Has anyone asked you this about your hobby?

I recently encountered this for the first time, like any good herp hobbyist.

I was asked by a friend today "Are you sure that this is healthy to have all these animals?"

Naturally it's irritating. I may have quite a few. I have 14 snakes, 16 geckos, 11 frogs, 9 lizards, 20 aquatic frogs (clawed and dwarf), and 17 salamanders and 42 axolotl juvies, all of varying species. I suppose it's a lot, but I'm not even close to a lot of hobbyists I know. Not only am I attached to my animals, but I can still name every one. Well, except for the dwarf frogs. Can't tell the difference between those guys now. But the point is, it's a hobby. I'm not a crazy cat lady with feces covering my house. They're in tanks, and quite a few are actually rescues.

Some people have more intense hobbies. People with entire rooms full of trading cards or dolls. My uncle has a repo wood pile behind his house that he builds stuff from for fun. Most people have hobbies that take up space and time, and herpetology as a hobby isn't that uncommon - they always say if you have one snake you'll end up with more.

Has anyone else experienced this prejudice against the keeping of herps? "I'm concerned for you." for no real reason? It seems like if you have one snake you're weird, two snakes and a salamander you're eccentric, and a reptile room equals complete mental degradation.

Yup, I have been asked that and I have less than you. Once I had more than three frogs I was being asked it....some people just don't understand!

I´ve been accused of having an unhealthy mentality plenty of times to which i always answer: I´d rather be surrounded by living organisms than mountains of useless ****.

It´s obvious that most if not all hobbies, worthy of their name, take space and time. The reason why ours is generally regarded as weird and unhealthy is, i think, on one hand the cat lady effect ("large" numbers of animals are an instant red flag for many people, although i wonder if they´d think the same if the animals were guppies for example), and on the other, the disassociation of the general public from nature and living things.

I agree. My mom tells me all the time that I have far too many animals, but I've said it before and I'll say it again:

1. They make me happy.
2. I have the time, money, space, and desire to care for them all properly.

Heck, I even make money breeding and doing animal shows. My mom collects spoons. How is that not weirder than us? You only eat with one spoon at a time, max two, whereas I know for a cold, hard fact you can play with more than one critter at a time.

You know what else? I am making a positive impact on the world. Most of my critters are rescues (picked up 2 today). I changed that animal's life for the better, and it is so amazingly rewarding to know that I gave that animal the best life it could live. How, exactly, is that unhealthy?

Some people just don't understand. I mean, what's wrong with peeing in a jug so that I can add it to my daphnia tanks and compost bins to supply nitrogen and other nutrients for the algae/bacteria/fungi? Perfectly reasonable behaviour, I say. Why waste a valuable resource? And so what if I have the best amphibian collection in the country (including the zoos), my garden is overflowing with tanks, the largest of which I can swim in, and the floors of my house are littered with the dessicated husks of escapee worms? Why settle for doing things by halves, I say. Now are you finished reading that newspaper? I need it for my worms.

I suppose when I read that, I skipped right past the mental health aspect of it (does that mean I've already lost it?), and thought of things like salmonella and air/waterborne zoonotics.

In that aspect, I've always responded that I've never been made sick by my animals. In fact, I think having a variety of animals actually makes one healthier, as it exercises the immune system. I think it's also helps protect from zoonotics I may encounter in the field.

As far as mental health... well, as long as you can still pass as a normally functional adult, who the hell cares? There are people out there way more screwed up than me, so go bug them.

I do question my behaviour sometimes....

I can be sitting at my computer, busy with something or other, when I notice the Pleurodeles tank's light switch on.
My response has generally been to glance over and say "Hi, fat boy" to Senor Waltl who is lurking about, trying to get my attention (to sate his appetite, of course).

But just recently I'm wondering about my increasingly common habit of actually waving to him, to accompany the verbal greeting......

I consider him to be a very special newt.
But then I think my social-worker has referred to me as being 'special'.

I don't have that many tanks, and hopefully will have one less, soon; (5ft tank for sale, see the ads).
But there are various buckets around the room which would seem to be both itinerant and multiplying.
They contain water (treated) which will go in tanks, water (from doing water-changes) that are ear-marked for my house-plants, buckets containing a surplus of frog-bit which I trade for bloodworm at my local aquarist shop, etc etc, then there's the tubs of white-worm cultures, earthworms, you get the picture....

The weird thing is that whenever I get a first-time visitor to the house, they normally comment firstly on the two motorbikes that I share the front room with....
(1952 Francis-Barnett and 1968 Honda).

