What Makes A Good Reptile Owner?

Posted by Sarah on July 11, 2008

What do you think makes a good reptile owner?

I think that you have to be prepared for your reptile - reptile owners need to know the care requirements for the reptiles they are going to get, have an appropriate cage for their adult size, and they need to have a realistic idea about how big the reptiles will get.

Care Requirements

Many reptiles have specific care requirements that have to be met, or the reptile will become severely deformed, ill, or die.

Ball pythons need a humidity range of 50-60% in their cage - if the humidity is too high, they can get respiratory infections just like humans.

Exposure to too little UVB light, and/or inadequate amounts of Calcium and Vitamin D can result in metabolic bone disease, or MBD, which leads to broken bones and may result in deformed backs, limbs, and toes.

These are just two of the many problems that can result from improper care of reptiles, and unless reptile owners do their research, they might not even know they are doing anything wrong until there is a problem.

Unfortunately, we can’t always trust the “people at the store” to tell us what’s best for the reptiles.

They might not always know, or they might not care, so it’s up to the owner to make sure that he or she knows enough about the reptile to make sure that the reptile will be provided with the proper care and requirements for the life of the reptile.

Size

Some people may think that they will be able to handle a burmese python that can get up to 20 feet long and weigh 250 pounds, but when their snake finally gets that big they realize that they can’t handle it.

Then they’re left with the problem of what to do with a huge snake that no one wants.

That’s one of the reasons that burmese pythons are invading Florida - and many people fear that they may spread to other areas as well.

Cages

People also think they can start out with a small cage and buy a larger one when their pet needs a larger cage, but it doesn’t always work out that way.

I can’t tell you how many people I’ve seen in my area asking for someone to give them a larger aquarium for their son’s lizard, or a bigger cage for this or that pet because their reptile is has outgrown the current cage and they can’t afford another one.

These people were not properly prepared for their pet, and now their pets are the ones suffering the consequences - and they may suffer for the rest of their lives.

Feeding Your Reptile

It’s also important to know what you’ll be feeding your reptile, how often it needs to fed, and where you’ll get the food from.

Our ball pythons eat about once a week, and since we ordered a bunch of frozen mice and rats it’s not a problem to get food for them.

Our chameleons, however, eat a total of 10 crickets a day, and there have been times when we couldn’t find enough crickets for them in the local pet stores.

We order our crickets from LLL Reptiles in the summer, but it’s way too cold to for that in Minnesota in the winter so we depend on crickets that we buy locally.

We’ve made the rounds of the stores that sell crickets several times only to be told there were no crickets left, come back on Tuesday, or Thursday only to come back and find there were no crickets because someone else bought them all, or they died in shipment. 

Are you close enough to your pet store to be willing to go there 2 or three times a week to get food for your reptiles if you need to?

With gas prices that high can you afford too?

Although most people won’t really be prepared for all of the challenges that come with owning a reptile until they’ve owned one, if they do their research they should be able to make a more informed decision about the reptile that is right for them.

What do you think makes a good reptile owner?

Is there anything that would make you say that someone should never own a reptile?