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Too many too soon?

wstphal

wstphal

working in the Gulag
David & I have been talking about this. Both of us have expanded rather rapidly. I'm not sorry, and I'm NOT downsizing, but I am reducing expansion plans.

My issue is that my place has gotten crowded with tubs. I spend a lot of time playing tub tetris instead of handling snakes, and the hand washing involved in feeding everyone without exposing anyone to anyone else is a trick and a half. My freezer is FULL of pinkies, fuzzies, hoppers, small mice, large mice and small ratties. I can't figure out how to wedge a frozen pizza in there, although my BFF will be able to when she visits as she is good at that stuff.

I guess I am just lucky in one sense. Everybody except Humphrey & Marbles the BP fits into the secret-snake-breeding-plan. But I am sure glad I don't have a clutch on the way THIS year because there is no way I could manage 10-20 newly hatched ones.

Anyway, I wondered what other people's experience of overexpansion has been, and how everyone has managed it, if necessary.
 
I went from 2 to 65 in a years time when I started..
just do within your means and all will work.
This an addiction after all.. LOL
 
I went from 1 to 30 in two years. If I could afford more I would have them. I remember one show we went to in Raleigh (2008) and my wife and I picked out 11 and brought them home. As for the freezer, I can relate to that! I have my mice in a small chest freezer now, but they used to be in the fridge/freezer. I just placed a $250 order for mice and have a mice rack in the storage building producing too. I used to have tanks everywhere, but I have went with racks now and my snakes have their own room(spare bedroom). They are much more convenient. I bred 3 corns this year and have 28 eggs in the incubator now. I plan one keeping 6-8 of them depending on morphs/sex and I have another 5 hatchlings coming in from breeding loans with friends. Next year I will be breeding around 10-12 pairs and who knows what that will give. I am not a huge breeder, but I think our stories are alike and I am just a year or two ahead of you.
 
I was told after three that I was done....then she started bringing them home. We are now up to 6 in just over 6 months. It's an addiction for sure.

The experience has been great so far, albeit big changes, fast. I'm now at a point of saturation of sorts. We're learning how to manage 6 effectively and still be able to handle them and treat them as pets instead of a ''collection.''

Until I win the powerball and make my physical space unlimited, 6 may be our magic number :)
 
From 1 to 3 in 2 weeks, then 3 to 27 in a year and a half. Then from 27 to 100 in a year. Now I'm at a more reasonable 75. With 2 lizards. And a tarantula. And a cat.
 
My colllecton has gone up and down and up and down. It gets even harder once you start breeding. Looking at past purchases and sales my advice would be to accept early on that you will never be able to have them all. There is just too many. This is hard for me because morphs tend to grow on me and many I didn't like years ago, I like now. I really do like them all. You just have to pic a few favorite morphs and concentrate on those and combos of those.
 
That's what I am trying to do, concentrate on GRAY. I plan to work with anery A & charcoal & variations, but not blizzards, snows, etc, GRAY. I have the genes I think I need, so we shall see. But I have definitely reached a saturation point for now. Maybe once I have racks like Nanci I will be ready to expand again, but not yet, and thankfully talking with David made me realize that BEFORE I bought the rosy & the hognose and all the other strictly pet species I want!
 
I've been working up pretty slowly, relatively speaking. This is mainly on account of my lack of money, but I am kind of glad that the money situation has forced me to more slowly acquire more animals. It gives me time to prepare mentally, physically (more cages, room, supplies, feeders, etc..), and financially. If I had double the amount of animals I have now I doubt I could afford to feed them all. I need to get rid of other financial obligations before I can afford to greatly increase my collection.

I have also found that for me it will probably be best to concentrate on a few select species. It makes me feel more focused, and allows my mind to fully concentrate on what I need to do. If I had unlimited funds I would probably have a plethora of different species right now, only to discover that for me I'd rather focus on just a few species.

So like others said, I think it's just a matter of keeping things within your means, however large or small that may be.
 
When we started - it was just going to be one or two in tanks. That expanded rather rapidly and we found that tanks are expensive and take up a lot of space so we moved to tubs.
We ended up buying those metal "garage" style racks at Walmart and we stack our tubs in those. Saves space and makes it easier to find everyone for feeding, cleaning etc....
Currently I have about 50 snakes I believe. I am comfortable where I am but know eventually with holdbacks from breedings there will be more.
 
As our corn collection keeps expanding we often get the eye-rolls and the 'don't you have enough snakes?' People just don't seem to realize how much easier it is to take care of a dozen snakes as opposed to a couple of dogs or cats. However, everyone's limit will be different. My boyfriend and I are running into issues with our all tanks and of course freezer space. So, we recently discussed what morphs we'd still like to get. We talked about getting a mini freezer, having another custom viv unit built, moving all the snakes into one room and how we'd arrange it. It seems our lack of space has kept our addiction in check...so far.
 
Marica said:
As our corn collection keeps expanding we often get the eye-rolls and the 'don't you have enough snakes?' People just don't seem to realize how much easier it is to take care of a dozen snakes as opposed to a couple of dogs or cats. However, everyone's limit will be different. My boyfriend and I are running into issues with our all tanks and of course freezer space. So, we recently discussed what morphs we'd still like to get. We talked about getting a mini freezer, having another custom viv unit built, moving all the snakes into one room and how we'd arrange it. It seems our lack of space has kept our addiction in check...so far.
Click to expand...