Caudate tanks are similar to tattoos, email addresses, and direct-debits in the respect that at first you think you will only have one, but blink and you've got half a dozen..... as if by magic.

Ken 'keep taking the tablets' Worthington

PS. Hayden, your last post in this thread was 'spot on', well said.

PPS. Peter5930 when I was organic farming, we always used to dilute our 'pee' first, because of the potential salt content. Has this ever been as issue in your daphnia culture?

My newts are very good for my health. So are my dogs.

on the other hand, some people have a house full of kids and babies, which are little pink germ cannons with sticky fingers who puke a lot. How unhealthy does THAT sound????

also: several of my neighbors are dog mushers. Alaskans don't think anything of owning 30-90 dogs. So my 30+ newts are hardly disturbing, eh?

LOL people think i am insane anyway, my amphibians just give them something else to worry about ! it's merely a harmless hobby / obsession and the only problem its causes is when I walk into the house and say to my wife "hey! guess what i just got........"

In terms of the health aspect, if you are, as I laid out, taking proper care and being responsible, then you won't get sick. I spend all day playing with critters, yet I have not once died of salmonella. You know my secret?

I wash my hands.
I keep my enclosures clean.
I very rarely put any of my animals in my mouth.

BOOM! Disease free hobby.

Ken Worthington said:

I do question my behaviour sometimes....

I can be sitting at my computer, busy with something or other, when I notice the Pleurodeles tank's light switch on.
My response has generally been to glance over and say "Hi, fat boy" to Senor Waltl who is lurking about, trying to get my attention (to sate his appetite, of course).

But just recently I'm wondering about my increasingly common habit of actually waving to him, to accompany the verbal greeting......

I consider him to be a very special newt.
But then I think my social-worker has referred to me as being 'special'.

Click to expand...

I have documentation from my psychiatrist and a psychologist to that effect.

PPS. Peter5930 when I was organic farming, we always used to dilute our 'pee' first, because of the potential salt content. Has this ever been as issue in your daphnia culture?

Click to expand...

Daphnia can tolerate 1000ppm of NaCl without any problems, and 1,000 to 10,000ppm NaCl is typical for urine, so it's not likely to cause problems unless urine is the only fluid that you ever add to the tank after you first fill it and the salt concentration slowly builds up over several years. Also, this is my main daphnia tank at the moment:

duuude...that's one big Daphnia tank.

seriously, what else does pipi provide that benefits Daphnia?

It doesn't benefit the daphnia directly; urine provides urea, phosphate and potassium, with a helping of trace elements, and is more or less equivalent to using an NPK fertiliser, although the urea has to be converted to nitrate before it can be used by algae. I'd avoid using female urine, particularly from women who're on the pill, due to the high levels of estrogen in it.

Despite all the dead leaves that had fallen into the tank from the neighbour's big ash tree, my water was crystal clear and the daphnia were sparse up until a couple of weeks ago, when I started adding urine to get the algae blooming to feed the daphnia.

Molch said:

duuude...that's one big Daphnia tank.

Click to expand...

My thoughts exactly!!! I'm impressed !!

(Mind you, he may have a bladder the size of a blimp :lol: )

PS. In my last post I seemed to have combined what I wanted to say in the "How many tanks do you REALLY have" thread with this one.
Not that it really matters........

Ken Worthington said:

I can be sitting at my computer, busy with something or other, when I notice the Pleurodeles tank's light switch on.
My response has generally been to glance over and say "Hi, fat boy" to Senor Waltl who is lurking about, trying to get my attention (to sate his appetite, of course).

But just recently I'm wondering about my increasingly common habit of actually waving to him, to accompany the verbal greeting......

Click to expand...

I do exactly the same thing to my tigers. God morning (they have all sorts names) and then i wave hehe. No one have seen me do this lucky enough.

I give my tigers high fives. I've never waved at them. Except maybe the 'one finger - baby talk' wave.

I definitely talk to all of my reptiles - especially my axolotls. But usually with my axolotls it's like "Oh my goodness, you're so freaking fat. You're turning into a blimp. Lay those eggs quick before you explode!" and "My goodness, Enrique. You're so freaking dumb. Can't you see that you keep running into the same thing? No wonder you're endangered in the wild!"

While I'm not insane to have all these animals, I am however slowly going insane from the thought that all of my bugs will escape and my floor will be piles and piles of mealworms, superworms, earthworms, crickets, and roaches.

I talk to my newts, sometimes telling Imi to stop being dim, or telling Rissi she looks a bit plump. Teddy gets talked to the most, probably because I fuss about him (he's the youngest).
I happily talk to any animals, but people don't seem to think it strange...