How It All Started

[Wild~Touch]

Please share how you got into reptile keeping

Always had a fascination

A friend kept some reptiles

Your kids wanted a snake

My son wanted a snake from the time he could talk....LOL saw one in a pet shop in Melbourne and that was it

 

[apprenticegnome]

Always had a fascination. Caught and briefly kept baby beardies as a kid before releasing them. Kept Blueys briefly as a teenager and have a bit of a fascination with snakes. Got to love what this Country has before its gone. Australian history, native plants and animals are my interests. Your avatar is very cool by the way.

 

[Pythoninfinite]

When I was 5 (1953), a neighbour brought home a Western Bearded Dragon and gave it to me. I had no idea what it ate or anything, but not long after I got it I was turning over bricks in the backyard with the lizard on my shoulder, and disturbed a large centipede. The dragon jumped off my shoulder and attacked and ate the centipede, so we were off & running. I had it for about 3 years until the cat got it . That was my introduction to reptile keeping. Snake keeping was delayed a few years after I caught a large Dugite when I was 8 and my father found it in my room... The things you do when you're young...

Jamie

 

[Beans]

Playing with earthworms. I was really interested in how they moved without legs etc. Mum then got me a 5 year old spotty.

Was in year 6 at the time.

 

[xterra]

My family home backed onto the Logan River and my dad had a rule that we had to be out of bed at 6am on the weekends and out of the house......riding motor bikes, catching things whatever we wanted really.
Somehow we ended up with some carpets that i think came from the Yatala Lion park when it closed.
This is a pic I think was taken around 1984-1985 at the Australian Reptile Park.

 

[sharky]

My dad got me into reptiles from a young age. I think I was about 2 when it all started....days of watching the crocodile hunter, reading reptile books, watching documentaries, drawing reptiles, going to see the reptile exhibits in wildlife parks/zoos, buying me an abundance of reptile softies/toys as well as clothes and my most favorite was going hunting for geckos at midnight/early morning in the bush when I was 5. I loved it. We would walk to big gum trees, dad would gently left the bark away, shine the torch and reveal a beautiful little gecko every now and then...or a big huntsman spider Either way I loved it!Sometimes in the early morning we would see a brown or an RBB sunning himself on a large rock...dad always made sure we kept our distance and scooped me up when we saw one just in case.

Then for my 6th birthday, he bought me 2 beautiful Bearded Dragons. I was so excited and it was by far the best present I had ever received. Ever since then I've been hooked. My Beardie boy is coming up to 10th Birthday this year....unfortunately Miss Dragon passed away 3 years ago from cancer...I was so devastated but she's in a better place now. It seems so much longer than 3 years that she's been gone

 

[Schnecke]

My brother.

His coastal is coming up on 11-12 years old now and has always been a great snake. My ex partner wanted a snake and I took the plunge with him and 3 years later, shockingly enough, I still only have ONE reptile.

 

[Wing_Nut]

I caught the bug from Jamie [MENTION=1228]Pythoninfinite[/MENTION]. A big shed in the perth hills full of snakes and a noisy Macaw (I already had the bird bug anyways) was all it took.

 

[insitu]

I saw the prices on the internet and thought "thats the game for me"

 

[Aelodrea]

Ive always had a fascination ever since i was a young girl, i begged my parents for one and we almost did but they never got one cause they were too lazy to set it all up properly.
Then one day in about year 4 a school mate brought over their childreni and that sealed the deal for my love of pythons.

And last year around April i finally got my first, a cape york jungle. Ive never been happier and looking to get a woma in the near future.

 

[Jimie]

I hated all reptiles with a passion as i was extremely scared of them so scared I wasn't able to put my feet on the ground when sitting on a couch, I also couldn't watch them on TV without having nightmares as I had nearly been bitten by a red belly as a 13 yr old kid, it wasn't until a mate of mine gave me a spotted python and told me to look after it or he'd beat me up that i realized they aren't as bad as people make them out to be, now i'm just a little addicted and have 17 scaly friends.

