Taking the hobby too far – The Sequel


Many of you use this word in association with the keeping of animals.

Why?

I have hobbies, true hobbies as l consider them; reading, writing, films and the collecting of films [as some of you will know], computer gaming.

But the keeping of animals is not something in which l would class as a hobby.

Those that are in positions of opposition are infuriated by the mis –use of the word hobby when it comes down to exotic keepers! And tbh l can see why.

Surely a hobby is something which you can place down one day and return to another day?

This is not something that you can do with animals, they are or should be a full time responsibility.

As someone recently said to me "I see a hobby as something you do in your spare time that you enjoy - living with animals is a full time thing and more along the lines of a job for me"

Animals and the responsibility that surrounds the keeping of animals is just that, a full time occupation.

This leads to another line of thought, and in many ways encapsulates a thread raised by Andy B recently entitled ‘Taking the Hobby too Far".

In many ways l can see where Andy is coming from, in others l think he titled the thread wrong.

But how many animals does one keeper really need in their collection?

Seriously…..

How many is too many?

I read up and down this forum, keepers constantly, stating, l must have this, l must have that, just one more of this, and one more of that………………

Is it that the larger the collection of animals that you have the more you feel like a ‘real keeper?’

The more you have keeps you up to speed with the Smiths and Jones’s?
Where does a keeper draw the line?

When finances expire? When you ‘mature’ as a keeper?

How long can some of you continue to collect these exotics before the care angle is lost, is it just enough that you feed and water them?

What about environmental care?

Does this not matter?

What happens if through all this collecting you are not offering those within your responsibility the RIGHT care, the BEST care?

I have seen a few threads of late where upon l am convinced that certain keepers only see animals as ‘cuddlies’ as ‘living toys’.

FGS if you want a cuddly, or a toy, then buy from the appropriate source and not from a livestock producer – l hear digital animatronics is racing forwards in leaps and bounds now, and that virtually any animal is available via the right market!

I am sorry, but l am under no disillusionment with this market, although l fear many others are – l think in many respects the antis have it right – many keepers are not only abusing a simple word, but many others may be abusing those within their collections.


What are your views?

Rory Matier
TSKA-Rainbow - PKL:PKA

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I completely agree with you, ask for sticky

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Good post Rory

There are far too many within reptile keeping who keep animals as status symbols or simply impulse buy until the next big fad comes along then the 'regretful sale but need to make room for (insert species here)' adverts turn up.

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Do not walk behind me, for I may not lead.
Do not walk ahead of me, for I may not follow.
Do not walk beside me either, just f*** off and leave me alone.

There are more than a few people on here with collections i would class as unmanageable. There cant be any fun derived from cleaning out 40 cages all the time, is there time left for 'quality' time with the animals? Can you really notice behavioural changes? Get to know the personalities of the animals and what id deem as thoroughly enjoy them?

Financially how does one cope, both with food and electricity costs and vets bills. The larger the collection the higher the chance a vet will be needed.

I will only ever what i want, it isnt a competition. It isnt pokemon, you dont have to catch them all. As Grant said on here, if i cant provide the best possible care for them due to time constraints then ive got too many.

Unfortunately people who think animals as 'cuddlies' and 'living toys' are the people who end up abusing animals. That fill rehoming centres, that get meerkats in singles, feed the wrong food etc, these people are hurting a living thing through ignorance. Its deemed abuse if its a child or a human, but it seems to be brushed over if its an animal.

Would restrictions on collection size work? How would it be enforced? There are only so many hours in a day and there will get to a point where you cant care for a large collection with even that time frame, but do people stop? No. Whether it be pride, ignorance or just stupidity people with go on and in some cases see the animal die than admit they cant cope.

Well raised Zak,

Time, we all have 24 hours to a given day.

I run a business which involves working with animals and l thoroughly enjoy it, yeah it can be stressful - more so than some may realise.

