(upbeat music) - The show doesn't hit. - The show doesn't hit or it doesn't hit. - So you hit the record button and then once you hit the record button, the show will hit. - Oh, like now? Okay. - All right, welcome to episode five, '67. - Yeah. - Everybody puts on radio. And in this episode, we're talking short tales. Oh, and I know you've loved, loved, loved, loved. Short tale button. - I'm gonna watch Matt and Gee's eyes twitch every once in a while where I'm like, 'cause I still cannot get fornios and I can't, so. - Wait, you can't get what? You can't get it down like the difference? - Well, I know there's a difference. I know there is a difference, but if you show me something, I'm gonna be like, that's a great looking short tale and then Matt's like, it's fornios. Shit, like I can't. So, yeah. - Luckily for you, we have two of the best. Short tale breeders, ever? I would say. - I think they've given us that. They've explained it to me multiple times that I've just. - Yeah. - Yeah. - I don't even know why. I should've got the Lucas the villain. - I mean, you should've. I don't know why. This is kind of, this is your own damn fault. This is a mistake you made years ago that keeps happening. So, yeah. - So, yeah, so we don't have strictly shorties on the network anymore, but I thought it would be cool to get some other Python talk. And I'm always interested in the history of short-tailed pythons or just pythons in general. And I thought it would be cool to sort of talk about what it was like in the past with short-tailed pythons and now what it's kind of with short-tailed pythons. So, we have Keith McPeeck, who was one of the OGs when it comes to short-tailed pythons. And we have Matt Manatola, which is- - Carry the currency, of course. (laughing) - 40 okay, what do you think so? - When he sets up his table next to you, it is very impressive. And it's, and he's got all these different colors, patterns and stuff like that. And, you know, but- - Every time I go, so I make the yearly, what's the pilgrimage to Matt's place to help him sex the short-tails, which I just look at as an experience, just other experience of sex and pythons. But they're feisty little buggers. - Oh, they're horrible. - I mean, they're hanging there, just dip popping off. I mean, oh yeah. - Like the stripes, the, you know- - He's extreme, Jean Marvel. - The extreme stuff, you know. And I know he's known for the Borneos, but then you have like the reds that he has, you know, the stripes. - There's stuff that like if- - Amazing. - There's stuff in Matt's collection that I want. And like, again, the extreme, Jean Marvel is awesome. - You just, you know, short-tails at the beginning and now you- - No. - Well, no, I said that, that's extreme. Listen, if he, if I robbed this place, he'd know, 'cause the roughies would be gone, the bows would be gone, and then like, one more ago would be gone, okay? He'd be like, oh, and he's been here. This is, there's only one person who would do this and hit these and leave everything else. - Yeah. - So. - Oh, percent. - Yeah. - So we're gonna get into that, but before we do, do you have anything you have to get out of? - Not really. I mean, like, I know I have some animals up on my website. We're slimming down. I'm kind of burning through a couple of things to send out a box today. So. - Luckily, it's almost breeding season. - Dine up. (laughing) I, I, I'm sitting here thinking about that and I think it takes Callie Britik so much longer to hatch. So it's like- - 'Cause they're inferior. - Like, hey, whoa. So I have that and I'm like, all right, well, I'm kind of mucking around with these baby hypos that are starting to shed. And I'm like, we're in the stretch, we're into the whole car, it's July. What the fuck are we doing? Like, we should be, we should be in it right now. And the blue beauties haven't hatched yet, the rhinos haven't hatched yet, a clutch of Madhogs hasn't hatched yet, the Blondogs haven't hatched yet. So it's like, I'm gonna be getting things, do you still have all these clutches? - Wow. - Yes. (laughing) - That's all correct. - So I, it's like, the problem is that the back of my head is chewing at me, is that these things are gonna start hatching in August, September, October, when I should be getting ready for breeding items. And it's like, I really hope this doesn't screw me up here. Like, I just kind of, we'll see how this goes. - You're just never ending breeding snakes. - Never stops. - That's now your, that's your thing. - Yeah, okay. - And I told you we have like 30 something parents go in next year, so. - What's the top pairing? The most one you want more than all. - Besides the Rockies. - Team Wars. - Team Wars. - Team Wars. - Team Wars. - I think you can do it. I got faith in you. - I don't know where that came from, but okay. Like I, I don't know, I don't know how that, that's the misplaced, dear Lord. (laughing) - I know you can do it. You got it. That'll be cool. - All right. I guess if we don't have nothing else, let's just get into it. The history of short tail pythons in the hobby. Let's welcome Keith McPeeck and Matt Minutolo. Welcome guys. Glad to have you. - Glad to have you. - As always. - How are you? - How are you going? - So good. - So good. So why short tails? What's going on over there? (laughing) Of all the things. - Go ahead Matt, I'll let you take that. (laughing) - You want like what made me get into them? I mean. - I like did you see them in a book one? - Did you see them earlier before you got into them? Or was it like, you know, you didn't see them until it was far too late? - I saw a closet and I was like, that's a weird looking dirt whale. (laughing) - Yeah, that's a scraggy looking thing with a block head. (laughing) - It's a brown ass draft. - Yeah, what the hell, man? - It's an ugly ass creature. - Tunes, my ass. (laughing) - That's supposed to be red, what? (laughing) - You just got points with Nipper. - Yeah, it was good, yeah. - But yeah, so, you know, being in the reptile since I was five, playgrounds and boas catching my eye right off the bat from library books and everything, never saw a flutter short tail. So when I was, nobody was getting a house in 2002, like I was getting a house in 2003. I knew I wanted snakes. I knew I could get anything I wanted. So, I started going online. I had a computer going online and it came across prosotic site, which I can remember from reptile magazines and always remember their ads. - Yes. - And, yes, all blood pythons first. And they would take awesome, like group shots of adults and sub-adults. They put them all in like a big tote and their reds were, they had the prosotic red line at that time. So they were super impressive. I then I click Borneos, which I did say Borneo at first. I wasn't sure I was even finouncing that right. I mean, it's like, at that time, it just wasn't that stuff around. And their Borneos were nothing special. And I fell in love with the Borneos more than the reds. I knew I wanted both, but Borneos were just it. And what really drew my eye was just, I like their head shape. I like, by Borneos, you could see all the details in their head. A lot of the red bloods had like very charcoal and gray and blackheads, at least on prosotic site. And I just thought, the size, the girth and shortness of their body with the size of their head. And just looked, I always say it looked wrong, but in such a good way. I don't know, it was just such a weird thing to see. And yeah, I don't know. It's, we always say it. It's like some people are long, skinny snakes people. Some people are short fast snakes. You'll not that I don't like them all, but I definitely gravitate to the short facts for short. So, but yeah, that's what hooked me in. And then, sure, I guess, I don't know if you want me to get further into that. It was, that was 2002. I got my house 2003. That was not easy to find. And I was at Hamburg doing all the Hamburg back then, Pops Town Show, Lidded Shows. Right. Like I said, the first Hamburg show I went to, not one, not one there. At all, not a wild caught. Not even one to see live and in person yet. Like all I've seen these on is on the computer. And then the next Hamburg show, I found some. So, but that's how crazy it was. That's how low they're. I mean, now you don't see a lot of things at shows, but you definitely see short towels at shows. Like every show you go to, not only short towels and blogs, you're going to see some pretty nice ones, even at little local shares. And up into probably 2006, seven, you definitely didn't always see a short towel to show. Or it was like Hamburg because it started having a presence because me and a few other people were bringing it. If you went to Mars or Daytona, Keith was definitely bringing them there. But yeah, I mean, I guess some of the Midwest shows and challenge shows probably had nothing or next to nothing. Yeah. Yeah, you'll get a kick out of this, Matt, 'cause you'll remember this place, but there was a place called the Philly Pet Shop on Rising Sun. Yeah, 'cause we all felt Philly Pet Center, yep. Yeah, that's where I got my first short tail from. I think it was a, a Borneo, I think. I don't know, it could have been one of those, but you know, it just said it was a short tail Python. Well, the funny thing about it was I didn't even know, I think I seen him in that book, "Pythons and Boas," and it's like, I didn't even realize that that's something you could buy, and I didn't even know anything about it. I'm like, I want that, I'm taking it. I didn't do well with it. (all laughing) Before the Hamburg show, that was one of two pet stores. I think it was the first pet store I went to that basically they told me, you don't want them, you're not gonna be able to keep them, they're impossible, both of those guys, they were like brothers that owned it. And like, they weren't, like, I already heard bad things, like they weren't the coolest people, they were, I don't know what it was about back then. If you were like a reptile specialist, or you took care of reptiles, you just thought you were like the best thing ever. And you didn't even do anything really, I mean, so I would continue to go in that store, and it was a good store, but then the other one was radical reptiles, which was a real, which was on-- - I was up like a Northeast, right? - Yeah, that was just a reptile specialty shop. And that guy that worked there also was like, one of the guys who ran the Herp Society for Philly, there was a Herp Society, as I was coming in, it was like basically closing down, and that guy was even worse, 'cause he already breads off, and he was like, oh, if you wanna keep them, you basically, he would sell cypress mulch, because you need that cypress mulch, and see that one cage, you gotta have it float. And 92 degrees, there's swan snakes, they like it, you're gonna want the mulch to float, and then even then, they're just gonna bite you, and they're just impossible to keep, they're not gonna ever wanna keep them snakes. So I had a bunch of people telling me I don't want them, and it didn't discourage me, it maybe kinda want them a little bit more. - Yeah, yeah. - But the Philly pets that are wise, when I started getting them, and I was into them for a few years, and 'cause my first year and a half was a nightmare, with short tails, but they knew I had them, and all of a sudden, they were starting to talk to me, and he had these, well, at the time, you know, we'd call them black bluds, Sumatran short tails, and he said, oh, you know, he was, all of it on white lips, which is funny, like he was all about white lips at the time, and he'd always tell me about white lips, and then he's like, I think my second thing's gonna be these Sumatran, you know, black bluds, and I just was looking at a set up, and I was like, I was starting to say something, he's like, no, no, I got the perfect way to set 'em up, I don't wanna hear anything. And then two weeks later, when I went in to get something, he was like, well, what are you gonna say about the set up, and these things blow in bubbles, and what do you think, 'cause his set up was swamp, but there was, it was like spagnum moss, but I mean, you could see the water in the spot, like it was floating, and I'm like, that's gonna be a nightmare, you know? And I barely knew anything then, but I just knew that wasn't gonna be a good time. So, it was a strange time. - It's funny, I have a story about the radical reptile, to, what is it, reptile, reptile? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, I go in there, this is when I was first getting back into it, I wanted a Burmese python, and I went in there, and I was like, do you saw Burmese pythons, and he just gives me this whole, like, he just comes at me, full guns ablaze, and do you know what it's like to keep these? You're gonna have to have a whole room, (mumbles) just yelling and screaming at me, I was just like, you could've just said no. - She will know what it is, doin' it, yeah. - The guy's room was thin, and like I said, he bred some stuff, I think he kept like an alligator before. So, he thought, he was way worse than a trillion pets than a guy, this guy thought he was like the best. He really did it, 'cause when you went in there, he had a couple corn snake eggs hatch, and he had a little back section, and he had ball pythons breeding, a huge cage with a red light on, like, he was like, you can't go back there. Like, you know, if you take one step back here, they're gonna unlock, or whatever they're gonna do. So, it was, like I said, I know the early days, and especially pets to wear stuff like the fables, and all the lies people would say, and hell. - Oh, yeah. - And people thought they were, like I said, if someone kept something alive for a year and a half, they thought they were great back then. - Yeah. - So, it was a wild time. At least until it helped you. I don't know about other places. - I'm pretty sure ball pythons will breed in a bag, like, in transit, like, I don't, yeah. - I was gonna say back then, it was probably a lot more difficult, you didn't have to be involved, all that stuff, but, I mean, it was, like I said, some of these people. So, the pet store I went to as a kid was great, because I learned about all the different captive bred, you know, farm-raised stuff, and these guys had zero, and the guy Paul that owned it was a canine top, and he was great. He, like, took us in to, like, let us do whatever he wanted. He was the, he was better than all these guys, breeding, like, redfoot tortoises, he's bred berms, and now we go on the guy, always willing to learn, always trying to learn the people that came in. It was, like, such a different feeling than getting older and just seeing these guys that were just, like, elitist assholes. You want to try something, or you want to do something even kind of hard to just, like, don't, don't do it. It's like, oh, cool, that's fun. You guys are a lot of fun. - Just don't. Oh, okay. - Yeah. - The good old days. What about you, Keith? What got you in the short days? - So, I think the first picture I may have seen was in the living stakes of the world or something like that, but I think I talked to you guys in the past about this guy I knew called Frankie. And Frankie didn't get me anything from repute to monkeys, to cordamundi, to blood pythons, to anything, you know. And he hooked me up with a couple, actually, wholesalers that were in the area that's the title of Pet Store. So, I was able to sneak into those places and that's where I actually got my first blood python. Shorttails, you know, Borneos came a little bit later after the blood pythons, because back then, the first thing everybody wanted was, they were actually called Sumatran Red blood pythons. Everybody in the early days wanted a red blood, but it had to be from Sumatran because they were convinced that the Sumatran Red Bloods were the reddest bloods, you know. It was just a whole bunch of the bullshit selling thing, you know, but. And then Tom got a lot of mortality. Yeah, and then I started getting price lists, you know, from Tom Crutchfield in the late '80s and early '90s. And at that time, he started posting newly discovered, or newly rediscovered Borneo blood pythons. Like we lost them and then had to find them again. That was a big term back then for something that wasn't available for a few years, and then all of a sudden it was available again. Newly rediscovered. So, the Borneos then, that was the first time I saw them available, and I know myself, Tracy Barker, and a fellow named Timmy, we all brought up as many of them as we could from them. And I bred them actually the first time in captivity, the same year Tracy did. And they say that was the first year that they were produced in captivity, Borneos. You officially rediscovered them after you read them, yeah. Yeah, yeah. It was all just potential rediscovering, got it? So, there are differences between them, you know, especially when it comes to reproduction. But I think some of the pictures and some of the things that I saw, you know, I was breeding Burmese and everything back then, it was a lot of snake, you know, and the bloods are a lot of snake in a little package. True. So, the Borneos and the short tails, you know, you can get the girth of a 10-foot berm and a four and a half, five-foot snake. So, that was very appealing to me. But something about the head structure, the top of their head being so flat and wide, was something about the head structure that really is what drew me to the species more than anything. And then after I got to know them a little bit, you know, that incredibly short tail on even the bloods and the short tails just was very unique. You know, everything about the snake to me was very unique. And like Matt, I kind of liked that, you know, back then it was just imports for me. There was nobody captive breeding them. Like Matt was saying that they were considered extremely hard to even keep alive back then. People today would probably be like, what are you talking about? Like, you know, we keep them in a closet in a shoebox, you know? - Just follow the instructions that everybody has who's laid down for you. I don't understand. - But back then getting wild quartz to even eat was like a great achievement, let alone getting eggs. And any time there were eggs, it was usually from a gravid imported female coming in. So, a lot of people weren't breeding them. And as you guys know, anything like that, just, you know, really excites me, you know, to try to tackle and figure out all that kind of stuff. I never chased the crowd. I usually just try to find the weird, hard to do