said something along the lines of "just a little accident" i wouldn't mind how bad of a keeper of most of his animals he is if it wasn't for the fact that he is a huge role model for a lot of people into reptiles and was their first time seeing snakes etc as pets, was the first person that made them want a reptile, etc, but he is that, and him showing bad care and publically agreeing with bad care about so many animals just leads to animals being miskept by people who don't do their own research, and while the point that that's their fault is valid, that still doesn't mean he should continue to share bad info. i never mentioned anything about prices and efficiency of enclosures being comparable? i said that a lot of animals can thrive in rack systems similar to his with tub, and meant that a lot he has in those tubs shouldn't, and that there's also "rack" enclosures instead that would be able to hold a lot more animals, including the majority of the animals he keeps in tubs. yes, it would be expensive, but it would also be a step further in good easily available examples of better keeping, and i'd say he'd be able to afford at least one for the afore mentioned reptiles, considering how much he definitely earns from youtube alone...
 
@Sdaji Brian puts himself out there and that's why people say stuff about him. It wasn't an attack on him and I used him as an example because he is the only large scale breeder I am very familiar with

And the way you started your original reply was straight away on the attack

Welcome to the world of reptile keeper elitism, where you’re automatically right if you’ve been doing it for a long time or banging on about it enough.
 
you know people know what they're talking about when they call boas pythons. he *denied* mouth rot for multiple years and then when it had eaten off most of the lower jaw he still didn't except it as mouth rot, and said something along the lines of "just a little accident" i wouldn't mind how bad of a keeper of most of his animals he is if it wasn't for the fact that he is a huge role model for a lot of people into reptiles and was their first time seeing snakes etc as pets, was the first person that made them want a reptile, etc, but he is that, and him showing bad care and publically agreeing with bad care about so many animals just leads to animals being miskept by people who don't do their own research, and while the point that that's their fault is valid, that still doesn't mean he should continue to share bad info. i never mentioned anything about prices and efficiency of enclosures being comparable? i said that a lot of animals can thrive in rack systems similar to his with tub, and meant that a lot he has in those tubs shouldn't, and that there's also "rack" enclosures instead that would be able to hold a lot more animals, including the majority of the animals he keeps in tubs. yes, it would be expensive, but it would also be a step further in good easily available examples of better keeping, and i'd say he'd be able to afford at least one for the afore mentioned reptiles, considering how much he definitely earns from youtube alone...

He obviously knows a boa is not a python. You obviously don't have much substance when attacking someone if you pick on them having accidentally used the wrong word. I asked for a spoon when I wanted a fork, not because I don't know the difference, I was just distracted.

I'm not familiar with the mouth rot incident. If he got that one wrong then hey, he got that one wrong. By all means discuss that particular incident, try to do it nicely if he hasn't been nasty to you (surely you can agree he is a pleasant fellow, regardless of what you think of his keeping skills).

I never said you'd said anything about racks and enclosures. It should stand to reason that was in response to the person who made the comment relevant to the response (It was Paul's Pythons who made that sterling comment).
[doublepost=1554875157,1554875108][/doublepost]
Welcome to the world of reptile keeper elitism, where you’re automatically right if you’ve been doing it for a long time or banging on about it enough.

I really don't see anyone having made that claim.
 
I never said you'd said anything about racks and enclosures. It should stand to reason that was in response to the person who made the comment relevant to the response (It was Paul's Pythons who made that sterling comment).

my mistake on the rack/enclosure bit, as you didn't reply to anybody in specific but most of that message was aimed at me, i also thought that that was.[/QUOTE]

[doublepost=1554875157,1554875108][/doublepost]

I really don't see anyone having made that claim.
You've literally only ever kept one snake and only for a short time. I think that while you claim you can see things others can't, perhaps you can see that there are people who have been keeping many many thousands of snakes of a wide range of species and kept them 'thriving' for many generations over several decades, who perhaps can see things you can't.
Good comments for the most part.

I think one of the most consistent aspects of the people in our hobby is that they like to bitch and complain, but it's nice to see here that most people are being pretty level headed.

Especially when you just recently got your first and still only snake, you really don't stand in a position to be abusing others, especially those with far, far more experience than you will ever have.
Agree with Sdaji 100% here.

When you have had 20 years or so of keeping different species and done as much for this hobby as Brian has then feel free to be critical. (If you can support that criticism with some evidence to back it up).
i can definitely see how the thought of there being elitism driven by how long you've been in the hobby for exists, and people seem to usually use it to defend their's or other peoples actions or husbandry("oh well you've been in the hobby for less than me or this person, your opinion is less valid") but i don't see it as being done too much here, and i'd say half of the messages that could make somebody think that are valid here.
 
my mistake on the rack/enclosure bit, as you didn't reply to anybody in specific but most of that message was aimed at me, i also thought that that was.

Easy mistake to make, no worries.

can definitely see how the thought of there being elitism driven by how long you've been in the hobby for exists, and people seem to usually use it to defend their's or other peoples actions or husbandry("oh well you've been in the hobby for less than me or this person, your opinion is less valid") but i don't see it as being done too much here, and i'd say half of the messages that could make somebody think that are valid here.

I don't think it's unwarranted elitism to say that someone who just recently bought their only snake has no clue compared to one of the most experienced reptile breeders in the world. Of course the number of years and tangible amount of experience a person has had is not the only measure of skill and knowledge, but it's a fair, rough indicator. I mean, I certainly meet 25 year olds with more wisdom and knowledge than many 50+ year olds, so age doesn't correlate perfectly with wisdom or knowledge, but excluding cases of retarded people etc, you'll very rarely meet a 15 year old more wise than a 50 year old, and senility etc aside, you'll never meet a 5 year old more wise than a 70 year old. What we have here is a comparison between an absolute beginner with a grand total of a few snake months, complaining about someone with one of the highest snake year counts in the world! It's even more extreme than the 5 year old vs the 70 year old in a contest of wisdom.

Incidentally, if anyone reading is unfamiliar with the snake experience unit 'snake year', it's something snake legend Dave Barker came up with, or perhaps he adopted it from someone else and went with it. It's a pretty nice rough yardstick. Obviously not something particularly tangible or practical, but a nice conceptual idea.
 
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