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Hobby keeping questions

Best part of the hobby?


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    91

Chinadog

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Same here, its a combination of them all. If I had to pick one thing it would be watching the young male pyrrhos as they mature and get their breeding colours for the first time. They can vary so much from understated and subtle, to eye poppingly brash and everything in between.
I also enjoy having planted tanks, something I only got into since I've had newts. I've always had aquariums ever since I was big enough to carry a bucket, but always kept large fish like Oscars or catfish, so plants would always be either uprooted or eaten!
 

sde

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The things i like the most are; making enclosures, the animals themselves, seeing animals thrive in their enclosure, learning from a experience, having a go at breeding more hard to breed species, trying to make as naturalistic of an enclosure as possible.
 

Sith the turtle

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I personally like setting up enclosures, and watching them have natural behavior. I also have had an interest in them ever since I was little, and I have always wanted to work at a reptile house in a zoo
 

Chinadog

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I personally like setting up enclosures, and watching them have natural behavior. I also have had an interest in them ever since I was little, and I have always wanted to work at a reptile house in a zoo

I voted for 'Other' in the end after reading your post. Its interesting that you mention natural behaviour, compared to a lot of other herp keepers we are quite lucky in that respect. If we give our newts a decent size enclosure and plan the layout carefully we can watch many, if not most species of caudates feeding, breeding and just generally going about their business almost as they would in the wild, something owners of larger types of turtles/tortoises, snakes, lizards etc just can't without huge house sized enclosures. I'm not saying other herps don't adapt well to captivity, some do, but the way they behave often bares little resemblance to the way they would in the wild.
 

Sith the turtle

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When I was little, I would have small, and hardy species that just looked natural in their tanks, Bombina orientalis, Anolis carolinensis, and Terrapene carolina. I don't like it when they are in too small tanks, don't even like the 10 gallon minimum rule, honestly, if you can't afford a 15-20 gallon tank, just get a Tupperware storage bin. Has all the space, just sacrifice viewing for animal happiness. I've always wanted the newts and salamander species that I'm after, because I remember going to my Library, and checking out this children's book that had drawings of Salamanders and newts, a hellbender stealing a fish off a line, an ensatina dropping it's tail, but the Red eft was just so beautiful, and they lived in my state, just made me have an approval not only of herps in general, but wherever I moved, I'd want to find and protect the animals if they were endangered, or at least in a way that a 5-6 year old could do
 

Stupot1610

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Pure fascination. I find amphibians, and most animals actually, incredibly interesting. People always ask me why I find them so interesting, and honestly, I don't really know.
I think breeding them is the best part of the hobby, but increasing the wealth of knowledge within the hobby is also very important.
Probably the most satisfying thing is seeing the animals you've raised from eggs grow and become adults, then seeing those breed. Doesn't get much better than that, in my opinion.
 

Rupert

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I voted knowledge because I find that more often than not, the research prior to getting the animal tends to be the mot exciting part- especially with the anticipation. I learned a great deal about nature - not only about the caudates themselves but the environment, micro-habitat, and that "niche" caudates fill.

Thus my philosophy is to research their natural habitat and try to set up their enclosures accordingly, while trying to maintain a reliably self-cycling mini-habitat on its own (gotta have detrivores, aquatic or terrestrial).

Once the animals are in and thriving, its a great sense of accomplishment to see that the research was not in vain.

Of course there were discouraging moments (especially when I was young... with limited funds mostly), but I think I came to understand a lot more about the natural world and science in general. I earned B.A. in psych and went to law school so things like nutritional value of bugs and tannin acidifying tank water were very new to me.

But to be honest... I think the poll is lacking the "They're caudates" option for me.:rofl:
I shamelessly admit that I wouldn't be doing any of this for any other type of animals- not even anurans..:proud:
 

Herpin Man

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I think it is a combination of factors, that vary among species.
Like most hobbyists, I keep a variety of different herps. The reasons I like alpine newts, for example, are very different from the reasons that I like alligator snapping turtles, or Stimson's pythons, and so forth.
 

Aesyir

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Love the whole experience so I had to pick other hehe...
 

Sol

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If "Feeding" was an option, I'd definitely pick that, given how fun it is to have to coax an axolotl into following my hands for food.
 
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