stuff. So that was all the things that drew me to them in the first place for sure. - When something that rare is kind of being worked on by very few people, like Keith, did you have to basically make sure you weaved and had a good relationship with the other people that were working on these things? - Well, I didn't know any other people in the very beginning until you went to a show. There was no internet or really anything then. So you're getting your price listened to mail and all. - Right. - So in the early days, it was me, myself and I, you know, I mean, there was nobody to, you couldn't find a phone number unless you saw an advertisement. And like Don Hamper was one of the first people I talked to about them. And the only reason was he had placed an ad or his phone number was so I'm like, I'm gonna just call him. What can he say? Just, you know, leave me alone. - Like, yeah. - Yeah, right. But he wasn't, Don was great. He could see the passion and everything else I had. So he gave me, you know, some of the insights that he had going on with blood pythons at the time. He hadn't kept short, born years at the time. So there was really nobody to bounce stuff off until you went to a show and then you're talking to Tracy or, or, you know, you'd see 10 meat or whatever. And you kind of bounce ideas around, but a lot of people back then weren't sharing too much of what they were doing. Things are so easy now compared to being as far as figuring shit out, you know, as long as you're a good dude in your passion and most people are gonna talk to you and let you know what's going on nowadays. So it made, you know, things were definitely tougher back then than they are now for sure. - Yeah. - Yeah, I put a picture of the quick Borneo so you could see like the head, yeah, it's like very different than what, you know, than what I'm used to with tree snakes. I guess, I think, I never noticed like the markings on the lips until I'm looking at this picture. I started talking, that's pretty cool. Yeah, but I, I was one of my favorite short tails. That one, the Halloween bright. - Yeah, yeah, that's some lime, right? - Yeah. - Yeah, well, one of the funny things on the intro, I went to like Matt and Keith in a light wiggle their eyes at me and that was in short tails do. - Yeah, yeah. - When they're just, usually to me, what I notice is when they're kind of getting spooked or a little bit pissed off, but they will just read the room that way too. But I just feel like that's their natural nature. Is there always this, what are you doing? And what are you doing to me? Like that's kind of how they always are. So that eye twitch brings people out because even with snakes, you can see their people, they don't usually do that. They don't shake their eye, they don't follow it as much. Like, I know like, I think, you know, particularly in the place I obviously moved their eye some, but if it wasn't short tails, it was like shaped up people. Like it's kind of crazy. - Yeah, wiggles back and forth. And sometimes that's followed up with a tail wagging, like a couple do. Like before it springs, the tail go up in the air and it'll actually undulate back and forth. And yeah, it's time to say, okay, I'm gonna leave you alone today. - Yeah, I'm gonna rest, mess snakes next time I see them at a show and see how many I can get their eyes to, you know. - You'll get a lot of them to do that. But when someone's brand new and they're starting to hold it or they're at like your house and they're like, "Oh, look, it froze, it's calming down." I'm always like, "No, that's a bad sign." - That's not good, yeah. - And it completely freezes. It means it's usually like that thing is locked in and next move you make, it's gonna, it's gonna keep up to somewhere. - It's building energy, yeah. - Yeah, but some people just take it as like, "No, it's just settled." I'm like, "No, it's not." Let me have a bath 'cause you're not gonna like what happens then. - And the funny thing is, and Matt can tell you too, is once you really know a Borneo, a Sumatran or a Blood Python, once you really know the species and what to look for and everything, I don't care how worked up aggravated or whatever that snake is, you can still work with it. You know what I mean? - Yeah. - Like it's definitely, even though it's a very powerful strike on them is insane and everything else. But once you know the signs, and how to diffuse those signs and all that, there are very predictable and very easy to manage, even in a hyper state of, you know, excitement like that. - Yeah, great. Yeah, they do tire out pretty, I mean, they have some steam in the beginning, but they do tire out pretty fast. - Yeah. - And that works to your advantage, especially when you're new and like I said, to skip all those motions, you find a lot of techniques throughout the years to skip all that, you know what I mean? So if you need to work with them, check something out, you do find a lot of techniques. I mean, I think that's the most important thing about keeping them is learning how to read them. I mean, that's usually any animal, but the quicker you learn to read these animals, the better off you'll be. Some animals you can skate by without it 'cause they're more bulletproof or forgiving. The hardest thing about them is they're not forgiving, but you can figure them out. They have a lot of things that let you know, and then once you start reading them and you can see them a mile down the road, you can get in front of it or just learn how to manage it a lot better. - To fuse it. I guarantee you, Matt could go into his collection and clean 20 cages. And if you put somebody new in there, they'd still be on the first cage, trying to figure it out. And Matt would be down to 20 saying-- - And bleeding. - And bleeding, you know, yeah. - Yeah, it's just once you get to know them, they're very easy to do. - I also feel like that's true in anybody. She's collection, but I feel like with Bloods and Borneos, it's like now times 10. Or it's like, if I had to watch Eric's collection, I bet she I could figure it out. But if I had to watch Matt's collection, it would be like, I don't, I don't know. Where's the rest of you? Like it would kind of be-- - That's the funny thing. When Matt went away on his own vacation, I was watching his snakes, right? And cleaning and everything seems to be good, but I'm so used to dealing with carpets and morellia and tree snakes, long, thin body snakes. And like, I'm trying to handle them like that. And I'm like, this is not right. Because you know, they're just like, you know, it's just like, I'm trying to hook it like that. And I'm like, no, this isn't right. I'm like trying to figure it out. Then finally, I get to, I don't know which one, I can't remember, I think I told you which one it was, but I don't remember now, but it was on the top. - Yeah, yeah. - And I went to open the tub and that thing just go, you know, I was like, holy shit. (laughing) Also, yeah, well, funny enough that my, when I used to do Daytona, it was only a reason, but me being so new, I was so, you know, cautious. My friend, Pete used to, he didn't like the snakes, but he would come over while we were at work and check the mail and he'd always be, he would want to help clean. So he'd be right there for being clean stuff. So when I went to the intern and he watched snakes and he literally called me, I think, like Saturday, like, yo, I'm doing everything you would do. And this thing is going crazy. And I go, what you want? And he goes, you know, it's not the bottom one. Remember, I could, you just scoop that one up. I said, you're probably right over it. I'm like, you gotta get around it to the side and just, well, whatever, I'm not opening it up again. That would be, you'll be home late Monday and you're just gonna take care of that one. But he goes, so many of them that you just go write in and grab or a work with, they're just, they're looking at me or they're moving weird or not doing what they do for you. And I said, yeah, it's just, you say, do they know who you are? And I'm like, it's just the way I approach them and all that stuff, you know. I just smell it all different, but that's not, I don't know who you are, but, you know, you know. - Stranger danger and just watch that stuff. - Yeah, I think that, well, that was one of the questions that I had that for, you know, for our listeners that are used to dealing with our boreal snakes, you know, like the learning curve. I mean, I don't think it's impossible or, you know, you can't do it, but it's like, you should approach it with the idea that this is definitely not the same. I mean, you could look at the snake and see that it's not the same, but. - The problem is is that the two of us are the ones leading this group, and you and I both tapped out on the species, so, you know, yeah. - I only want to go in to be honest, you guys, so. - Yeah, yeah, he's one of the four. (laughing) - He's like, I did my time. - Look, he got him, tell him. - Let's see where you were going with that. - Oh, yeah. - Oh, and then, it's not even right. - Well, no, I mean. - This is not your elders. What the hell? - I mean, he got cool. - He's interested when you were like, the swamp snake, he's like a quatix, you say. (laughing) - Look, why don't you try to keep him originally or the way people wanted to keep him? (laughing) - Hey, I started that way, just like everybody else, because I was like one of the first keeping a lot of them, and that's what the books told you. But you know what, there's a lot of snakes that live a certain way in the wild that trying to reproduce that in captivity just does not work. You know what I mean? - Yes, yes. - Borneos are from like, you know, definitely, you know, according to the barkers, they're from like low drainage areas and areas that are definitely wet or have at that. And I've kept young baby borneos on water more than anybody, like wet, wet, wet, wet, wet, wet, and they never develop a skittish, you know? The worst thing, if you don't keep the water clean, you can get an eye infection. But I've never gotten a borneo with any kind of a skin issue or something from keeping them too wet. So it made sense back then, but the problem was, is not even the humidity, but the temperatures we were keeping them at. It just put a species like that into such a high metabolic state that the aggression was like, you know, on steroids first of all. So tuning down the temperature was the first thing I figured out, you know, that definitely caught the snakes out and I'm like, they're still eating, they're still acting normal and everything else. Why are people saying you have to keep mental temperatures and do good with them? And actually they were feeding better and everything else then. And then the next thing was ventilation because when they take a dump and it's like a cow, you know, literally it's like a cow. So in a small cage, you know, the ammonia level and all I've written stuff about that. So I really started with ventilation due to the fact of when they defecate, it's just overwhelming in a cage in a short amount of time. And once I started increasing ventilation, all the other problems went away. So it was lower temperatures and more ventilation and things became so much easier right away now. - What made you go ahead on? - I almost feel like keeping them at a really high temperature and then offering them a shit ton of water, they're like, oh, they like the water. Well, yeah, you're cooking them. So they, yeah, I enjoy Eric's pool when it's 90 something degrees outside. Like, yes, it's. - Yeah, that's true. I was gonna say like, what made you, what was the, was there something that you noticed about them that was off that you had to adjust? Like, I'm always curious of like, I think for younger people today that are like working with odd species or like you see like a lot of the more, you know, hard to find, it seems like that's a thing now. It's like, oh, this is not in the hobby or it's hard to do or whatever, I wanna do it. But like, how do you figure something out? There's no internet, there's no, there's none of this stuff. So like, what was, did you just say, I don't think this is right? Was it a feeling? Was it like reading books of where they were from? Like, how did that, how did you get there? - I find reading sometimes if it's older literature, especially hinders your thought process to figure shit out, you know what I mean? - Yeah. - So with them, first thing I hated was, and Matt said it too, is how they would start blowing bubbles and they all got like what we thought were RIs. That was actually from the poor ventilation more than the humidity. But trying to give a 25, 30-pound adult blood fine a needle that was telling me to do. - Crazy. - And a needle would snap off inside the snake because-- - Oh my God. - And I'm laying on top of it with a towel and Theresa's trying to give this snake a shot and all this, I'm like, this is just bullshit, you know. (laughing) Like, RIs are gonna be the first thing I have to tackle. But I had a friend over a guy named John Wilbur who had a big collection. He had probably like 300 snakes at the time. He lived in Elmsford, New York. And me and him were very good friends. And he came over to check out the blood play funds. He's like, I got to see these things and all back then. And I opened up the plastic container I was in and you know that musty smell that smell came out and he goes, you know, that's a sign of bacteria. That smell is a sign of something bacteria is growing in that tub. And that was like, holy shit. Like, you know, I smelled that smell for weeks keeping these animals, but it never really dawned on me. When he said that, it came crystal clear. I gotta get more ventilation. And you know, it's little things like that. That's smacking the face all of a sudden even though you're doing it for, you know, six months or whatever. And you make the change and you see progress. And you're like, I'm heading in the right direction. Let's keep going further and see how far I can take it before I start seeing negative things again. And then you have to dial it back, you know. - I think that's, is that something that you, that's like drives you in the hobby, right? I get the feeling that that's, yeah. - Trying to figure it out, yeah. - One of your, one of your future questions here that you had is why did you get out and we'll get into that? But yes, without a doubt, you know, I'm into these land thos right now and all that kind of stuff. And you know, like, I don't care these caliber pythons, you don't hear a lot about them, you know, I'm working. - Oh, I thought that was cool that you have them. - And it helps with trunk snakes, you know, anything that nobody else is working with or a few people are working with and you can bounce ideas off of them and start unlocking little things. Like if I say something to somebody and they're like, holy shit, yeah, I saw that too. What do you think that means? That we round, that's the thing for me. I don't care about the color of the skin. I don't care about what the value is. I don't care about any of that stuff anymore, you know. It's just about figure and shit out and make it a better life than. - Just the run off the topic of like, 'cause if we were just on it, our eye stuff is something I dealt with. Like I said, the first year and a half I was trying to keep in tanks. And not on purpose, when I was getting into them, like, you know, having to find them, I was reading about them what you could back then and trying to talk to who you could. So I was doing a responsible thing, trying to learn about them. But I definitely wasn't responsible like you shit. Like what other things when I got into reptiles fully, but yeah, I didn't just throw it in a tank with a 100 watt light bulb. Like when I got them, I already had the screen. I was taking cardboard, tin foil in it, taping it to the thing. So I had like a quarter of it 'cause it's in a humidity, but it needed ventilation. And I had, I found 40 watt light bulbs and, you know, was trying not to make the temperature. Even though back then, it would say the temperature, I think was like 88 to 92. And my eyes, I thought a 100 watt bulb would make it like 95. So I was doing 40 watt bulbs and 60 watt bulbs. And it was probably still getting too hot. And when I was doing the green carpet, the rock hide in place, but I did have two hide in places. But still, I mean, trying to do these in tanks, just that's the reason why people, I think, don't understand why a glass tank is not good. It's just because they don't stabilize anything. It's hard to keep humidity in there, it's hard to hold temperature in there. And obviously when you become experienced, you can do it, but I feel like experienced people don't want to keep a tank 'cause it's not much harder. And you know, it's confusing to do so. But I was like focused on, oh, I want this tank. I want such visibility. You know, I had like different color lights on them. And I had it in the bedroom. And finally, I found out like, you know, I wasn't against rocks for the reason people are against rocks. Now I was just like, you'll never see them. And I don't understand the temperature, the belly heat. But I got an animal plant, it's rock. And after that day, I didn't have an issue for I think three years with one after having a year and a half of issues with, I would say almost double-digit, they would spend in hundreds, thousands of dollars at the vet, you know, learning the process of like, I had small to medium to even a large one. And man, trying to get a needle under them when you, especially when you don't know what you're doing crazy. Then I sort of, so my techniques go to this day if I got to give a short tail a shot. And in size, I had these rubber snow gloves that Lowe's forever go to thick and they go up to your shoulder. And I got a lot of grift. So before I give the shot, I get the shot ready. You know what you know, you got the cap off, you got to have everything set and ready. You find the good part of the point. You find the spot you want to hit on the snake. I gently just put my whole forearm over the snake, the top half, try to cover the head. If it doesn't scrounge around, which it generally doesn't for some reason. And then you just find that spot, you go. And as it moves, sometimes they jump quick, sometimes they push back. You just push that plunge. You're not too fast, not too slow. And that's how it does. And even still, once in a while, you slip off the inch and a half, 22 gauge needle and they snap them things off. And you know what I mean? You can't move that shot into