Mostly the stresses come from the buyers and keepers rather than from the actual animals, but l enjoy it. I am still working with animals but from a distance. My responsibility now is making sure that other keepers 'get it right' and for my sins of being strict and hard l am punnished on more levels than most genuine keepers would want.

But this is a business and as such a client orientated business, which means that although my consultancy hours are 5 days per week at 12 hour days. I am on call seven days a week, and sometimes receive calls at 'unhealthy hours'.

I used to have a very large collection of exotics and commercial animals alike, which was also a business of production and supply.

The exotics l had on board were costly, and time consuming and at times heart breaking, financially expensive.

I gave this up, because tbh, l grew tired of running that type of business, l had been doing so for some twelve years and it makes you weary as a breeder, long hours, again heart breaking times, ruinously expensive and very taxing on other things - such as relationships, hobbies, social calendars, friends.

I ran a huge range of animals, some 60 odd species in total, now as a commercial breeder, you are feeding, watering and cleaning, then it was a seven day a week job starting from 7am and finishing at about 10pm at night. Then you slept! Then you started again.

Animals are a full time responsibility, always, no turn arounds, it has to be done, its a committment of your life into many other lives. Fail it, and you fail them.

The exotics were even more time consuming, because of the same as above, feeding, watering, cleaning - but also the focus was on environmental stimulation, the dietary was at many times very specific, the cleaning was also different - for it involved different substrates, interaction also was a requirement by some of my species.

It - in all - was very time consuming.

But in 2005 l had had enough, l was worn out.

It was not that l was tired with animals - far from it, but had become as said - weary, exhausted. I needed a change. But l had 12 years behind me, and a wealth of information. But there were other reasons for change:

New legislation, higher financing requirements, ethics, and so on - l was changing - l was becoming more aware of things on the political agenda - but above all l realised that - as much as l was providing my animals with the care that they needed - was l really providing the right care?

Was the commercial side of the operation really needed?

I stopped that side of things earlier in 2004 and was in the process of slimming down. But then l looked at the exotic side of my collection and realised that in order to really offer the level of care that was needed, it was going to be a very costly affair. So after much deliberation, decided that l would stop.

On the premise that should l recommence my own personal collection of exotics again, l would run a much smaller scaled collection, where upon l could dedicate much more of my time to them and really offer the RIGHT care and the BEST care possible.

Now l have Meerkats, Skunks and a host of smaller animals present with Nerys's collection and mine combined, we do everything possible to ensure that we have the right level of care with them, all catered to correctly, and even this is tiring, expensive.

So you see, this is why l look at others and l truly wonder, is everyone offering the right level of care to their animals?

As l change more so every week politically, morally, ethically, and look at the state of play in the market place, l still ask myself, are we really doing enough for our animals?

R

R

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Tbh If you had 500 but had the time, experience and money (and to know you have it in the future) to care of them i have no problem, its just people wo live ina flat and have loads, and this business of hidng large collecitons, if you were found out who would home them?

I have (exotic wise because i dont have to pay for my 2 rabbits and guinea pig's food and i have all teh time to handle and look after these) 2 GALS's, 1 corn snake and soon a crestie, and though the idea of a hognose is appealing, i have to tihnk realistically i wont have money or time for that, so i write it off, it seems omse people are unable to do this, adnt he people that go into a pet shop to buy food and come out with a new snake. Tbh Control yourself! I can!

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You are right, in many ways the crippler to various collections is impulse buying.

This obvioulsy happens with reptiles, and l sure as hell know it happens with mammals.

As said, animals are just so easy to obtain.

If not retail, then shows. If not purchases, then barters.

How many is too many?

How many diversifications of species does one keeper need to host in a collection?

It is tempting as a novice keeper l suppose to want to have 'as many different' species as you can.

R

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I used to have an unmanageable collection and I am not scared to admit that I was once a keeper who felt the more animals I kept, the more species I had under 1 roof, the more I became a "proper" keeper.

