Spitting cobras, emus, and a Gila monster were but a few of my living companions in the seventies. Ironically, I am so not an animal lover, it is more that I tolerate animals. If you had told me that one day I would live amongst exotic animals within the confines of my own home, I would have run the other way. For four years, I endured co-habitation with a strange husband and his strange home business. I met my ex-husband in Tennessee. We dated for a short time and during a moment of insanity, I agreed to leave my family and friends and run off to Florida with him. All of our belongings were packed in my Datsun pickup truck and off we went. Our destination was unknown. For one week our home was in a tent in the Okefenokee Swamp. Our neighbors were raccoons that ravaged through our meager food supply on a nightly basis. Mosquitoes as big as hummingbirds buzzed us relentlessly. Of course, there were alligators galore lurking in the water’s edge. Once, we rented a sixteen foot flat bottom boat and trolled a few good miles through the murky waters of the Okefenokee Swamp. In some spots it was like going through a jungle with the occasional alligator eyes peering above the surface of the water at us. All seemed well and almost relaxing until we ran out of gas and were upstream from the base camp. The sun was setting and no other boats were in sight. All we could do was paddle. I with the oar in the rear paddling on one side, then the other. My ex was in the front sculling to steer. My job of paddling was the more strenuous of the two, but there was no way that I was putting my arm in the water as gator bait. Fortunately, after about one hour, a loan boater was puttering his way back to camp and seeing our dilemma threw us a line and towed us back to shore.

Without remorse on my part, we left the swamp in search of a more stable home environment. Next stop was a small town called Lake City, Florida and a job offer for my spouse as an alligator wrestler at a place appropriately called Alligator Town. It was a paycheck which afforded us our first roof over our head, a travel trailer in a nearby trailer park. The trailer was so small that if anyone came to visit, we all had to sit outside. The belongings we had packed in my truck stayed in the truck. The bathroom in the trailer was not much more than a spicket in a small closet. One week was all I could stand. After that, we moved on up the road to a bigger trailer…whoopee. At least this place had a toilet and a tub in the same room. The spare bedroom was used to house our ferret, named Freddie. The living room was rather spacious, therefore, my hubby set up a large aquarium for his python (or maybe it was a boa constrictor), I forget. Whatever big snake it was, it escaped during the night. Can you imagine having to tell your neighbors that if they find a rather large nine foot snake, please return it to us? It brought us notoriety. The local newspaper got wind of it and ran an article. Fortunately, the snake was found and returned to its aquarium with extra cinder blocks on the top to keep it inside. My neighbors didn’t visit me.

To supplement our meager income, I got a job and we were able to locate a house in the country in which to move ourselves and our growing menagerie. The house was crummy, but beggars cannot be choosers. It was at the house that my husband decided to become an entrepreneur. He formed the Suwanee Zoological Society and the spare bedroom became home to caged rattlesnakes, pythons, cobras, copperheads, lizards, and anything else he could get his hands on. If I try really hard, I can conjure up memories in that house that nightmares are made of. One in particular was when I was sleeping and heard a noise out of the ordinary. I got out of bed and went into the hallway to the door of the spare bedroom housing all the critters. Like hundreds of other times, I opened the door and reached in and turned on the light switch. The first thing that caught my eye was the overturned cages on the bedroom floor. My next move made my heart stop and all the blood drained out of my head. I looked up from the floor and turned my head slightly and came face to face (within probably two inches) with a boa constrictor. Apparently, he had escaped from his cage and in so doing, knocked over anything it slithered over. Slowly backing away and closing the door shut, I went back to bed and slowly pulled the covers off my husband and then with a heavy handed slap in the middle of the back, woke him up. For the next few days, I was finding baby snakes all over the house, some were harmless, some were poisonous.

My best friend was not phased by our strange habitat and she visited frequently. On a whim, we decided to cook dinner for the gang. Bustling around the kitchen, we gathered our ingredients and cooking utensils to make the dinner. She was unable to locate a particular size pot in a bottom cabinet. I told her I would find it and reached into the cabinet and again experienced another heart-stopping moment when I realized my arm was hovering above the head of a coiled rattlesnake. Knowing well enough not to make a sudden move, I slowly backed out and when I knew I was out of range began yelling for my husband. Hearing the panic in my voice, he made haste to the kitchen and focused his attention to where I was pointing my finger. With a sigh of relief, he said, “So that’s where it has been hiding.”

