Jessica Dring;1246098; said:
Theres no excuses. You preach to other people about good husbandry, but you don't (or didn't practise it). Age isn't an excuse, nor an acceptable reason to subject your animals to suffering or to avoid using YOUR OWN good husbandry rule. How dare you preach to OTHER people when you have caused SO many problems for your animals.
I'd suggest we not here you preach about good husbandry and how nobody gives their pets this again..as it includes you.
Not trying to take sides here, and I generally agree with you, JD, but I do sympathize a little with Loco. In my early herp-keeping years (11-13 yrs old), I did the following:
- kept a leopard gecko on sand and he died of impaction (I think)
- starved a hognose snake to death (thought it would hibernate)
- kept a bearded dragon without UV lighting and it eventually died
...and years later, I tried my ball pythons on mini corncob litter. My beautiful female soon later died and an ammature autopsy (performed by myself) revealed a death from impaction. (this was when that litter was becoming popular for reptiles and there wasn't much reviews out about its safety)
Am I proud of all that? Absolutely not. It wasn't that I didn't care about my pets. In those cases, I was just simply ignorant and genuinely thought that I was keeping them correctly and safely. One could say that I shoulda researched these matters better before getting the animals and they'd probably be right.
My main point is that I don't really think its fair to judge someone by their past mistakes (regardless of their age).
However, one should be able to learn from them and also know their place on the "experience-level food chain."