another shot till you waste all those meds and you throw it away and you're closing it. But trying to restrain the head. I mean, you're stressing the snake out more. That thing's so strong. You're tearing its scales up. It's still breaking the needle, it's even worse. - Don't push their own head off. - Yeah, you can't even get the needle in. That's how tense their body is. Not you can't go sideways and they just, you'll just break it, trying to get into the skin. But usually when you get it in, they do that. Thank you that, I mean, you've seen it, Eric. - Yeah, that's true. - Thank you, I think there's any other, you've had so many snakes. Any other snakes do a thrash type of thing, like a short tail python, a blood python. That is such a unique, crazy thing they do. And to me, fighting, pooping, they both suck, but the thrash thing is the scariest thing because if you're not prepared for it, it'll weep out your hand, it'll slap the ground and it'll continue to do it. And this thing just looks like it's having a spasm. And for such a fast snake, they move so quick. And I feel like if you're new and you see that, you are totally on a jellyfish. - You're done. - He's going in, you don't know what to do. You're like, I think this snake just lives on my foot now. I'm not approaching that thing at all. - Plus another unique thing about them is they're backbone, right? I mean, it's like thicker or something, right? - They use that as a, yeah, so they use it as a weapon. Yeah, it's, I just want to throw it in on top of the, you know, the honor I talked and all that stuff. But man, it's, yeah, they can be, I do feel like with your tails, it kind of comes with the territory. You're going to experience bubble blowing or a respiratory infection. So it's important to try to get a technique and grabbing them by the back of their head. It's not good on any snake. I know you have to do it, but on them, it just doesn't work. They'll break their own neck, they'll snap. Don't pull their, they'll rip their head off. They really like, it saves you. - It's just too much mass and too short of a space and the power that they have, that mass, you know, accentuates that power that much more. I've been bit by up to 18 foot Burmese pythons and nothing has punched me in the face as hard as a adult wild caught Sumachan red blood python. I think it felt like Tyson punched me in the face. Like nothing has ever hit me that hard. And like I say, I've had a feeding bite from an 18 foot Burm and it was nothing compared to his blood python as far as the impact pack on that bite. - Wow. - And I'm pretty sure I saw Jesus when Keith Bolins hit me in the chest with it. But didn't open its head, I'm pretty sure that, pretty sure that happened, but, you know, I can only imagine the force there. - Yeah, I remember that. Your face was like, oh, that was one of those moments when I was like, oh, and these things are perfectly gentle. They're like, no one was there. (laughing) - It's almost when Matt's retic was slowly coming. - No, it's coming to you there, yeah. - Oh man, yeah, that was wild, yeah. - I imagine everything before I did that. (laughing) - Yeah, I imagine we sure did. - I can take this gun, you know, you'll be dead. You can't do that. But I imagine it's like they have so much force in such, like, 'cause their bodies and IITs met all the time and calling them slugs and stuff like that. But it seems like they're like a forearm, like they're ready, cocked and all the muscles right in there. - Yeah, they really are like, they're spring loaded. - Yeah. - That pose, that's another thing I like on the way they sit or whatever, even when they're not. They just sit crazy, but when they're ready to go, they sit and that's, that S shape. But I mean, they lift off the ground. - They literally come off the ground, yeah. - Yeah, weeks ago, I just misgaged a feeding response. I was feeding, but it just shot right by it. And it's a, it's a low one by my knees and I felt like it almost got me in the chin. And I'm like, God, I sometimes would get this, how far, and it was just amazing response, it just missed the rat and just went straight through and almost got my chin. I was like, wow, that would've made for a real bad Saturday afternoon if it got me in the chin all the way. - There's that moment, there's that moment like where you almost like take a stutter step or you get taken aback by your own animals and you're like, come on. - Yeah, it's never, it's just never too good to be too comfortable, you know what I mean? That's how mistake happened. - Sure. - I was like, I'm just going through the motions. Like I know what you do and it just, boom, right by me. And I'm like, oh, that would've been a bad day. - So I mainly dealt in the original days with wild caught, which were a lot different than what people are producing now as far as attitude and everything else. And some of these adults I was getting were 25, 30 pounds and they'd be on my concrete floor, my syndrome. - Shit. - And they would, they would come off the floor. But the thing with a blood python or short tail or error, Sumatran is they don't let you know they're going to strike. Like they don't coil and, you know. - Talk to them. - They can be facing in the totally opposite direction, looking the other way and you think you're good and that strike can come at you with no warning whatsoever. - Yeah, you know, like a car for python is going to coil and he's kind of, you know, got that thing going on. He's looking at it and he's judging that. - He's getting up. - Yeah, he's getting up. - Well, you can tell by the tongue flicks and the where the tongue is. - Yeah, what's here is. - I'd weighs upside down curly tail. It doesn't matter, he's gonna. And you know, I don't want to portray these things as savage in just, you know, like animals that people like should be scared to death of because they're not. But, Matt, I don't know how many snakes, Matt. I know he has well over probably 100 snakes or whatever. When you're dealing with that many, you're gonna deal with one or two here and there that have an attitude. I was dealing with wild caught. So we're talking about those individual animals that are having a bad day and, you know, you're going through a lot of animals and I don't want people to think that every blood or short hill or anything is that way. There's plenty of them that, you know, I see people nowadays, which I hate, but I see people nowadays sitting there watching TV and they're sitting and hitting it like in the dog, you know, and that drives me crazy. Yeah, there's a lot of bloods and short tails out there that are also like that. Well, I think that's the thing, Python's, oh, go ahead, Matt, sorry. No, this is, I definitely agree with Keith. I do the same thing. I definitely make them sound, I guess meaner, tougher than they are. They do have a reputation and I don't want to, like, I just think that is the way they are. But if you work with them, they're going to be, if you do have my basement, it's almost like, oh, which one can I hold? I don't really have one, you can definitely hold if it's not going to do anything to you. I have in the past, but the way I am male is just like, I grab them for a minute, I check them out. I'm not holding them anymore. And that's not going a long way. If you're working with them, you can come male. But I definitely still to this day, you know, people always want to know, can they all be worked on? Now I have individuals that are, I don't think they'll ever come down, but it is few and far between now. And I got a couple of wild calls in the beginning. It's funny enough, 50, 50, some of the wild calls I had in the beginning were great. They didn't make a move. And some of them were just, it's just because you walk by the thing, you just hear slap, slap, and you know, you see spray going off and I'm like, wow, that's just something else. Some wild calls are like, this is awesome. Like, you know, day 12, still no lines. Like, no, no, no, no, no, no. Yeah. What's that thing? Another day without a line, no lines. I can't speak it. But it's like, and that, but the promise is like, in gauging collections like that, Matt and I, the same thing, people are like, what carpet can I call them? Not that one, not that one. Yeah. Probably not that one. It's like, I don't, because I'm not. You were not, I'll go have a hug. But I'm like, handle it on the show. Nobody's handling all the things. Yeah, no one's handling your shit. Yeah. I got a kid, we were just having a show next to each other. When a kid comes by, we're like, nah. Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah. Yeah. I think one of the things I learned, you know, as I learned more about pythons, is like, I don't know. I look at the more like tropical fish almost. Like, yeah, you may have to interact with them, but it's not really, like, I don't know. It's, I guess the key point, it's not like cuddling up with my dog. You know, that's a different situation. You shouldn't pull the lionfish out of the tank and watch TV with it. You're stroking it. Yes. Yes, petting him on my shoulder. Good job, buddy. Good idea. Yeah. Yeah, but then, and even that, right? You have, I think most pythons, once they start to be bred in captivity, seem to settle down a bit from the wild caught days. But, you know, the funny thing is, when you breed, I don't know why, but whenever I bred wild IJs, the babies, the F1s are insane. They're just terrible. Like... What did Lucas say they were promised the jungle and we gave them a box? Yeah, right. Like, that's a good way to put it. Yeah. It's a good way to put it. Yeah. This isn't the difficult. Damn it. The most psycho things I ever dealt with were rock pythons. Had a literal rock pythons once, and there's nothing ever. Like, you know, 30 baby rock pythons that... I mean, they think they're 30 feet long and ready to kill you every time you go in. They were just like, "I'm like, "Why?" Why? These things. Where were the adults? Were the adults you bred or the... The adults were... The adults were, you know, you'd get them on the floor when you're cleaning the cage, trying to get them into a holding box and they'd be up an eight-foot wall and into the suspended ceiling and you're trying to pull this, you know, 15-foot snake. And the whole time it's trying to just kill you. I never had a good rock pythons. Tristan did murder you at some point. Or did she try like... I played in the basement. She had no idea what was going on. (laughing) I'd come up leading there. Sometimes you'd be, "I'm like, "That's fine." I tried sneak paper towels. (laughing) I remember thinking like, I guess the way I looked at rock pythons was it was like a different version of a berm. So I was like, "Oh, these are cool." And yeah, I'm with you Keith. I've tried that multiple times and every time. It just didn't ever get passed. They never get to adulthood. (laughing) I'm just like, "What did I do this?" You know, berm's reach a certain size and you don't even have to work with a berm too much. And when it reaches a certain size, it's that confidence and it comes right down, you know? Yeah. Rock pythons never... Like you could work with them every day. The ones I had anyway and they were just not... It gets a size and it's like, "I could take this guy." (laughing) No, no, no. Were they wild caught or were they what were... The original breeders were, yeah. Wild caught, yeah. Yeah, wow. Whew, I didn't know you had this. All right. So you've bred rock. He's had everything. Come on, come on. What did he have? Yeah, right? I mean... That's probably the better thing to do. We should... He's kept our dociles. Let's look. Yeah, I mean, yeah. He had to catch him himself. Yeah. (laughing) Oh, no. Pretty much. So, okay. What, you know, like, what did the... How was the hobbies reaction when they first started coming in? Or like, what's it? You know how like, I don't know. I guess maybe we see it a lot easier today with Facebook and social media and all that stuff, but it's like as soon as, you know, it's like this new thing, everybody's talking about it. Oh my God, I gotta get this. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. What was like the whole... What was the feeling in the hobby back then for short tales? For me, it was a hard sell. And the reason why I did the Daytona show for near 20 years, because that was my opportunity before internet and everything else to... Like, I used to take ads out in a Bavarium way back then, you know? And that was like your biggest connecting to the USA market. So then I started doing... Well, I did Daytona the first year with New York Reptilia, had a table and they let me do it. But then after that, a couple of years, I started getting my own tables. But my whole thing was, I'd call it the shock and law. Like, you know, back then I didn't mind nowadays, I would never do it, but I used to bring a lot of breeders, babies. And I would do two or three tables of nothing, but blood pythons. And when people saw that many, even if they didn't know what it was, they're like, "Holy shit, I'll stop and talk to this guy." What are these things they're all about, you know? So they were definitely a hard sell because in the beginning, there was no morphs. And, you know, especially the Borneos, there wasn't a lot going on with them color-wise until we started breeding, you know, things started popping up and everything. So it took a little while for the market to really get going. And then once Cameron really started connecting with... Wild Borneos and all the different morphs and stuff like that. And then, you know, Tracy had the first opportunity to snag anything that Cameron got. So Tracy really, you know, innovated the market with the morphs. And then, you know, she filtered stuff to me and some other people and then we'd be doing the shows. And once they saw the morphs and, you know, the ball, everybody's thinking, "Well, the ball pythons so-called, the morphs are going to take off." Not really a totally different species, you know. So things are going to be a little bit different. But in the very beginning, yeah, it was definitely like there was a very, like, Matt said, "Look at how hard it was for Matt to even find stuff." Right. And, yeah, it was definitely a harder acceptance, I would say, to the hobby, you know, people are looking more for something that was going to make them a lot of money back then, even, you know. Yeah, it seems like, I think if you were going to market a speech, like if you were going to get a new species and then you're going to market it, it's a lot easier nowadays to be able to do that, because opposed to back then, I mean, you're going to do, like, a couple, yeah, a couple reptile shows a year. Now there's one every weekend across the U.S. probably, you know. So Daytona, when it was in Orlando, everybody waited really. They didn't unveil what they had new and unusual or anything. They waited for that show because everybody from around the world went to that show in the beginning to see what was new, what was in that. I can remember crested geckos, like even Phil from New York reptilian, Dan from New York reptilia, who, you know, they had all kinds of rare stuff. I can remember him in Orlando saying, "Holy shit, there's a gecko and it's got spines on its eyes." And they were like blown away because that's where everybody unveiled what their new thing was. And I can remember, you know, not, I couldn't wait to get to date Orlando. Got that. And then Daytona. And saying, and people come to my table and they're like, "Holy shit." Because it was the first time they saw something new that I brought, you know. And when I had that, we called it a calico, but really it was like a paradox, Bernie's Python. That was actually on the cover of Beckville's book. And so that like blew everybody away, you know. And then I, when I had San Zinnias, because nobody, you weren't really able to show anybody until that show, you know. So I missed those days for that reason alone because the anticipation. That's learning on the show. Yeah. Yeah. It was awesome. It was awesome. I feel like, I feel like even though it was the beginning of the internet just taken off, even Daytona in the beginning was sort of like, not the beginning, but when I was going two thousand four thousand five people were doing the same thing with the animals. Like they would, sometimes if they did post it on a forum or something like things, they could be like a tease. But they would, you would, they all stopped at Daytona. Like the one cool, one of the cooler things back when Sean Bradley had an exotics by nature. I think his old girlfriend or wife used to be like a really good photographer. She would, they would come back from that show and there'd be a whole gallery of, it was all mostly Python's. And it was a mostly ball Python's and BCI stuff. But it was all the new stuff that was out. And it would have the name and all that stuff. And it was like, but that was after the show. So you would see everybody would see in person what it was. And then it'd be like unveiled to everybody like look at all this new stuff. And you get. Yeah. I mean, it was, it was so much. It was a lot of fun in those days going to what is going to be. I remember being new, but going, I wonder what's new coming out. Like I said, I, I remember seeing that. Will Leary's table, the, the jaguar carpets when like, I think there was a picture of them. Different. Like there were pictures of them. But like, to me, I was like blown away by those things. I was like, wow, that's going to, that had me interested in carpet. Oh man. I was like, Oh, that's really, I would love to have just seen that. Yeah. Just the table. It was really. I saw the price and I'm like, all right. I'm going to have to like wait a long time. But yeah, I'm not going to pay that kind of money, but, um, yeah. So like even in the beginning of Daytona and I don't know how 10 Lee was because I wasn't going back then. It was still very much like Keith used to unveil stuff. I mean, he, he, you wouldn't see anything from Keith because he was more of just an email guy. And then you would, I would go and up knowing after a couple of years of talking to Keith and there'd be rows and rows of all these ghost pornies that blew me away. And Keith would be looking at him like, Oh, you think there's something with that one? I'm like, yeah. Yeah. There's definitely something with that. Yes. Oh. That's crazy to me. And you know, that's, that's the fun part about born. He has a two being Keith would do it with each other's collection. I felt like in Myrtle Beach, we would set up right next to each