The house we lived in was in need of much work. The kitchen was probably the worst room as it needed new linoleum, new wallpaper as what was in it was busy and hideous, and the ceiling had a hole in it leading to the attic. The hole was covered with a heavy piece of butcher paper. It was from this point that a six inch baby cobra dangled and it was I who noticed this anomaly. Again, summoning immediate help, my husband walked into the room and carefully pulled the little poisonous snake from the ceiling. Looking at me with the utmost sincerity said, “I was going to tell you about losing this snake.”

Snake hunting expeditions took my husband and his buddies away for days at a time. For the most part, I was only at the house for a few hours each night because I was working two jobs. All I wanted was a shower and a few hours sleep before the next shift started. The times when I was at the house alone usually did not bother me, except for one. A recently acquired addition to the animal inventory was a Gila monster, which is a very dangerous reptile. I instructed to feed the animal…carefully. Honestly, I did try, but it lunged and scared me to death. The Gila monster did not get its supper that night and it apparently was upset with me. Although it was in a cage in a closed off bedroom, it was making a terrible racket by banging up against the cage and making threatening guttural noises. I couldn’t afford to go to a motel and I had nowhere else to go, but I was determined not to stay in the same house with this creature; so I got my blanket and my pillow and slept in the car for the next two nights.

One day a package arrived at the house from a fellow reptile lover. Tokay geckos were supposed to be in the box, but we were not sure how many. The tape was carefully cut and the outside packing was peeled away. The lid was lifted off of the box and in a split second, hundreds of Tokay geckos escaped and ran at lighting speed in every direction. They are speedy little lizards. For the duration of our stay in that house, we were finding Tokay geckos everywhere. Our neighbors, who were not especially fond of our being there, reported geckos in their homes, too. It wasn’t totally a bad thing because they loved to eat roaches and palmetto bugs (which were in abundance) and spiders, which I despise. It was unnerving, however, to be lying in bed and feeling the scurrying lizard run across the covers or be awakened out of a deep sleep with their croaking. The reason they are called Tokay geckos is because that is what they actually say, ‘Toe-Kay’, over and over again.

My most memorable moment of self-awareness in that I was living in a mad house was on one of those days my husband was out on a reptile hunting expedition. I was home alone and it was pouring down rain, a real gully washer. A pickup truck drove up and a man with a large plastic garbage can stood on my doorstep. I answered the door and he asked if this is where someone bought snakes. I said, “yes, but you will have to come back later.” He said he couldn’t, he had a big rattlesnake and if we did not want it, he would go elsewhere. Well, I had witnessed my husband toting a sack containing snakes hundreds of times. I didn’t see the harm of giving the guy money and me putting the snake, still in the bag, in the “snake room” until my husband got home. Well, this particular snake was not in a bag. The man was wanting me to put the snake in a bag. When he took the top off the trash can, all I saw was a humongous body of the largest rattlesnake I had ever seen. “No way, man,” I said. He was actually angry that I wouldn’t take the snake off his hands and pay him money. He said a few choice words and left with his snake. When my husband returned, I recounted the event to him. His response was, “Are you crazy?…Do you know how much money that snake would bring?” Did I feel foolish because my priorities were not straight? No. This was the beginning of the end of our four year marriage.

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Rumors of pure White Lions have existed in the African oral tradition for centuries, but have often been dismissed as superstition.It has been part of African folklore and according to legend they were children of the Sun God, sent to earth as gifts. And the only place on earth where they have actually materialized is the Timbavati region.

According to scientists these lions are not albinos. Their white color is due to a recessive gene known as the chutiya or color inhibitor gene, different from the albinism gene. The chinchilla mutation, a recessive gene, gives white lions their unusual colors. They first came to public attention in the 1970s when Chris McBride published his book “The White Lions of Timbavati”. Described in the book are three lions Temba, Tombi and Vela which later were given to the National Zoo in Pretoria, South Africa.

