Are you a responsible keeper?
Summary
What makes a responsible reptile keeper?
Responsible breeders and stores work hard to ensure customers leave with the right equipment and sound advice. However, the final responsibility for any animal’s welfare always rests with the keeper.
Responsible reptile keeping does not begin and end with buying the right enclosure. It’s an ongoing commitment to learning, reviewing and improving.
Good research from reliable sources should begin before an animal comes home and continue throughout its life. That means looking beyond basic care sheets, learning about the species’ needs, speaking with experienced keepers and keeping up with new research.
Meeting an animal’s essential needs provides a sound and entirely acceptable standard of care. But as our understanding of reptile welfare and husbandry continues to develop, good keepers are always keen to learn and adapt. A willingness to keep learning and improve the care we provide is something to be proud of.
We suggest connecting with people who know the subject well. A knowledgeable keeper, specialist reptile retailer or local reptile society can help you identify reliable information, avoid common mistakes and continue improving the care you provide.
What upgrade have you made after learning something new?
Thanks to
Gav, Lincoln, Ellie, Beth, Amber, IHS
Transcript
What do you think makes someone a responsible reptile keeper?
Research.
Research.
Research.
Research.
Research and knowledge is the key to everything I feel.
Someone that keeps their research up to date doesn't just finish at a starter care guide. Someone who's going to sort of seek out information about the animal's natural habitat and improvements upon care in general. So you're not kind of staying stagnant within the hobby.
Someone who researches, research, research, research, speaking to other reptile keepers, you know, making connections within the community, within the hobby and just speaking to other people and learning as much as you can before you bring an animal home.
Being aware of where the science is on this animal at the time, obviously things constantly change, we're constantly discovering new things about animals and being willing to learn and change what you're doing, I think that's what makes someone responsible, just constantly driving to be better.
I think being responsible is not only doing your own research. And when I say research, I don't mean like, I checked out this one guy on Facebook and he told me this, so I must keep this for, well, the rest of forever. It's constantly keeping up with, you know, new studies, it's constantly keeping up with what is actually best for the animal. And what I think is most important is also admitting when you're wrong and changing that as well, because maybe you can be giving better care instead of like taking offence or kind of getting defensive about it. You just kind of accept that I want the best for my reptiles and that's how we should move on going forward.
The more research you do about whatever you're going to get into or whatever you're working with is going to make you a definite better keeper.