other for the small time. And he'd be over here going, Jesus, like you're selling it for that. That thing's one of the best ones I seen and I would be doing the same thing to him. And it's just because you're right on top of your collection. You don't see all the, I mean, you do, but you don't, you don't appreciate or see all the little nuances. So sure. That's why I, that's why I got a romance with Matt going in the early days because he, Matt in the early days, when he'd come by my table, he had this entourage that walked around with him. He did. He had to call your friends and stuff. They knew nothing. They knew nothing. They knew. Which really made Matt stand out because he was the kid that knew everything, you know. And all these other kids are sitting there like, huh, what are they talking about? Yeah. But you could see the passion in Matt. Like, like when I saw him kind of my table, I got excited because I knew we were going to have some good conversation. There's other people will come to my table and they're like, but these ball pythons or whatever. But Matt knew what it was right away. You know, and he would like pick out little things that maybe I didn't even notice on something and be like, Oh, check this out. And so whenever I saw Matt come to my table in the early days, that's, that's why I'm like, I got to get noticed that he's really cool. Yeah. Hey, that's why you come over and help me search because I used to watch Keith try to sex behind his table by himself and have a lot of fun. I'm like, you know, people, he's like, Hey, would you give me a hand? And I'm like, yeah, I think he would help you. You're like, I don't know. I don't know. I didn't know you would. I had hold the hat and keep it then pop it. And if I was in Daytona, which try to help keep just to get behind the table. Yeah. I would even sex the animals before the show. I'd sex. Yeah. You were crazy. You would literally be like, I would, when I started shopping, well, I already did shopping. People want, you know, I'd pick stuff. I don't know what it is. Let's see. Yeah. And you know, now I'm in the wrist and on. I'm like, I could just hold the hat for you. Oh, that'd be great. Okay. You can hold the hat. That would prevent the bleeding. Yes. Can I figure out this whole realm? Like we could just go the whole thing if you want. Yeah. Let's do the whole thing. Like you said, I would get experienced out of it because I wasn't at the time for really producing anything. So I was getting my experience. But then like I said, I feel bad for people. It's these ages and all that stuff because obviously Keith experienced more than we could because he was into it. He's an older guy. He was into it way before we were. I mean, maybe you were a little bit more, Eric, but he still had a different, like, I mean, while we were in pet stores, Keith was starting to do Orlando shows. You know, stuff like that. Yeah. But, but at least I had a time where there was stuff being, you know, like unveiled at shows and it was just such a, like I said, you would just see something you never seen before. Daytona's were so cool for that. Cause the, the amount of the old set up in Daytona was so big. And it was like every, like they didn't shy away from species back there. Like, yeah, you know, Daytona. It's mostly Paul, five thousand bowers and crusty geckos and leopard geckos. Right. I mean, I thought that it was like every table. Some was, some of the tables were out of a mixed bag of things. But some just the crazy setups they had, the live plans that were the way they, you know, the way they did. I know we have so much better stuff, but some of the creativity back then was so much better because you didn't have as much to work with. And you'd walk into the old Daytona. Like I said, there was an upstairs. There were hallways. You didn't know about it. I remember the, you know, Saturday, I missed three things my first time. I'm like, where does everybody see in this out there? Like I would. It's in the hallway in the back. I'm like, there's a hallway in the back. It's like a massive show. It was, it was really like a fun time. It was crazy. I was thinking of Hamburg. You know, Hamburg, you would see a solid amount of different stuff and then thoroughly, but surely the ball fights on mutation things took over and it was just a little, little just edged out all the guys that bought in weird stuff because nobody bought it. They just want to buy a ball fight. Right. It's rare to find something really cool that stands out at a show that sometimes they've never even seen before. And I think that's why it was really exciting back then. You know, I think it was just a species that, like Keith said, like has been rediscovered. It's like that's, it's kind of like that thing. It's, I think that the, we're kind of running out of stuff that is new to us. I mean, I know that we're, cause we're all pretty much plugged in, but, you know, I, I don't know. I think too though, a lot of it is like, I, I see it. Well, to go off of what Matt was saying a minute ago about like, you know, that people were sort of creative and all. My guess would be that if you did have that creative side to you, you could really make yourself stand out as opposed to, and it's not that there's anything wrong with it. But even I did it, you go get the acrylic displays, you set it up. Maybe your tablecloth set you apart. Maybe your lights set you apart. But for the most part, it's kind of cookie card to where everybody sort of looks the same. Like there's, you know, every, I think of Justin. Remember when Justin used to have those big boulders that said Australian addiction across the top that he would have like little cages going up the thing? Rare Earth was another one that stood out for me. Rare instead of a mountain. Like they built this mountain with monitors just in it. You know, just amazing shit. You know, like you said, I'm guilty of that too. I got the acrylics, but you could do other stuff. But I don't even mean like completely. Hey, some of the people have acrylics, right? Yeah. But I think you got a great set up because you had the acrylics. You knew about them. They were like expensive. It's so funny when I. So the same question for Keith, like when I was coming into it, obviously 2000 to 2003, I couldn't even find one at a show. When I found them at the second show, I found. So the way I got it, I felt Larry Kenton had possibly to this day, the ugliest marble born you ever seen for six hundred and fifty dollars. I had that to spend and I wouldn't have bought it anyway because it was so ugly. It was, but one, that's all he had. Right. And as I walked around, I would ask, I wasn't doing the thing that I hate, where if somebody has totals, I'm like, hey, you got any blood, but he founds back. I want to ask mixed Python breeders or stuff like, you know, obviously, do you ever get blood? Plenty of pounds are born. You're short now. You know, people say no. So some guy heard me and he opened up his book bag and he had like a blood, a burm. So I bought a blood spray shop for a hundred bucks out of a guy's book bag. And of course it came home with us, which was an infection. But it was because it's only what I could find. Right. Literally that was it. There was Larry Kenton, the marble born you know, no red blood. I wanted a, I wanted a born, born you anyway. And then, and then the guy with the book bag. And then the next show, I don't know if I missed the Microsoft. I couldn't have, because I, whatever Microsoft was, they were crazy marbles that, you know, Keith and him used to work together with marbles on the same line. Um, and I bought him a really nice marble born you're short to help with Microsoft. So then every show I was buying another born you off of him and I started a relationship with him. But like I said, when I was getting them, people didn't know what they were. People were saying I was going to fail. Even when I had them and was doing okay with them. Right. Yeah. When I was playing on the shows, finally 2006. We'll kind of ball pythons or these, even though the ball python thing wasn't that crazy about them. Like the way it was there. I mean, but, or I got a lot of times what kind of boas are these. I guess the shape of the head made people think they were boas. I got that a lot. Maybe. We're just straight. What are these things? You know, and I'm not going to have ball pythons. I'm not going to have ball pythons and mostly born ears and some blood to sell. I mean, I was rare. I ever sold any Borneo shortcut. Most of them were normals or low ranking marble. So they weren't crazy expensive. But I mean, for a while, it was whatever. But then blood, I would say two thousand seven eight started coming on the map for with T positive reds and, and you know, ultra bright Borneo's, ghost Borneo's, really dark, some options, short tails of the black who people call black ones. They started catching on and then it didn't grow a little more popular. And then just like Keith kind of said, I can't tell you how many times I heard is like, is this the next thing? Yeah. And I don't was just knowing species kind of not wanted to be. I would always just go. It's definitely not. There's no way. Even the ones that are nice. You're not going to have rows and rows of these that are nice and that aren't going to freak you out. And they get too big. Like, you know, you can keep, they are a good rack animal, but you need, you can't keep them in a 41 quarter of CV seven and forever. You can't have rows and rows of these things. And they're just not going to fly off your shelf. But, um, I mean, yeah, still for this day, they're, they're very popular, but they're still very misunderstood. People don't know what they're looking at. But I also think in those times, the internet was more of a thing in the forums. How much firms just were so much better than, you know, like, I try not to shoot on social. I try not to shoot on social media because it can be very good. But the problem is, is it just, even a very interesting post, a very interesting picture is just within a week, no matter how popular or cool it is, within a week, it's buried. And you've got to search for it. And people don't, people don't do that on a forum. But from three years back would still be towards the top. You know how it would just refresh? But people would add to it, continue on it. There'd be such great information or pictures to follow along. Like, the importance of those forums were just so good. Like I said, a hot forum, if you, if someone posted something in the afternoon and it was for responsible. Yeah, man, that's what's going to say. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Three pages, which each page of my debut would have 10 things. You're like, this thing popped. Like I said, I would sit there for a day and a half thinking about what I'm going to write, combing over. So nervous. Yeah. Yeah, because it was, I just felt like it was just so much more important back then. And because it was there and it was going to be looked at for a long time. So it was, you know, when they call shit posting, you know what I mean? If you did, you got called for it. The moderator was the leader because it was dumb or offended. Or you would take it off because you would be like, please get that off of it. I'm highly embarrassed. Like it's just terrible. Yeah. I think, I think for me, the difference between that and social media is like, everybody's just angry on social media. You know what I mean? It's just a place for you to just go and talk shit. And it's just like, that's the thing I've come to realize that I like better about the forums. Not that, not that there wasn't arguing and fighting and stuff on the forums. Yeah. There's dumb stuff. You know, we're human beings. There's always going to be dumb bullshit that comes along with us. But like, I don't know, it's more like you could, I think to the, maybe this has something to do with it too, right? To your point, Matt, you would like sort of like, you know, before you go and post, you're sort of, you're making sure that your post is right. But you're not, you're not doing it instantaneous. You're not like standing there and like, do, do, do, do, do, do right away. So like, I don't know, I would, again, it's that excitement that it's built up that you're finally going to be, you come home from work or whatever and you're like, oh, let me see what's going on in the forum. So for us, it was MP. You would log on the day before. Yeah. And then, you know, you're just like, oh man, there's a new thread. Let me check this out. This is cool. You know, it's just like, you didn't see it. And now it's just like, you're just, I find myself just numbingly scrolling through and I'm not even appreciating a lot of times what I'm looking at. So like, I just, am I really, I don't know, it seems like a waste of time almost to, to a certain extent, you know? Yeah. Like I said, and it also, I think we got the bullshit a bit more out of it than you said, there was arguments that stuff would stick around. Now, I feel like there are a lot of scummy people among us or just really bullshit stuff. But before anybody can even get the bottom of it, you can't even find it and you can usually just delete it and people take their things down. So something that feels like you're on the path of like getting to the bottom of something just goes away because the fans blast it with now you're starting drama or, or whatever and it just gets out of your mind. And then I read it then, luckily for the person who's not being honest or scummy, it's like, oh, okay. That was last week. I was in the nightmare. But now everyone's back on buying stuff off me and hitting the thumbs up and giving me love comments and all this other stuff. It's, it's, it's, it was such a better thing. Like I said, it was definitely better for everything like feet, you know, trading ideas, getting ideas, just regular conversations. So it's really breaking down of what you think is going on with a snake or what's happening with this pairing or I know it's just like, I am, because it moves so fast, it's thanks for us because you get, you don't help as much because it's like, yeah. Hey, I'm getting my first blood pipe on. What's the test again? It's like, this is, there's six thousandth time this month. I've seen it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, the camera runs a good blood for him and she has like, nobody uses anything besides the scroll button. And it's, it's like, it's like, it covers all that. It's right there. It's a really good detail. You're not getting it from a guy who's been keeping it for a year and giving you not great information or just the wrong information just because he was the one that responded to you. You're now jumping in the wrong, you know, in the wrong end because you just were like, well, I'm getting down. This guy told me 95 and 20 gallon tank is great. That's what he does. So. Yeah. The other thing was like, I kind of like didn't like it, but I also like it now. It's kind of like you could have like everybody had this weird name. Like, they never were their name, you know, and it was like, you would have, you'd be like, and then all of a sudden you're like, wait a minute. That's you? You're a Burke fill up. Yeah. Right. Finding out what someone looked like was also pretty amazing. Yeah. You were just, you were just, when you would feed him at a show, it's like, holy shit. Like I'm talking to that dude and really have their like avatar, which is never the real picture or, you know, it's, it's pretty much like that. Right. That thought I was like five foot six and Hungarian. No. That's all. I met you. The first time I met you, I definitely embarrassed myself. I felt, I think I showed you a story when I was at Marshall, and I don't know how I got ahold of some hyperbellas. But I didn't want them anymore. I was like, can I trade these hyperbellas for that few positive blood? And you were like, no. I feel, I didn't run, but I feel like I ran. I'm like, why didn't you die? I just think you had blood, but you were this big tall guy. And I did talk to you later on that show. And that's when I think we started speaking somewhat. But I was still like, I'm annoying this guy. He hates my God. That's what Owen said to me too. Constantly. Yeah. Everybody felt when they were younger or not doing it. I mean, nobody helped. I don't know. I guess now everybody was a little bit more quiet or whatever. But now I think some people are over the top salesman. But like, you know, back then, he's a regular person. He's not doing a million shows. He's just a guy selling snakes. It's like I was a guy selling snakes. I'm not, you know, I wasn't someone who was like, oh, how's it going? I'm never like that. Anyway, I think that's fake, you know, trying to. So you're trying to sell a car. What snake can I put you in today? Like literally, if somebody said, like back in the beginning, I hit stripes and marbles. And if someone was like, I was really looking for an altar. I would talk a sale away from my family. We just should wait for an altar. I would wait for what I'm saying. Yeah. I do. I have money in his hand ready to give it to you. And you just said, I'm like, yeah, I probably should rethink the way I use it. Yeah. You probably stopped that. I really want people to have what they want. You know what I mean? Cause I, that's the way I was in the beginning. I, I didn't want to just throw money at people for, you know, I did that in the beginning for two years. And then you just throw the money down because you want it. And then you go, I don't get this one. I really don't want this one now. You know? Right. It's so weird when Matt talks about like doing shows and getting started and shit. Cause he was running his table at Hamburg. When I was in my faces, I'm going to run in and find anything to Marrelia. Buy it and run out. So I just imagine at certain points he's sitting there and I'm just like, there I go running past and then running past again. Like Tyler's not blocking his table. Yeah. Before I knew Owen, when he had his old logo, I guess it was Howard or one of them. Yeah. Who was cards all over the place? Like, what is this card with this stupid logo all over? Thank God we changed that. Yeah. I know. Why is this all over the goddamn show this time? Like it was all over Hamburg. I'm like, who did this? I think it was your mark. I was just trying to be like, no, no. No, no, no, no. I was throwing your bag all over the place. I was literally doing them at all these tables. Yeah. Yeah. I think I was at your table too, Matt. Way when I was first