According to the Global White Lion Protection Trust website: “There are only an estimated 500 white lions worldwide – in captivity. Regarded by African tribal elders as the most sacred animal on the African continent, this rarest of rarities have been hunted to extinction in the wild by trophy hunters and poachers who pay astronomical sums to shoot them for pleasure. They have also been hunted in captivity in a notorious malpractice known as ‘canned lion hunting.’ No law protects them from being wiped off the face of the earth.”

GWLPT states that these animals are not yet appropriately classified as “endangered species”. “Presently, they are listed as Panthera leo, under CITES Appendix II, and, therefore, fall under the classification of a “Vulnerable Species”, i.e. species that are not necessarily now threatened with extinction but, that may become so unless trade is closely controlled. Appendix II means that White Lions or their derivatives (e.g. animal parts) can be sold, hunted and traded. In reality, every permit issued to hunt a lion (Panthera leo) can be used to hunt them. Since they are currently not in the wild in their endemic range, they are critically endangered.”

The last white lion was seen in the wild in 1994, but now they are back to their native land and cubs have been born in the wild again.

A National Geographic documentary titled “Return of the White Lions” tells the story of their return to native Timbavati region thanks to Linda Tucker (CEO and founder of GWLPT) and their efforts to reintroduce these animals back to the wild.

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The Malayan Painted Frog can make an interesting pet, and is the most common of the microhylids that are sold in pet stores across the United States. Microhylids are popular because, as their name suggests, they are mostly made up of small frogs, with some measuring around half an inch in length. The Malayan Painted Frog can grow to two and a half inches, but that is still pretty small by frog standards.

The scientific name for this frog is Kaloula pulchra, and it is also sometimes called the ‘chubby frog’ because of its somewhat portly nature. Like all frogs it does not have a frog tail, but it does have a tail when it is a tadpole. If it were not to lose its tail in adulthood then it would not be able to entertain you by leaping around the vivarium.

Although it is called the painted frog, its colorings are actually quite unremarkable, especially when compared to its fellow microhylid, the Tomato Frog. It is the color of mud, and a light fawn color on its dorsolateral band. Its colorings get even darker below the dorsolateral band.

If you decide to be adventurous and attempt breeding your Malayan Painted Frog, then you will find it is actually not that difficult. They have floating eggs that stick to just about anything, and then when the tadpoles emerge they have an extremely rapid metamorphosis into frogs. In can take just two weeks from tadpole to adult, and then you will need to get a bigger terrarium!

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Although letting your pet turtles breed and hatch baby turtles may seem like a good idea, there are some things that you have to consider before deciding to bring baby turtles into the world. This is especially important if you want to hatch baby turtles to teach your kids about the circle of life, as it is just as important that they learn how to be responsible pet owners.

It is illegal to sell any turtle that is smaller than 4 inches (10cm) in diameter, unless it’s being sold for educational or exhibition purposes. Depending on your turtles, you may get quite a number of hatchlings that you will be responsible for caring for until they are 4 inches (10 cm), which will take several years in most cases. If you are not prepared to care for a number of turtles for a long period of time, you should seriously reconsider hatching baby turtles.

Turtles are well-known for carrying salmonella, and great care must be taken when working with adult turtles to avoid contamination. Hatchling turtles carry even more salmonella, which means there’s an even greater chance of getting infected if you are not careful when handling your baby turtles. If you have very young children in the house, this is especially important as children are more prone to putting things in their mouth and do not wash their hands as often or as well as adults do.

Although your turtles will be doing all the work of laying the eggs, it will become your responsibility to feed the hatchlings once they do arrive. Adult turtles aren’t very picky with what they eat, and will usually eat anything they can get their mouth around, but baby turtles can be very picky, and they will only eat meat at the beginning. It can be tricky to feed the hatchlings, getting them to eat the mealworms or other live insects that you have to start with. And if you have a lot, you have to carefully monitor to see that all of them are getting proper nutrition.

These are all things that you have to consider before even allowing your turtles to breed. Hatching turtles can be a wonderful experience for a family or an individual to experience, but won’t end well if you are not prepared. Baby turtles are a big responsibility, so you have to make sure that you are completely prepared before you bring them into your home.

Alan is a lover of animals and nature, especially turtles. One of the misleading turtle facts that Alan relates is that there are many turtle species, but there are no such things as mini turtles. It’s a myth. The term baby turtles is simply a young turtle.

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