used to be a big venomous keeper in SA but here it’s tough with councils just refusing or charging huge fees for licenses and vet inspections being so strict.
Unless you own your own home in the sticks it’s a tough one.
Still though,not much I haven’t kept...
Love the giants,rare arboreal pythons and lizards...
What are tegus like man?????
We had a big Western Diamond Back rattler on display in the shop called Maddie, Gaboon vipers, eyelash vipers, some type of small Coral snakes and a few others I can't remember. It used to be the case that if you owned a pet shop license you could keep DWA too.
We had a big display of 2 African Dwarf Caiman and a 3ish foot Spectacled Caiman plus we always kept small ones and sold them now and then which is pretty mental really if they ever got to decent size!
We had Meercats before they were cool, a Koati called Conan, Cockatoos and all sorts of other stuff. Real tragedy the boss topped herself with her Volvo and a hosepipe which shows you how long ago it was now!
The Argentine Tegus are pretty chilled normally, they do get big (and fat) though but are much more chilled than any of the Varanus monitors - it's the smaller Columbian ones that are vicious as fuck. We had a couple we couldn't sell, they were like heat seeking missiles with legs and would give you a really nasty bite with a little welt for each tooth!
I only got rid of my Tegu as he would demolish the whole viv every morning at 6am without fail and I had some hefty logs and the biggest ceramic dog bowl I could get but it never stopped him tipping it over!
When the shop shut after the boss died it all got sold off cheap and I could have had anything I wanted but just didn't have room. Plus I knew she had a son so better he get all the money he could from it.
She used to breed Sri Lankan and Indian pythons which were pretty rare but were very similar to Burmese with slightly different colours and markings.
I was going to take a Caiman we had that was really tame but knew housing it would be a problem very shortly.
Haha it does crack me up that they are now commonly known as OBT - Orange Bitey Thing for anyone else reading!
I had to sell everything to help with saving up to move out. My mrs wasn't cool with the spiders but lizards/snakes ok. Just don't have the money or the time really at present.
My eldests wants a Crested Gecko for her birthday in January though after I advised one of her friends mums to get her daughter one!
If I can find a big enough tank maybe it can be populated with some other animals too
Theres a really cool shop I follow on FB - Lincoln Pet and Reptile centre, they get some really nice animals in.