You don't REALLY need furniture. And seriously, who reads books anymore? Why have kitchen counter space when you can just order takeout? :grin01:
 
Since none of my kitchen counters are really big enough for anything other than baby-sized tubs, that won't work for me, Robbie! LOL
 
Oh I had a major burnout when I got around 10 new corns back when- I wasn't even sure I wanted to keep snakes anymore.
Thankfully we made arrangements and the corns left my possession... and I have been far more careful with what and when I bring new snakes.
As you progress, your capacity to bring more snakes grows... but do so sparingly, and make sure you can actually handle the load.

To be honest, I am not sure I would have been keen on keeping many colubrids as I would Boa constrictors... the constant pooing is a pain beyond measure... and it can become too much to handle quickly.
 
I've been stuck at 2 for a couple years now and will stay at 2 until I can find myself a black milk baby. That will be the all I will add to my family. I have my snakes strictly for pets and won't be breeding them so I know I will maintain a very small group here for a long time.
 
I started with 2, 3 years later bought a 3rd, and then last year bought 20+. Right now I'm sitting at 22 as I've bought and sold a few over the past year. For me, growing quickly hasn't been so much of an issue as the fact that at first $100 for one snake sounded like a ton of money and I didn't want to spend that much. So I wound up buying some less expensive morphs and some great deals. Once I REALLY got in to it, ie, matchling up potential breeding pairs, figuring out what I really liked and wanted to produce (do I really want a matching pair that will only produce 1 morph, but produce it reliably, or would i rather have 2 different morphs with some matching hets?), I had to focus the collection a bit. And my husband built my rack so that it would hold 18 adult tubs, and since I mostly bought hatchlings I could house more like 24, and wound up with too many. I will still need to either trim down a bit or build another rack. (hmmm)

The only thing I hadn't really considered until I received my recent order of mice is that 600 pinkies doesn't take up much freezer space. 300 fuzzies and 300 hoppers takes up a LOT more, and adults will take up even MORE. So I'll eventually either need a mini chest freezer or will have to place more frequent orders.
 
I'm up to 3 snakes, 2 months since getting my first. Due to apartment living, and not having the freezer space to order in bulk, I probably won't be getting many more until we buy a house somewhere down the line. I MAY get 1 more at the reptile show in July for my birthday though. :D

I totally agree though, compared to other pets cornsnakes are very low maintenance and practically odor-free. I love them! I am sure one day when I have a dedicated mouse-freezer I'll have many many more. XD
 
There have been so many wise words in this thread. Carol's dead right, it just isn't possible to have them all. Well, maybe if you have thousands, I guess it might be, but if you're reading this thread you're probably not planning to be one of the thousands-of-snakes people.

I've tried to plan well with an eye toward keeping space available for the large number of holdbacks I'll need to develop the look I want. I confess that if my husband hadn't put me on a "no new snakes" moratorium due to health issues at the moment, I'd be shopping for a few other adults.

Would I like to have at least a pair of at least 30 morphs? You bet. I know this isn't reasonable for me at the moment, so I'm not. Maybe down the road......

I think the secret to not overloading oneself is keeping one's goal in mind. Most people with more than single digits of corns breed them. It's so easy and tempting to pick up more pairs than you'll have space for clutches from. Bottom line: have what you can ENJOYABLY manage on a regular basis.
 
Personally, I've not yet reached that point...but based on my experiance from the tropical fish world I knew to look out for that 'addiction' that quickly sneaks up on you. When I was keeping fish, at my highest point I had 15 tanks...10 of them in my bedroom and 5 in various other places in the house. I was living at home, but the tanks were my responsability...the largest was 75gal, there were also two 33gal and a 55gal...the rest were in the 20gal- 5gal range. Thats alot of water, alot of habitat to keep healthy. It was too hard, and I ended up selling many of the tanks...which I still do not regret. I kept the big ones, and the fish I was very fond of. It was important to slim down BEFORE I got too burned. I still have five fishtanks...but they're easy to care for, and I keep them 'understocked' which helps when cleaning day comes.

As far as snakes go, I've got plans. I'm at the limit for now, but I know what and when I'm adding to the collection. The next pair will be in three months or so (as long as they dont sell...I dont think they will) and after that, I am after a granite and bloodred which I think will come from ACRE (atlantic canada reptile expo) in the late fall. That will be it for me, because after that the snakes I keep will be my own hatchlings. I know that there may be more to tempt me, but unless my tastes drastically change, this is what I have my sights set on. There will be no more snakes AT ALL PEROID until I get a rack and a sepperate deep freeze...both of these things are in the works.
I think, with enough planning, burnout is easy to avoid. Its a matter of being aware that its a possibility. I mean...you see people like Caryl up there(hi :wavey:), with the sig's full of snakes and you think "if they can do it, so can i!!" but your capacity for how many snakes you can care for grows with your experiance. Its hard to keep pace sometimes. :)
 
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