getting back into it. I think I was walking around with my dad and I ended up buying my first card with Python because I don't know. I just, I was walking around and I can't, I didn't. I think it was the same way. I was like, oh, I'm not going to talk to him. He looks like he's going to beat me up. Yeah. I think he looks hard. Yeah. What the person looked like? You were a little bit nervous to talk to people. Yeah. I don't know. I think that's a good thing. I think it's weird. Well, not anymore. Whatever. I want people to come up and not be nervous because when someone ever, some people would say like, oh, I was nervous to talk to you. I would think that's crazy. But I did it because I was that person too with anybody. Yeah. No matter what you, I mean, Keith was scary. Look at him. I mean, dude, I can't look. He's in the eye. Like, if anything, any time I talk to Keith, I'm looking at his glorious mustache. Yeah. He looks like a retired professional wrestler. And he's like, you know, the old picture is a key. Like that's what he's going to do. The old picture is a key. He's got the longer hair. He's jacked as hell. He's holding some snake and he's like serious. Like he is not smiling. He is like this. No, no, no. It's a funny thing. It is. I don't know when they took pictures back then. It took like a long time. Oh, yeah. They look so bad. Yeah. The funny thing is, when we did shows like Teresa would literally tell me, like, like sit on the floor, crouch down. Let me like draw some people over to the table. And then when the questions pop up and you can answer the questions. There's always coming to the table. The reason is like asking you questions and you're under the table. No, no, that's not what it is. Teresa used to lure him in. And then, you know, then once she snagged him for a conversation and I pop up and he calls out and switch her. Wait a minute. I didn't want to talk to you. I didn't want to talk to you. I didn't want to shoot a short tail. One of the other, one of the other things I miss a lot, which is like, I get some people's dream now. Like there's a lot of people in do it. And they are focused. Now, there's many in the Borneos. Borneos is wide open right now. Please come in. The most fun time was when so many of us are working with Borneos because everybody had somewhat of the same direction, but we had so many different directions and getting ideas and bouncing. Like, I know there are some people out there that probably think, I just never did things that way. Just for money or, you know, you hear someone's getting out. There would be certain species or even in blood. You would hear someone's like, "Oh, good." And not even because the person was like a dick or anything like, "Oh, less people." I thought it was the most fun with like Keith's. What was the, what was the forum, the small forum? Cardis forum. Cardis forum. It was like the most blood people ever. And everybody was doing something and they had an idea. It was so much fun. And the blood python forum that caught around, there were so many people. And Cameron on our, can come on out. Like after a while, Cardis forum had like every blood person in the country was on it there for a little bit. Yeah, but like I said, I loved it when it was so many people. I remember like, there's people now like, "Oh, man, you're kind of like sitting alone and it's not that much fun. I gather more people be into it." There's so much more fun because also people, it's not just because people are buying. I mean, that's a cool thing too. But it's, there's so many different ideas. And generally we're buying off each other or trading each other. It was, there was a lot of people and they all had their projects, whether it was reds or bornials, but it was just, it was so much more fun back then. And there are still people that are very dedicated and focused. And there are newer people that I'm starting to learn and they're, they're getting their feet under them and imagine it's going to be awesome when they have great animals and they're going to start going. But it just doesn't feel like it was back then. Like I said, I know I was the new guy coming in, but I quickly was catching up and it was just, it was fun when there was so many of us. They said that they told a show, it was, you know, a good 12 to 14 people that were all breeders. And we all had cool stuff going on and we could all, we would start meeting outside year of the pool and just to meet up for an hour at night time and just talk about projects, not like, you know, we'd talk at the show, but it was just showing each other, you know, actual photographs, not your phones. You have to feel like photographs or whatever or it was, it was such a better time. I think the more the merrier, it's, it's such a better thing. Yeah. Well, as an old school Borneo guy, I got two comments I'd like to make. So the first comment is the, the marble bloods that I produced. Borneo. The marble Borneo. No, back then there were marble bloods. Oh my God. What is this? We had a nerve somewhere. So back then I had wild caught animals from Tom Cutsfield. I had a couple animals that came out with some speckles on them. I raised those up, bred them back together and increased that look. And, and those were pretty wild looking. So I was going to put an ad in the vivarium. And Theresa and I, I had three of the babies in Tupperware's on our bed. In the bedroom. And I'm trying to write the ad for vivarium magazine. And I'm looking at the back as, as Matt knows, the originals that I produced had this very scrolled, very obscure messed up back pattern. And the sides were white with speckles, but the back pattern is actually what caught my eye first. And it looked like marbling the back pattern. And I was going to call them scribbled bloods. Because the back looks so scribbled, you know, and Theresa's sitting there. And she's looking at them. And I go, it looks like a marbling pattern. See how scribbled it is? I think scribbled bloods, she's like, nah, nah. And I'm like, but really like, I couldn't describe what they look like. I want to put that in the ad. And she's like, no. She's like, and we're arguing. And she finally goes, damn it. They're marble bloods. Just call them marble blood. So I'm like, okay. Never thinking it would take off. So I posted it right before the mid-Atlantic show in the vivarium magazine because I was going to have them at the vivarium magazine. And I'm walking around the show and I hear this guy. He's like, you see that idiot? He posted something called marble bloods. What the hell is that? I'm thinking, cool. You've been scribbled. I'm like, in my ad, you know. And then Eugene Bissette came up to me and he's looking at him. And he goes, are these the things in the vivarium magazine you call marble bloods? I go, yeah. He goes, those things are badass. And when Eugene Bissette said that to me at the time, you know what I mean? I'm like, holy shit. God's getting good here, right? So in my mind, I had where that project wanted to go. Years and years, I knew it was going to take me and I knew it was going to get there. And Matt knows where I'm going with this because Matt took that project to exactly where I wanted to go and I never got to achieve it. So I think it's cool as hell that Matt, you know, somebody that had befriended and never talking to him about what I thought they should look like someday. And his extreme marbles achieved that goal to me. So to me, it's just like such a badass project. 20 or 30 years later now, whatever it's been, and he's producing these animals. You know what I mean? Like such a good friend. And he achieved that goal that I never achieved. So I want to give him kudos for that right off. Well, thank you. He takes a real winner myself to do stuff like that. (Laughter) Thank you. I am good. I've been trying to do this with Owen forever and I keep all my takes. But he never does the project the way I want him to do it. Because your ways are stupid. I'm going over here. (Laughter) Now, thank you, Keith. I do appreciate it. It is really cool because it is something that you started. And it's something that instantly I took to. It's still my favorite thing, like just the marbles period. And we never did talk about like a vision, like that's true. Keith never said when he thinks it will go or will he ever try to achieve. And the minute I hit them and Keith saw them, he was like, "I was going for that. I'm so glad that they actually achieved." I could see that they did that and he thought it was so cool. So it was cool for me. Like I said, I remember the first time Keith, what an animal for me. That blew me away. Because here I am always looking up to Keith, buying animals for him and he had to have something. That's a turning. So for a breeder, someone who's keeping is when someone that you look up to turns around and is like, "I got to have that one to add to my stuff." And that was a cool thing. So like I said, it was cool. I feel like I took ghosts too. And that was Keith's project. And then I still had ghosts. I still really liked them. But there was a guy, Frank Good, who would always shop with me and he loved the ghost. And it was like I started having asslets. I was working on marbles. I always was working on stripes. And I saw Frank's passion. And I kind of was like giving him holdbacks and selling stuff that I wouldn't usually sell. And I would show that stuff. I'd give it to Frank and then Frank took it to a high level. So it was really cool that, you know, like I said, Keith's project passed through a lot of people. And Keith knows Frank and he's even bought, I think Frank's bought stuff off of you. But like I said, when Frank really showed how much he would come over and just be focused on the blue stuff, I'm like, it's a haul back, but you got to have it. You know what I mean? Stuff like that. There's some marbles. Yeah. That one. I want that one. Or that one. That is a cool story that, you know, I do. Yeah. I kind of just really liked that whole idea that, you know, Keith started the project. Matt finishes the, you know, takes it to the next level type of deal. And that's awesome. And I can relate to like the fact of Keith buying one of your snakes. Like I think for me, it was probably when Nick bought one of mine. You know, it's just like, yeah. It's weird. It's weird when that happens. Yeah. You're like, the student has become the next of four sandals on Eric, where I'm like, you need this for your projects. No, like you need this for your pride. And I take it. Yeah. Well, what's really funny is like the marbles keep starting it, but I never got my original stuff from Keith. I got it from Michael Sockers, who's also like a really good friend. And he worked directly with Keith on that. And Mike still has marbles and he actually produces some extreme stuff, but he's always on hamburg and white planes and, and Mike said more of an, like he, he's on a ton of stuff. He should be well, way more known. Yeah, because he's not, he doesn't put himself to health care. People are like, Oh, what'd you get done for Matt? And he's like, no, Matt got these for me. No, no. He's like, they give him like a side. I'm like, okay, buddy. All right. Yeah. He's just cool. It's always a joke of being him. He's like, yeah, I think his team was like, Oh, Matt, you got, he got something. You were like, actually, I got them from Mike originally. And they still look at them like, yeah, okay. Sure. Mike was, Mike was breeding team or Python so consistently years ago. And nobody wanted him. So he got rid of the project. I want them, but I know nowadays, like, you know, and he looks back when I talked to him at a show. And he's like, I can't believe I got rid of that project. Cause he, like, he had it down. Like he was producing them every year consistently. And yeah, Mike's a really, really accomplished breeder. And like Matt says, very low key. By low key, like I said, he's, I feel like there's those guys must be the area. He says he's, you know, an older guy like you and he's bred a ton of bowlers, all them species, so how many species of Hamburg he had on his table and was just producing them consistently. And they would disappear because no one, one of them. And then all of a sudden they're popular again. Mike, I think the first time I really seen origin teams and stuff like that was with Mike. First time I seen brettles, Mike, Mike would produce them year after year just easily. And it's like they would just disappear. She missed one. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks. They're lazy moms. They kick a lot of eggs out. They still hatch, though. Okay. Yeah. That head is so orange. Yeah. Yeah. That's a lighter colored one. That's the, um, that's one of that. That female right there is something that I bought from a guy named Jeff Valentine, who made that with things he bought from me for granted for something different. So I stopped getting that light look. So I have to buy it back off. I bought one of his offspring that came from my offspring back. I can't tell you how many times I've done that. Yeah. So I know that a lot of the, the importation of these guys was like skin farm stuff. And that's where a lot of the weird, like new morph things kind of popped up. That was mostly the blood pythons. I would not so much to board. They're all the same. Yeah. I'm tired of trying to clean this. Yeah. I don't, I don't know why we keep having to rehash. Are all carpets the same. Oh, and yes, what would you do if somebody came on to MP? Yes. All carpets are the same way. It's the ball up. What are you doing? I'm going to breed my diamonds to my brettles all the time. That's been done. And it's fine. Um, so. Anyway, um, is there still some new stuff that comes in that is like something that, like a wild caught or importation. Animal that is like, holy crap, this could be something or have we kind of. Already kind of reached the max with that kind of. Yeah, it's, it's not coming in like it did. Like, you know, when, when Cameron was bringing stuff in and there were a couple other guys now it's. Now because of Facebook, you have relationships and there's Indo blood forums and you see the stuff and those people are more than willing to. Give them up, but it's just harder to get a man directly. Luke, he has a lot of really good. Yeah, look, he's really good guy and he has stuff and I think he's trying to get it over here, but there's no direct. Good way to get it over here. Like, I mean, they still do come in, but. I imagine there's something because look, he, he produced some pretty mind blown stuff and it's not here yet. And I know people that definitely want it here. Yeah. Yeah, I would like them just fresh blood, like some new blood. Because it's like a big knock and like, why don't you have normals? Well, I haven't had normals in a long time. They all, you know, you start bringing stuff in, you lose the normals. I like normals here. There are a couple specific looks at normals I really like. They vary so much, but anything that's a normal definitely is heck for something else. And I don't mean to be like, I think they're all pretty on the wrong thing, but they're not the ones, the normals that I want. Like, I don't need the most spectacular normal, but the ones that are being sold in generally a more market, they don't have good info on them. And they are pretty ugly, but I would like to just start hatching normal, burning your short cows, but I just don't know where you're going to get a definite normal and something that I would like to look through. I don't want just any two normals. I would like to, you know, it would be great to get a shipment of just baby normals that are, you know, farm hatch normals and pick through a couple. You know what I mean? Just take a handful of them. That would be kind of cool. You think with all the other species that come in from like, Indo and stuff like that, that it wouldn't be that hard to, like, they would be something that would be like the next step, the next step over would be to bring some of those stuff in. So, yeah, I wonder why Dan doesn't do anything with short cows. He has. He has. Yeah, I've seen some on his channel. I just, I don't know if the farms aren't holding as many because they're not in demand and like, you know, because we're so long, they have such a bad reputation and the wild costs do and everybody's doing. Everybody's doing captive bread and there are a piece of the man. I mean, you can get T positive, T negative, I know, as I've read, I've read blood, it's all pretty affordable. So, I guess it's like, who's going to really buy this normal, you know, wild caught red blood. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Marked up a skinny look in when, you know, a golden eye, blood, which is amazing looking is like, I mean, you could teach you, they're going for like 350 now some of them. So, really, it's probably, yeah, they're, they're. Wow, 10 grand. They were 10 grand when I was working with them. Yeah, it's great. Wow. And, and the thing is, there's so many morphs now that people are making, like, you know, triple pet and combos and walk like Elijah hatched out what looked like glue cystics a year ago and, you know, there's all kinds of stuff now that you can make a lot of combos. So, unless something really unusual comes from the wild right now, I don't think there's a huge market for the wild stuff because it's definitely not coming in like it used to. If I got a class like 350, the price you would pay for a wild caught normal that's like on its last legs, you can get a really nice inbox morph that is from the cat. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. Um, I was going to ask, um, with shit, now I totally lost it's gone now. He lost it. We looked at him too much. Nobody speak, just stare at him. That's how he gets it back. With, with like the, from the early days, was it a matter of, I know like the short tail world, at least when I was sort of dipping my toe into it, they were like anti crossing things and whatnot. Like, did that start from early on and then that just sort of perpetuated on going forward or was it like, you can give you more on this subject that I said, but I'll put it this way. Today, it's frowned upon. I don't like it. I don't want it. It's always been frowned upon. Yeah, it's always. There's people I do it and all, but it's always, always, always been frowned upon big time. Yeah, yeah, for sure. The reason why they could just look too much like each other and, you know, still to this day with any species, I've seen the arguments like as long as the breeders up front, what can go wrong and it's like, that's such a tired and dumb thing to say because, yeah, so much you go wrong, you know what I mean? So many things. Yeah, and that's the issue with hybrid is it's because there aren't too many of us. People will sell it for what it is not knowing being ignorant of it or just not caring to make a couple bucks. It's, and things just change hands too many times, but like, have I seen them? Yeah, they can be cool. Everybody also likes to just go bird or ugly. They'll be disgusting. You can make them cool. You can make them very cool, but it's just a point that it's, it's a slippery. I mean, you guys, it's a car. Yeah. You guys have slippery swelters. It's crazy. Yeah, it's, I wonder, I wonder why the carpet world is different. Like, you know, because, I mean, am I wrong to think that back in the day they sort of were considered like one thing and maybe they were subspecies right now they're full species, but back then and when they first were coming in and stuff, they were subspecies, right? Right. So like, I think the, the justification in carpet pythons was, you know, yeah, well, yeah, it's, it's, they're subspecies. So like we don't believe in subspecies. And now it turns out that they're all kind of the same anyway. So I kind of disagree. I feel like with carpet python, it was everything is separate and then jag hit and everybody went with the whole jungle diamonds is what I'm talking about. You know, everybody just wanted to mix it to make it like 75% diamond. Exactly. You know, it's to get a hundred percent diamond and you'll be watching your hundred percent diamonds, but it's, and I've seen animals that I've sold that were coastals and but they're black and yellow and then I've seen them become jungles. Yeah, I know that I've seen that. So very easily you could do something where it's like, listen to me, this is this and then watch somebody just not listen and go off and run down the road with it. It's funny, right? So as you guys know, I'm a little eccentric when it comes to like documenting the whole carpet python world and I've been doing it since 2000 and five. Right. So I started to like go through these archives of information I have. And I think about the world of 2005 and now 2000 and there's certain things. I'm not going to go into it on here, but there's certain things that I know that I forgot that were species that they didn't know what the founding animals were or they, you know, it's like they've just become this pure thing when really they weren't and they never were. I mean, I guess depending on where you want to put it against like, I guess you could say this is a jungle or this is a coastal or whatever and you're just taking a guess. But I think the thing that that frustrates me is like, you know, I think of the high contrast Queensland things that Owen had that everybody poo pooed and it was like, now they're gone from the hobby because nobody cared about them and they were cool looking coastal carpets just a normal coastal carpet. Yeah, maybe they weren't, you know, legit didn't have this, but neither was this other thing that everybody like, oh my God, it's the greatest thing ever. Well, now they'd be 100% your locality because it's all kind of anyway. So yeah, it's just me. So like you'll know about it in the, in the, let's say a 10 year stretch, right? Yeah, that group of people that, you know, you know that that guy bred them and like he didn't represent them right and you know, but then this person gets out of the hobby. And then there's no one that knows that story anymore. So then they just become, they just become the normal thing, you know, and I think to me, it's not so much like in the moment that they become, I don't even know if I'm saying this, right? But in the moment they become, you can police it a little bit better. It's like if I sell a snake to Owen and he says, oh, these are pure diamonds and I can say, no, they're not. What are you doing? You know, I think that's happened to Owen where they said this is a tiger and you're like, no, it's not a tiger. I told you it wasn't a tiger, you know, blah, blah, blah. I sold it to you as not that. So like that, yeah. Well, 15 years from now and, you know, maybe me and Owen on around or whatever it would be or not in the hobby or whatever the case would be. I don't know if that's, I mean, you're going to be living in other 10 years for you. Oh, it's still going to be establishing babies in 15 years. I mean, Eric's going to be living in Bob Ashley's Herpetological Library as the, you know, old librarian and, you know, who's just now that. Yeah, yeah. That would be great. Yeah. Yeah. I'm like, hold on. Let me go to the book. Let me get the eyes. Why I'm up and you. That's good. You know, we'll change your eyeglasses. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. The kind like Mike Curtain has really just kind of connected. I'm like, Mike, come on, Mike, you can get real glasses. Can't you come on then? What are you doing? I like this. Okay. All right. So where they, I guess my thing was, was it like, like when they were coming in and even when the hobbies started, like when you were producing them, was it a locality thing? Was it like, what was the, what was the hot thing? Was it just the species where there's certain looks? I know you sort of were selectively breeding and you were talking about how you guys would like, you know, bounce ideas off of each other and whatnot. Was it. What was the real early, real early, it was, there was a locality thing like as far as like the Sumatran's were considered the reddest of red, like the dripping blood red blood python. The one because there, there is a point where the, the, the black. Short tail and the red bloods do kind of have an overlap where they can actually integrate in the wild. But the true Sumatran's back then were, were. Well, what we say true Sumatran back then was a really red blood python, but then there was this animal for a while that came in that was called a tiger blood python. And I bought some of them from the wild. And later on, the barkers really kind of established that they're actually a locality of black, you know, Sumatran's short tails that have this bright yellow head. And, and they don't get as dark as this, you know, the Sumatran's short tail, and they look Borneoish, but they are a Sumatran short tail. And, you know, so that was definitely a locale and a lot of the caramel, I think, right Matt, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the caramel are actually that more yellow phase. Yeah, so with the Sumatran's short tails, the blacks, you have the southern's where the dark phase, the dark and the chrome heads, and then the northern range Sumatran's where the pumpkin head orange. I was like, Keith, Keith is talking about, which is crazy to say, like, you know, looking at the stuff that like, you know, it's just because I guess that what he wants to pay for it, they definitely can't be the same species because the orange head, the pumpkin types are much smaller. They lay larger eggs of smaller numbers and dark Sumatran's, the really jet black ones, even the ones with the chrome heads. They get larger, and they lay smaller eggs of larger quantities, like, larger quantities. So they seem to be pretty different, and I'm sure people have crossed them back in the day and we're still dealing with all, I'm sure people crossed everything. And I was going to say to you, Keith, I know even when I was getting in, but what list, everybody wanted, like, the big thing, the most popular of the three, still in this day are red blood, you know, bronze. So people on this would want a red blood, but they would get sent a pumpkin head, Sumatran or a blue or short tail, or who knows what even they got, but they never got a real red blood. So they didn't even get like something that was small, you know, red blood, when they're babies, they, especially back then, they didn't look like much, they would be rusty, brown, orange-ish colored, there was a lot of yellow things types and I think people didn't know what the hell they had because they wanted like a red blood with yellow patted on it. And like I said, there was a little of them list, would literally say, you know, bronze is mine, you'd order it and people get a Borneo short tail, maybe pissed off. And so when you go to, you look at some of the wholesalers still, they will advertise on Workmark, or even when you do Facebook or King Snake, you would see blood python, Malaysian blood python, which, you know, that's where a lot of blood pythons were. You know, it's funny because at first it was Sumatran blood pythons that everybody wanted. And now it's back to that, everything was getting imported from Sumatran that was red bloods, but what I was getting in, all the red bloods were pretty much Malaysian red bloods. And then there was the, now the crazy color one was the banka, red bloods, that's another locality. So bankers were like, everybody had to, I mean, they really weren't cool for the ones, but every single one. But everyone was like, oh, the bankers are where it's out, it's the redness of the red and all that stuff. Which probably really works with the banka. Banka. Well, now he also worked with the Sarawak, that's the Borneo locations, which I'm glad Rich still works with them because he does. And it's awesome. He's keeping them going. But to me, I just, I never liked, I never was into them. But it is awesome because people, one of them, I had a, I still regret it. Up until like five years ago, I had a original Malaysian red blood pair from Microsoft. So they definitely looked different and people would notice they looked different. And I thought, you know, I produced them a few times and then I sold the whole project because they just, you know, I thought they were cool, but I bring them to the show and people would appreciate them. Nobody would pull, they weren't even expected. No one would pull them to roll them. You know, when they were pretty red, you know, had some wide-baming pattern, just nobody cared. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that sucks when you're like really into all the calories. That's the biggest thing to let the air out of your tires is when you're showing your like people, like how it was, it was like the, it was the couple of shows ago where I actually brought the roughies. And the only person who actually gave a damn was Keith. Keith was the only one who was like, he's awesome. I'm like, thank you, Keith. Thank you. Nobody else. Everybody walked right by them. I'm like, yeah. I didn't know credit for checking them out right next to his table. You weren't now, because you already have. I'm like, I'm like, I'm like two to five days away from Manhattan right now. My second watch ever. So, when are you going to be out of your house and where's your incubator? Yeah. I want to get them done right away. And I need you guys with your miniature, your miniature section. Oh, so, so in a couple of days, you're just going to ring my doorbell and you're just going to be here and be like sexy. All right. Yeah. Yeah. We had, we had a hell of a time. And the last time, I'm like, Oh my God, these really are tiny. But they have some size to them. That's why another reason why I didn't do it right now. I tried doing it right now. Yeah. I thought I was doing it, but I wasn't 100%. One of the things, one of the things that I learned from Owen about right out of the egg is because they don't have the muscle strength or whatever that they do as they. It's so much easier. It's just like, Oh, wow, look. I don't like that with short tails though. I like them to happen. No. Yeah. Yeah. I like that. I feel like males don't, when it is a male, they don't really have much fight. And that's how you, because, you know, Keith says, pre sexing short thousands. Yes. It's terrible. Yes. We're looking at hundreds every year. Yeah. Yeah. First off, the first couple of years, he's like, I still don't know what the hell you're looking at. But now I, you know, I asked him first to see, you know, yeah, see if he has a, you know, good opinion and he hits them like he knows, he knows what we're looking for now. But like I said, I think, um, I think fresh up the egg for short tails because they are difficult because females have long hemiputal homologues. So they look like hemipheme. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like fresh out of the egg, they all have almost no color and they all have no fight. But if you give them a couple of months and let them feed, I feel like males still still right out and females have a little bit more fight and then they definitely develop a color. Males are generally darker females. They usually later, but there are still these in betweeners that are just a nightmare. And, uh, I don't think you're a true short tail and blood reader, unless you've missed sex and stuff. And everybody has, it's just, it's a rite of passage. You get an angry email or an angry call from somebody a couple of years down the line and that's not fun to deal with. But you know, it happens to everybody. Yeah, but I've had those, I've had those situations, you know, who I saw animals to it and the animal was an adult. You know, try greeting it with a male and a female, if she's agitating and does not like that male, she'll invert and they'll look like giant hemi peens, you know. So that was happening because this pair wasn't compatible and the guy calls me up all pissed off. You know, I've raised this thing for four years, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, man, I am 100% positive. That was a female. He's like, you should see the size of blah, blah, blah. I'm like, no worries, that's why I always like having holdback animals because I was able to give him an adult female. Right. And I just gave to him and he goes, well, here you can have it. I go, you can keep the other one. You know, I always want the person to be happy. I don't care if it costs me money. I want that happy. So we kept them both. The following year he calls me back and he goes like, you know, we're going to admit that did turn off the female and laid it close to eggs. I'm like, son of a bitch, got two females from me. Give me my snack back. But usually what the person keeps talking about is a piece of shit. And usually the person would make that right where I keep me made it right. But yeah, that guy was a piece of shit. But I, so I had similar keys. It wasn't, it wasn't like a shitty thing. This was a guy who's been in my house. We had somewhat of a friendship at Hamburg. It was an animal I produced. There's a female. I produced myself. I also got two clutches of eggs out of her myself. And I sold it to this guy as a proven breeder female. That's what he wanted. So he, you know, a weak langer calls me calls because he has my number. He goes, dude, I thought we were friends. This thing got pissed off and you should see the hemipines on this thing. Why would you lie? I'm like, listen, man, I can show you that animal on eggs. I got picked like I had photographs of it. But, you know, so because he was going to breathe. That's why he got all pissed off. So we did breathe it and hear this thing turn. He felt like such an ass. He was apologized. I didn't have to do anything because I knew it was a female. But I am so sorry. Dude, I was ready to like curse your name all over the place. But, you know, he took a picture of what he saw. I'm like, yeah, I would, you know, if I didn't know better, I would think that's a male too. Like because he was a, mostly a ball party-time guy. You didn't get it. Right. Yeah. I mean, they were dark, purple, huge, everything. So you're male. This is a proven female. You know, two times over, I produced it myself. Yeah. People used to ask me what's the best way to sex blood pythons. And I used to tell them the ones that lay eggs are definitely female. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's, that happens sometimes with some of my, like, I, when I pair the team wars together, I'm just going to be hard to tell them apart. And I'm like, well, with the one that lays eggs will be the female. I'll know that one. But I only have the pair. So, but it's funny because Keith is always teaching as much as he can. I don't think he even realizes it. When we were over at his house and we're like, Oh, like sexy Argentines. He's like, all right. What do you think? I'm like, I've never done this before at ever. Like, I don't, he's like, I'm like male. He goes, yes. Correct. I'm like, Oh, okay. We got it. We got it. You got it. You got it. Yeah. He's like, yeah, it's good for me. I'm like, okay. Like, I don't even know. And oh, and I took all those Argentines, the Daytona. And I had Paul Metzfeld and John Barry, who were like, you know, Boa. Yeah. Big time on point guys. And out of the 27 babies, except for the two you took, there was only one. That was Miss sex out of the 27, maybe so. Do you mean it's minor wrong? We did it. But, but not it's fun with that kind of stuff. It's kind of the see the differences because it lucky thing with my stuff is. It's always like a popping out of the egg. It's like I haven't had the thing where it's like, this can't be popped out of an egg or this is different. This is weird. So people do pop them out of the egg. I just find it because so I've only had one customer call me. Well, not just I had that guy, but obviously I wasn't wrong. I had one customer call me and said I was wrong. I'm sure I had to be wrong in other places. I've been wrong about my old hold back animals. I believe two or three times. And like I said, I just feel the way I do it now gives me a more, more sure way to do it. Like that's pretty much what it is for me because now when I could pop ball python everybody's done that. So now I pop ball pythons the way because of the way I pop short tails. I can get their little sunglasses to come out and it confuses people where I know they don't come out nearly. Yeah, I've done a couple and they're like, you know, some will be like, oh, that isn't, that isn't a, that isn't a female. So this isn't a female, but though it is, it definitely is. It's just because I, the way I get a short tail or a blood to fully avert that I, you know, I'm sure with other animals, I can do that too. That's why I'm so afraid of a little snakes. The way I crank them, I'm so used to, I know I can't do that with them. I will snap your little twig snakes in half. Time to sex the rhinos. I broke its nose off. It's worthless. Yeah. All right. I guess as we, as we round out, the one question, this is probably more for Keith, but you sort of hit on it earlier, but what made you decide to move on from short tails. And I, I asked this question in a way that like, I've always envisioned myself with carpet pythons. And I think of like, would I ever not have carpet pythons? And was that a species like that for you? And like, how did that, how did you make that process? Well, I, when you're saying that something popped into my head and I think the difference between you and I is that I got more caught up in breeding for morphs. Or I don't think, you know what I mean? Like, you know, the gold and I and the, and it started to become too competitive. It became, and that's not me. You guys know me well enough to know where my head is at with the animals, you know what I mean? And I started getting too caught up into that and I'm not a competitive guy. I was very athletic in school. Everybody wanted me to go out for sports. I'm just not a competitive person. It really turns me off in the competitive. And that's just who I am. I can't, you know, some people thrive on it. And for me, it just shuts me down and, and it shuts off my creative process, if you will. So I think with the, the reason I enjoyed Borneo's more is, and Matt'll tell you, it's a longer term project. And there's a lot more guessing guesswork and trying to achieve a certain look with Borneo's where the some, the blood pythons are, they're more set or genetic and you're breeding, you know what you're going to get. And you can, you know, get double genes and maybe come up with something new. But with the Borneo's, you know, you're picking certain looks and then you're, you're, you're trying to capitalize on that look and, and you know, it goes in a million different directions and trying to achieve a certain goal is definitely more. So I think that's why I stuck with the Borneo's a little bit more, but everything just started becoming too competitive in that market. And I wanted to go back to my roots, my roots, you know, like I say, back to, to just discovery, watching, learning, something that, you know, everybody else isn't working with. I don't care the value of the animal means absolutely nothing to me. I'm looking at these European wall lizards are like 25 bucks each, but I think the coolest hell to have. And I just warm of lizard. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was like all different stuff that I'm looking at. And you guys know I'm chasing the shin thing right now, Shinosaurus. Yeah. So that's really why I got out of it is just competition just started getting too great for me and I just wasn't enjoying the breeding of it anymore. So I just started going, and that's why I went, I dove into, I was just going to, I literally, when I got out, I told Teresa, I'm going to get two or three pairs of bowl and I, because they were horrible at the time. And I'm just going to stick with board with the bowl and I and see what I can do with them. I got some ideas and blah, blah, blah. So that was my original goal and then I went into a million directions. Yeah. I remember. I remember my taking to Australia. I definitely remember that time. Well, because like I said, it was heartbreaking when Keith got out. Yeah, he's like, I'm just going to be real dialed into like three to maybe five snakes and that's going to be my whole room. And I think the next time I went in his room, he had almost just as much stuff as he had. It was different. It was different. But he's the imologist. I mean, what happened really was he had too many fur coats and wristwatch and all the money made. He was just like, oh man, he's blood. Listen, I've seen Keith's garage. He had such high piles of cash. He was like, I don't know if I could just keep beating all you guys like this anymore. I'm going to give you guys all an opportunity to, you know, live. All right, we'll go with that. Listen, we've all seen Keith's garage and the amount of fishing tack that he has. We know where the money went. It's okay. Like it's, I just keep picturing Keith walking down the aisle with a chalice and fur coat. Like, what's up? It's weird. It does that. Somebody has to make that. Someone, please God. Listen, I'm going to take Tony this year. I expect Keith to walk around like that. Are you going to take Tony? Yeah. Oh, fricking awesome. Yeah. I'll see you there. All right. I have a closing question that really has nothing to do with short tails. But I appreciate it. Well, maybe it could. It depends on how you answer. But I like, I think it's good for people to know the history of it. I appreciate you guys coming on and sharing your stories and how you got into it and what it was like and, you know, the good and the bad and all that stuff. But as I guess I asked you first, Matt, what in the world of reptiles are we not talking about? Huh. What are we not talking about? Yeah. We should keep going. I don't know. I just think I can thank God. That's not that first. Like, that's what we're not talking about. We are our circle does, but just how cool these animals are not just for the pink. I have mutations and stuff like that. I think they are cool. They're a lot of fun. But animals can just be cool on their own. And I think what we're not talking about is I hate to focus on negative out of this question, but it's just like, I think we're. Everybody is so convinced they are. They love animals. They like animals. I think there's a lot of people among us and not that they don't take care of animals. They don't really love animals. They don't really love what we do. They're kind of a tourist here. And I just feel like they might think they do. But if you take the price tag away or you take the chasing something away, do you really love it that much? I mean, do you honestly, because I have short tails and most of them are mutations. But I'm dialing back the red mutations because I think people are doing a hell of a job with it and kind of like Keith. I'm not in super competition and I don't think the guys at the top are in competition. But I just feel like I don't need to add to that. I'm going to keep some, but whatever. But the rough scales. It's one of my favorite things and I don't want anything to happen with them. It's one of my favorite things to keep. I can't wait to have these ones when I was doing counters like crazy. I still got the one of room. My favorites were the localities. I didn't. They are the the next stuff. Cool. Sure. But the regular stuff is cool too. And I just think let's see if you take that stuff away. How long some of these people are around for and stuff like that. I just think I think we idolized too many people that are just paint job specialist or just chasers of that. They have big wallets. And I just think we need to get back to. You can like that. I don't think there's anything wrong with liking that. And you can tell you what I mean. Everybody can. You can't make anybody. But dial in to something that's like I said, Keith started looking at wall lizards. You know what I mean? Like this stuff can be anything to be freaking cool. And there even are people that like just the normal species of stuff. But they still have gigantic price tags on them. I just don't think we need to have, you know, everything doesn't have to be five grand. It can be a hundred dollar project or just a pair or a couple you just want to keep. You don't have to breathe it. That's really cool. You know what I mean? And I just think that's what it is. I think the reptile hobby is gigantic right now. And it's not full of reptile fanatics. It's full of look what I got. Look what I'm chasing. Look at the money I make fanatics. And like I said, I hate to put a negative spin on it. But I just feel like that's something that I see all the time. And it's just, you know. It's like they're into running a small business rather than into reptiles. It just so happens that the reptiles is a small business. It's like entrepreneurship. You're more into because you're trying to do your own business. And that's fine. That's cool. And all the things that come along with it. But I just don't know how it continues to be able to keep self like back in the day. You would self a dream to people. You know what I mean? You see that dream is not there. Can you be successful? Can you have, you know, a good time with it? I guess definitely for sure. But I, I still still feel like, but I mean, like I said, ball python. I was just in a podcast where like, nobody wants to own a ball python anymore. You know, nobody even cares. But I do. Shut up. Let's take that out of the equation because there are a million. It is hard. There's a million ball pints out. They look simple. But people don't even dial back to go into a project. That was cool that you can enhance. Just enhance that. You know what I mean? Like, take. I saw, I think I saw that long ago. I mentioned it like a super pastel, which is a double gene animal. It was, it's an amazing looking animal. I remember it was unappainable when I was there, but you still look at it like, that's a cool animal. You can add to that. You can make thing, you know, you can make that core. You can roll back stuff in the corner. It's not just for ball pints out. It's what everything like I said, I closed my mind that people pay. $5,000, $10,000 for a Crested Gecko because I see some of the mutations. Are they cool? Yeah, but I don't get how bad animal can be a $10,000 animal. And a Crested Gecko on a don't going to be cool. If that's what you really like. But I think if you take away the $10,000 Crested Geckos, there's not going to be that many people Crested Geckos. You know what I mean? Like, it's not going to go crazy. And I just think there are things that. Yeah, that's just stuff should be appreciated more and not just all the stuff, the high dollar stuff. I think there's people that literally have 500 ball pythons, but don't know what a ball python is. Yeah, don't give a shit. You know what I mean? Yeah, of course, how they work. And that's frustrating to me. I know for a fact, what I was doing, like I said, I'm going like 2017, 18, not that long ago. Why I was at Hamburg with retics because I produce some when people saw a norm that they would know what retics are they were naming the genes like I'm. Something I didn't even know that I want to show GS and all this other stuff. Because they see your normal go, what is that? That's a normal, your name and mutations. I've never, like, I don't know much about. And you're blown away by a normal. How the hell, you know, what a normal is, you know what I mean? Like that's a normal reset. What's this one with the reticulated pattern? Yeah, yeah. But aside from that, they have no idea how that animal survives in a while. What it's, you know, anything about that animal being that animal, they know, like he said, skin color. They know the formula of keeping it in a 13 track to make babies. Yeah. Yeah. You could see this now. Like, I mean, raising a price does bring it to people's eyes and you can see how cool it is. But like I said, Mike is always talks about it. Viper bows. You could give them things away. You really couldn't know what he said. And one with its jungle skin on a wild one, you could sell for 600 bucks because you don't know what's coming out of it. And people were like, there was a point where people couldn't get them. Like, you know, you couldn't get them in fast enough to the people to have them. And it's the same snake and I'm guilty of it too. I walk right by them. I had a paper. I had a couple of papers. I wasn't paying 600 dollars for him. I was getting black and brown ones for $250. And I just thought that I didn't really care about the species. That's why I got rid of it. To me, they were kind of boring. But yeah, it was, you know, it just crazy because like I said, I think the price definitely drive stuff. I think you can also bring it to light a little bit more. And there are people that stick with it. But then I think we've all seen that thing where the price spikes. Everybody wants it. The price calms down. And also you see nobody cares about it anymore. You know what I mean? Like, the price ain't there. So I don't, I just don't care. And I know some things if you don't crazy with it, you have to kind of dial it back. But if you got four and you said you really love them. And now the price went from 600 to 100 again. You're like, I just, I don't like these microphones anymore. You know, I can just have them, you know, I didn't like them because I just didn't like and they were boring to me, you know, so. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I like it. I like that. It's kind of like. I don't know. I don't know if you're looking for a negative or positive. No, it's something we were talking about. That was the correct. Yeah. Yeah, 100%. That was the question. You got any thoughts Keith? Well, I guess it's kind of along these lines. Like, I think people don't understand that there's many ways to keep different species like, I know for a fact that rat systems in a very sterile setup are very good for blood python. A bioactive setup for a blood python isn't going to work, but there are plenty of animals where a bioactive setup works for. And I think people, like some people get into this routine where every snake that they keep has to be either in a rack system or cage on paper or every animal that they keep has to be in a bioactive. They don't understand that in captivity. There certain animals do do better in captivity and very sterile setup and other animals do very well in a more naturalistic. Maybe not even bioactive like there's an intermediate thing like I keep all my red tail boas, Argentine boas, Bolivian boas, all of that on a thick layer of aspen bedding. Because I noticed that the snakes love burrowing into that with just their head sticking out in ambush position. It gives them a sense of security and all. And I just like thinking that I'm giving that animal a sense of a little bit of it still being in its wild state. And I'm able to get away with that with a snake just as large as a blood python, but a blood python would not do well in that setup. You know what I mean? And I think people think a snake is a snake is a snake or a lizard is a lizard is a lizard. And there's a lot of ways to keep these animals and I don't think people talk about all these different ways like they either poo poo on bioactive because it doesn't work for a blood python so they think it doesn't work for any animal. In reality, there's plenty of animals that work. Owen keeps his rhino rats and very naturalistic setup, you know, and those animals are thriving in that. So I would like to see more discussion on and people not totally trashing somebody because they're experimenting with a different way to keep certain species. I mean, I have some call you brids and stuff. All my call you brids are a mulch just because I don't feel like dealing with that all the time, but like my scrubs are on mulch. My water pythons are on mulch. I have a couple of other animals that are on mulch. I have certain things where the male of the species is on mulch and the female isn't like it, you can kind of find I find I've there's even species like I like keeping Madagascar tripos and zinnia on on mulch. I would never keep them like, you know, on let's say ask them betting or something like I like mulch or like there's different species that I just find different substrates really well with and I don't think people are either of the paper mindset or, you know, of the other minds seems like they don't see like my collection. If you guys come over or when you come over, you're going to see like all these different animals are on different substrates, you know, depending on what I found works best for them and gives them a little bit of natural feel and I'm not so sterile and I'm I'm happier. I think you're happier. You know, yeah. Yeah, that is a good subject. Like I said, that that hits close to home to what I think about all the arguing. I just think when everybody can just like put down their swords, both like we could figure out more when we're just not on each other's throat. You know what I mean? It doesn't have to be a big enclosure that's natural versus a rack or PVC cage. It's on paper. Like I said, you don't have to love it. Either one or the other, but you got to know that both do work and they can work for different species and different people just because you keep your blood points on one way. It doesn't mean the other way doesn't work. They both can work. And instead of hating for it. Like I said, maybe when people stop arguing more cage and rack manufacturers will figure out stuff, stuff will get bigger. You know, it's not the early 2000s where there's only four molds of a tub. Repile rack companies are now making their own. So I think the most villainized thing about racks is probably just the non-hype factor. I mean, some people just hate the plastic tub in general, but I feel like it's the hype factor. Some snakes don't need hype, but you could, you know, people that aren't keeping a million snakes can sort of having one that's 10 feet high. Everyone is six, six inches or six and a half inches would be happy to sub that after something that's, you know, seven or six tubs high and you're having 10 or 11 inches for each water or whatever it might be. You know what I mean? Some people, I would try that. I would be happy with that. I just think it's like you're the key. So there's a lot of different ways to keep it. And me being primarily a rack guy, I could tell you most of my stuff is in racks. I have short tails. Some are on paper. Some are on cocoa chip. Babies generally are either kept wet on paper or have a ton of spagnamos by rough scales are in cages with the universal stone backgrounds on cocoa chip and natural branches. Good man. I keep the rough. He's the same. Okay. My parents are more than a natural thing, not bioactive, but they have branches and fake, they have fake leaves and stuff like that. They're in a cage. I have white's tree frogs that have bioactive. You know, I, it's, it's not one come all like I tried different things with different stuff and some of the same species are kept different ways in a different size of even so. Yeah, I hate, I hate all they just, like I said, you don't. It's not black or white. There's a lot of gray area. Of course, there's, of course, stupid ass ways you can keep snakes in racks or stupid ass ways you can keep snakes in giant cake. Like I said, there are some snakes. There are some people that say bigger is always better. That is complete horseshoe. There's no, it's not always better. It's not just because of the age of the animal. Sometimes it just doesn't work for certain