I found myself at a point with around 85 reptiles in the house, my dining room non-existent for vivs and equipment, my children being put 2nd for feeding and cleaning and the huge routine of reptilesm my bills rising and electricity running out faster than ever - then I also found my husband offering me the ultimate decision - him or the reptiles.

We talked a lot and whilst I knew I wasn't being realistic and, honestly, wasn't able to ofer 100% of the care the various species required, I had never thought of it before.

I suppose you could say I matured a little as a keeper and a person and realised I had to do the right thing by cutting right back. Many people, including some who I called friends, really stabbed me in the back over my decision and made me feel even more of a bad keeper but hey ho such is life.

Anyhow - enough of a babble off me!! I do get carried away at times hey!

I don't agree with keeping being classed as a hobby as it simply isn't - whether you have 1 or 100 animals, they are still a full time job and still need 100% committment. A hobby you can walk away from and forget for a few days - that isn't so with an animal.

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My personal opinion, regardless of if you should choose to call it a hobby or not, is that when you can no longer find the time to offer one to one with each and every animal you own, that is when it has gone too far. I admit that I have a lot of animals in what is a relitivly small house. However, I take the time, and spend the money to make sure that they all get the care they require. Every snake (within reason) gets handled, every gerbil gets a clean cage, plenty to chew etc. every dog gets time to play. Every day!

I devote a lot of my "spare" time to my animals, and admit that I often choose to stay home and watch my fish tank rather than go out. I prefer the company of my dogs over a lot of people, and as such I am more than willing to give them all the attention that I can.

I do have a large collection of animals by comparison to some, however, so long as I have the time to offer each and everyone one of them, I know that I've not taken it to the point where I'm keeping them for the sake of keeping them.

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Royal Pythons
1.2 - Albino
1.1 - Albino Het
1.2 - Axanthic
0.1 - Black Pastel
1.0 - Bumble bee
0.1 - Butterscotch Ghost
1.0 - Desert Ghost
0.1 - Honey bee
0.1 - Ivory
0.1 - Killer Bee
1.0 - Lemon Blast
0.1 - Lesser Bee
1.1 - Lesser Platinum
3.13 - Normal
1.1 - Orange Ghost
1.1 - Pastel
1.3 - Piebald
1.2 - Piebald Het
0.2 - Pinstripe
1.2 - Spider

Other Snakes
0.2 - Green Tree Pythons
1.0 - Emerald Tree Boa
2.2 - Reticulated Pythons
3.1 - Boa Constrictors
2.2 - African House Snakes
0.3 - Western Hognoses
0.1 - Brown Tree Snake
0.1 - Mangrove Snake
2.9 - Corn Snakes

Nilum Illegitum Carborundum

A hobby is defined in the dictionary as

There is no time limit, work amount, or cost that you can stick on something and say you're doing that 20 hours a week - it's no longer a hobby, it's a job.

People take their passion to the extreme. I think it's good that people are so passionate and so enthusiastic about their collections.

Can animals be a hobby? The thing is, because reptiles are not seen as emotive animals, they are more collectable, if that makes sense. They are often not family members as a dog or a cat might be, they are collections. I don't know if that's justifiable or not, as a business my opinions on large collections of reptiles are not necessarily the same as a private individual.

I do believe that more and more stress seems to be being placed on people to actually BREED their reptiles. Practically everyone these days wants to make some money off their pets - and in 90% of the time it is breeding to make money, not breeding for the love of it. If most people were breeding and giving offspring away, they wouldn't do it. The amount of keepers who are trying to turn their reptiles into moneyfarms is getting alarming. Those people are not experienced, they are not quarantining, they are buying to sell, with no protection for the animal or the buyer, and this is disturbing me greatly.

A hobby is a passion, if you expand your hobby because you want to make money off it - it is a business. A hobby and a business are very different things.

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