 

[hayden123113]

I'm absolutely loving this thread, despite out diversity we all love reptiles. For as long as I remembered I've loved reptiles and growing up as a kid every birthday I would ask my mum for one and nothing else, she would say no and ask me for something else, but all I said was a snake so she had to choose her own present. Finally when I was 12 she said yes and I got my first diamond python, started building up my small collection over the years and had 3 awesome snakes then had a house fire which unfortunately there was no survivors. But only now only about 14 months later I have 2 snakes a beautiful woma and olive (who is growing so fast I can even believe it)and ridge tail that has revealed I have a soft spot for lizards too. Mum now likes reptiles but has started saying no again as she will be the one taking care of them for me when I cant because of I plan to go to Uni.

 

[Senator358]

We lived next to a rental property and one of the tennants had snakes. When he moved out I went through the bin and found a dugite preserved in a jar. Had it for years and couldn't stop staring at it. We also had a blue tongue that lived in the backyard near the pool eating the strawberries. Used to watch him and pick him up occasionally. That was as far as it went until I grew up and moved out because my parents didn't like reptiles.

 

[GlenyseT]

I'm new to reptile keeping but have always loved finding lizards while out bush walking. Pythons fascinated me but scared me at the same time. I started volunteering at a zoo and had the chance to complete an animal handling course so I could do meet and greet and hopefully teach visitors about reptiles. I fell in love with the zoos pythons and recently decided to do some research and get my own. I've only had my hatchling children's python for about a month but I'm hooked. I won't be rushing into it but I can see myself getting another before too long.


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[mad_at_arms]

Spent time as a young kid on the riverside catching water skinks and stuffing them in my shirt (Dad wouldn't let me keep them) as i collected them.
I had 14 inside my shirt one day. A slow day fishing was a good day herping for me.

 

[AllThingsReptile]

Always spent the spring/summer months catching small sp. of skinks as a little kid, would carry them around for a couple hours and let them go..
We lived about 50m from the murray river and behind the house was a floodplain,
when i was about 11-12 i flipped a piece of tin and there was a juvi red belly curled up under it, after about 15 minutes of carefully pinning its head and trying to pick it up, i took it back up to the house to show the family and was yelled at,
but that started my love for snakes, from then on i was always out looking for red bellies (being on a floodplain, there was an abundance of them).
For my 14th birthday i got 2 Beardies, after a huge amount of begging and pleading,
4 years on and i have my first snake (Darwin Carpet), and some blueys and cunningham skinks.
But ever since that first little red belly, they've always been my favourite snake, and probably always will be

 

[GeckoJosh]

Grew up in the City until 4 then moved to a bush property in Blue Mountains NP, after seeing my first Mountain Dragon (I used to call them geckos lol) I was hooked.
One day not long after starting school I found a common froglet under a rock in our garden, I thought it was the coolest thing on earth having never seen a live frog before, then I was hooked line and sinker!
I remember when I was about 7ish a kid in my class brought in 2 Green Tree Frogs for show-and-tell, I hated him so much lol, lucky little *******
I kept various local species in a pit.pond area in our yard until I was about 10 then we moved and I let them all go
After moving there was a gap of about 10 years where I never lost the passion but focused on other things such as girls, school/work, girls, skateboarding, girls and other teenager stuff lol
I got my reptile license when I was 20, started with 1 gecko, within a year I had numerous species of frogs,geckos and dragons! soon after I decided that it was time to finally get over my absolute gut wrenching fear of snakes so I bought a Jungle hatchy, I knew there would be no way my fear would get in the way of me looking after it properly so I forced myself to get over it, didnt take long cos within 2 years I owned 5 of them lol.

Since then I have kept many different species and I dont expect that to ever change

 

[KheaLouise]

Held my first snake a view weeks back and now getting my first childrens python hatchling tomorrow.

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[Justdragons]

Love dinosaurs.. Lizards were pretty close.. Rest is history.

 

[Gizmo101]

My dad rocked up home with a diamond which he bought from some idiot who wasn't caring for it properly. He have it a bigger home and fattened him up to condition and we had him until I was 14. I thought it was so cool I wanted to do everything with it, so my dad taught me how to care, handle and maintain it. Then after he died I got my own license and snakes.


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