animals. So certain cages are not set. Like I would not put a ground dwelling like species in my giant tall ass tank in my living room. Why? It would be like, what's up there? Whatever. We'll never go. We're like, I don't, why would I put that's a waste of space. And obviously also, I find that stuff changes as the animal ages. Right now the baby ruffies are on newspaper. Why they're fucking babies. Okay. Like they're constantly, and as they grow, I have like sub adult or juvie up here. He's on mulch. So after a certain point, you get them into that thing. It's, it's when people like, I'm going to take this hatchling that you gave me and put it in a four foot bioactive. I'm like, whoa, whoa, please pump the brakes because you're going to call me in a week because it won't eat like it's that kind of stuff. Where? Okay. Sorry. Got to get into it. Yeah. I think, I think with our world today, unfortunately, we've become so polarized about everything. And nobody talks anymore. And I kind of feel like if the two worlds would kind of talk to each other, perhaps you could come to some kind of compromise that would make the best new reptile caging available because you're getting the best of both worlds, you know. But instead, we just demonize whatever other side it's on. And it's just like, it gets us nowhere. You know what I mean? It's like you, you're going to talk to me. I remember I was on a podcast and we were talking about, you know, natural keeping and how I changed my mind about keeping carpets. And then it became, well, do you think that you should keep everything all pythons like that? And I said, well, the one thing I've learned from keeping all different types of pythons is that I used to think that they're all the same. What a stupid idea that was because it's not, they're not, they're not the same. They don't come from this. Yeah, I guess they're like, you know, a semi tropical speed, you know, I guess to somewhat, to a certain extent, certain species are the same or whatever. But, you know, you're just, you, I don't know, I don't keep a short tail. And then I'm not going to not going to listen to the two guys that have kept them and bred them and been successful. And like, if I get to a point where I'm comfortable with what you guys have already done, then it's like, okay, maybe I start to experiment and then say, all right, you know, hey, Matt, hey Keith, you know, here's an idea. What do you think of this? Would this, you think this would work? And then, you know, maybe you try it out and see how it goes, you know, you guys are talking about experimenting with different beddings and substrates based on the species or even an individual animal. I don't know, I just wish there was more of that kind of conversations that happened in the normal world of reptiles, as opposed to like what we do behind the scenes. Like, hey, I kept it like this, you know, blah, blah, blah. Oh, yeah, you know, I think Keith was the one that told me, I remember it, we were, we got a carpet fest and he was in looking at my snakes and stuff and, you know, I was talking about, he was telling me about short tails and I know you did this, Matt, but I don't know. I never thought I'd just put all the spag moss in it so it's like a big hide, right? Because that's kind of what they do. And then all of a sudden they feel more comfortable, you know, so I was like, oh, I wonder if that would work with like carpets if instead of using a hide, I just did that. And I did it and it worked great. It's like, oh, I don't need one of those, you know, black hides or whatever. Maybe it makes the snake feel more comfortable or not. I don't know, I just always felt that those black hides were good, but it didn't really do what I thought a snake would do if it's hiding in a crack. It's screaming itself in so that all parts of its body is touching it so it feels secure. Not this big box that it's just sitting underneath. Yeah, I worked at the time, I suppose, and you wanted to make something that's commercial that you can produce and all that kind of stuff. And I'm not saying that that's a bad thing, but like, that's why I go back to toilet paper towel roll. Yeah, definitely do that. It is annoying. It's just arguing. You don't have to have a side. It doesn't get us anywhere. You don't have to love it, but you have to understand. Like I said, for me, when it comes to like rat keeping at all, I can understand that people generally might not like the way it looks. They need educating about it. But the fact, you know, the data is on our side of how long people have been doing this and all the animals that mostly people are doing. I've been racks or PVC stuff on paper, more sterile thing to figure out the species and all that other stuff. You know, we're not coming in and giving it this slice of what we think they live in gigantic. I'm like, I think I asked you about this, because I was going to do some kind of a big write up about it. And I'm sure in the early days, that's what was going on. You get a wild caught animal and you're trying to replicate it home and then it becomes difficult because you can't see what's going on. You can't see what it's doing. You're trying to feed the animal. When you're putting something smaller, it calms down. You're able to read the animal. You're able to see what it's leaving on the paper or even the cleaner substrate and you're able to dial it in a little bit better. And then that's how you figure it out. And then when the animal, when the animal then adjusts to you and you're keeping an animal, then you can judge whether you can give it this big slice of habit. However, you want to say it this big slice of habit. So, you know, it all goes back to like, you know, ball pythons and boas, you know, the more common cuts. Everybody wants to go and just buy the big cage, the end game cage. And even if you're buying like a sub adult, can't live in there and do good. It could. You know, you can't, you definitely can't stick a baby in a four foot cage and think it's going to do go. But if you take an adult or a sub adult, but I think it's important, you get the time under you and learn the animal and then make the adjustment of it. If you're an animal, if you're keeping something small, your animal is never shown. It's always in the back. When you open it, it's a little skittish or you know, you know, that's a good sign. They'd be like, you know, maybe given this thing something with a bunch of perches and a light bulb and a big front opening thing might not be the best idea. But if the animal is very docile and tame and almost like you want to say like a broken animal, well, this thing is just dumb enough to live in whatever it can and it will then thrive or do whatever. But like I said, I just the further along the animal is closer to the wild or acts more like it's wild self, the worse off these big cages are, unless you're talking about something with a little bit more room. Like, yeah, it would be wrong to stick something like a basin or something, you know, a green tree python that is going to perch and wants to perch nationally in something that's five inches high, even if it can't hurt. So like, you want to give it something more than that, you know, you want to give it a perch, but for a lot of these things, you know, you are wasting space by doing it's never going to use that. And if you want to do that and it's for you and you get temperatures correct, and your snake is thriving, it's eating, it's shedding. Okay, we're power to you, but there's certain times when you've got, you know, I struggle with this thing on and off all the time, and you've got this big beautiful setup. Well, then maybe dial it down or, you know, oh, this snake isn't doing well because you got a crammed in a rack, well, then maybe get it in something bigger, you know, it's, it goes both ways. It really does. And instead of just, you know, open your ears, learn about it some before just going on, like I said, it goes the other way to for people to keep in rocks. Everybody just shifts all over bioactive or big natural cages. I mean, it's not going to really work for Python and stuff like that, but there are a lot of species you can, or it might not hurt for things and you can try it. By all, basically, you're the thing, for snakes, I don't think it's going to amount to anything. But if you want to try it, cool, as long as you're not blasting it 24/7 with UV and giving it, giving it, giving it like a photo period, you know, it's fine. But, you know, Eric, I've actually added a lot of this stuff to the book that I'm trying to put together. And one of the things is, like Matt say, and, you know, some species feel more secure in a tighter, smaller cage, but they're on the same token, like these these tiger rat snakes that I had, I found I put the animal in a five foot long cage two foot wide. And this animal is way more secure now in this bigger cage because their defense is flight, not right. You know, so in a bigger cage, an animal that's defenses flight, like a coach whip or a racer or something like that, they feel more secure because they got more room to let loose and get away, you know. And you try to make an animal like that in a tight small cage, then, you know, without a lot of hides and all that kind of, but I've been adding a lot of stuff like that. I definitely want you to read the revise. Okay. Where we go? Yeah, absolutely. I think that's one of the reasons why I love carpet pythons, right? To me, they fit exactly what I'm looking for because I'm a lot like Keith. Maybe it's getting older. You don't, you know, it's in the in the morph game. I did it with the carpets and it was like, I was the same way I got turned off about it. People that I was friends with all of a sudden, those two people are fighting and they want me to choose a side and I'm like, no, I'm done with this. This is just over the color of a snake. Like, guys, what are we doing here? And like, you can keep a carpet python and that kind of enclosure and I can see what it does and I can feel like I'm in Australia and I can feel like, you know, but I'm not going to say to anybody that they shouldn't keep it any the way that they're keeping it. That's not my club, and I'm not saying that even the way I keep it is right. I'm just saying that this is what I want to do and this is how I want to do it, you know. And it's like, if you're keeping a desert species and that's like the majority of your collection, you're not going to go and buy a rainbow and say, he looks excited. He's begging for attention is what's happening here. Because when he lives generally when I'm not doing this stuff, he's like, I don't understand what's happening. He's like, come on. But, but yeah, that's, I don't know. That's kind of, I thought, like, you have to be smart about like what you're doing like you can't have, I guess you can, but you've got to look at it like, how are you going to keep the humidity of a rainbow bow when everything else you have is is from desert where you got to keep the humidity lower, you know, right? And there are ways around that and stuff to do, but it's like, what I think master at it. I am, I am God, but no, but I think it's, but what I think the problem is is that where I get the issue is, you know, people who fight back with this kind of shit. It's like, this isn't really going to work for the species. Well, what do you, how do you know, you're right. I've only been producing it for 20 years like I don't like it's that kind of stuff of people have tried these things. You know, this is the best for the species. And it's like, how many of you, you know what? Go, go fucking try it. And they're like, oh, it's dead. No, that works. That works in reverse too. You can't say like, well, I've only been, you know, because then you're like, oh, you can breathe, you know, so you can't even do that when you're when you're trying to have like a good conversation with someone. It's almost like you can't. You should use, but it's like life happened producing this specific thing for 16 years, bringing my own babies, producing them back, you know, doing all that stuff. You know, I'm figuring something out and they just, you know, oh, why? Because you're special because you're a breeder, you know what I mean? Yes, because I've kept a bunch of them alive. That's what I mean. But you can't, because generally that goes back. You should be able to, and it's not just a rabbit in somebody's face, but you're just trying to give your experience and all that. But people need, it's so tiring. Right. And that's, dude, I don't comment on anything because it's exhausting. But people need to understand, like if I had a bunch of vorneos dropped in my lap, first off, I'd drive them to Matt's house and eat them over his fence. But it, if that happens, I'm talking to YouTube because it's like, I need you guys to take me to school, because I have no fucking idea what I'm doing. And I can admit that where I think we have the issues that people like, well, clearly I've kept this corn snake and I can do this. It's like, well, maybe you want to listen to some of the people who have trodden the ground here about the walk on many times before. Well, it goes back to what Keith's saying. It all goes backwards. Back in the day, you couldn't get any info. You were just trying to keep it alive. Someone's like, yeah, you figured it out. You don't want to go in secret. There's more than willing to give you the secret. They're like, no, that sucks. You can't put them in a tub. I'm putting them in a giant cage. You guys already are. So I'm putting it in cages with waterfalls. I'm doing all that. I need to stow a rock work. Yeah. I will say my one pet peeve is people that say they want to keep something as natural as possible. And not only is the set up, not natural. I like to go the extra mile. Like, are you introducing produce to it? Because that's pretty natural. Are you? You don't want to breathe. They breathe in the nature. Are you feeding it a very various food items? No, you're giving it a first. It's all right. You're not even giving it a live rat. And everyone will talk about enrichment. You won't even give your snake a live meal like that. But I've got to get your distance if I want to be petty and argue with somebody like you're not doing any of that kind of stuff. I did think Matt was a little crazy when he introduced cane toads to his rough cage. Bad has happened, but he is playing with fire. Yeah. For those for those who know, no, there's Theresa. Theresa still will be laughing in the middle of the night. Pinkies out, right? All right. If anybody wants to get in touch with you guys, where can they find you Matt? Where can they find you? Facebook. It's the Facebook under my name, Facebook under Felijo Pediculture. Okay. Instagram under Felijo Pediculture. If you Google Felijo, I'm sure I'll come up. We're not going to tell where I'm sure I will come up. Gotcha. Okay. What about you, Keith? We have no more websites or anything for me. So if you want to contact me, just my name on Facebook, send me a message. I talked to everybody, so don't worry. Send me a message. Oh, and I thought we were special. I am. I am. You know, listen, you ride my coattails here, buddy. That's true. That's true. I'm glad to keep you around. Yeah. Yeah. You're the smartest one. I guess with Keith was my knowledge of... I sit back when everybody works and I just listen. I dash with Keith with my knowledge of California king snakes and how to breed them in a bin. Yes, I see. So next week, we're talking dwarf Burmese pythons. What is happening with this show? Well, we're talking with Michael Penel. Okay. About some burns. That just reminded me of my own podcast about dwarf burns. I don't think so, but yes. Now there will be. Okay. I would like to say probably not, but there's a lot of podcasts. Yes, true. Well, Aaron, how many you said that there'll be one tomorrow night? Well, yeah. Yeah, 100%. Hey, so... It just made me think of Matt's sheer longkins and stuff again, which I need to get them out of my way. Oh, my way, Matt. Is fill ours. Yeah, man. So you got to see them live when you're walking. Oh, yeah. God. No, dude. Oh, Owen. No, Owen. Oh, that stupid retake. Oh, it wasn't Keith Adams already living red three in my brain. Okay. So you can get away from that. I can't have man or two. You're going to be Ellen. You're already going to be locked in when you see them. I already know. I got your name down for two. I've been like, Keith's like, Oh, I have a list. I'm like, damn it. He had my name with a list. Right? That's how that works. Okay. Yeah. So it's, yeah. When you open the tub, it's like, I can't. I can't. Dude. You're in your empty. You can actually have them. Yeah. It's hilarious. I put you down for two. Thank you. I just want to throw out there. If anybody asked you to source, please contact me. Well, Eric, you should kick yourself in the ass because you had what? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You had a super tame one at that. Yeah. Michael. Michael. But they're not. I could get scoop one up like that. Yeah. Yeah. That one was nice. So. All right. Well, I guess for us. Maripa, the radio all over the socials. We have the merch store. We got the Discord. We have a Patreon. I think. Carpetfest. Carpetfest. Yeah. That's number 14. Yep. And then we have somebody working on the logo for that. Sweet. We have cold-blooded cafe, which is where you get your rodents. You use code NPR20. They get 20% off. We have cold-blooded cafe, which is where you get your rodents. You use code NPR20. They get 20% off of your first order. And you can use. Got it. FS. 250 for free shipping up any order over $250. You have cold-blooded caffeine where you can get all your coffee, including the NPR blend and a couple other. What? The nectar of the gods. And then there's NPR10 there to get 10% off your order. Yes. Okay. Yeah. We have the Patreon. We have the Discord. And yeah. Join up with that. We'll be making the announcement in a couple of shows about the calendar competition because we're heading into that. And I will be damned if we don't get this right this year. So I'm going to start this shit in August. So you've all been put on warning. I have it on the meeting list. It's on the meeting list. We ever get that meeting. So that's it. I think. That's all we have for everybody tonight. So we'll say thanks everybody for listening. And we'll check everybody out next week for some more really Python radio. Good night. (Music) (Music) (Music) (Music) (Music) (Music) (Music) (Music) (Music) (Music) (Music) (Music) (Music) (Music) (Music) (Music) (Music)
