{"id":49,"date":"2011-03-27T01:22:38","date_gmt":"2011-03-27T01:22:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/eriksreptiles.dreamhosters.com\/?page_id=49"},"modified":"2013-01-04T01:57:14","modified_gmt":"2013-01-04T01:57:14","slug":"about-2","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.eriksreptiles.com\/?page_id=49","title":{"rendered":"About"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Having been born and raised in Tampa, Florida for the first 7 years of my life, I was exposed to all kinds of animals and reptiles. We had alligators in the pond down the street and anoles and snakes everywhere. Back then I had only had a dog as a pet.<\/p>\n<p>It wasn&#8217;t until I moved to Colorado did the menagerie expand exponentially. First it started out with dogs, then guinea pigs, and then rats\/mice\/gerbils. Finally I had convinced my parents to let me get a snake. So we visited two local reptile shops and I found my first ever reptile that I bought from Pro Exotics back in 1997, a ball python?who I still have today! After that everything just fell into place. I was able to get my first job at a local pet shop and that helped me raise funds while still in high school to increase my collection even more. First there were leopard geckos, and then I found crested geckos at the beginning of their re-introduction. I housed a very large number of crested geckos back in early parts of 02&#8242;.<\/p>\n<p>However my collection continued to grow and interests shifted to Madagascan species. Now, they are my focus. I keep and breed 11 species of Uroplatus as well as a few aff specimens as well. Striving for one of?the largest and most successful Uroplatus collection in the world is no easy feat. A lot of what I have learned was trial and error based on what other keepers have told me and what I have found out works best. I hope to be able to continue to provide quality captive bred specimens to the hobby and zoological associations until I am no longer physically able. Reptiles are in my blood and my true passion.<\/p>\n<p>Besides the Madagascan species, I also keep a fairly large collection of Abronia. They are another passion of mine. While I still breed a select few species of snakes, I no longer breed them on the scale I used to so that I can focus more-so on the Uroplatus.<\/p>\n<p>While I do have a very large collection; Reptiles are not my full time job. I still have a full time job and am continuing my college degrees. So I have a very full schedule. I will try my hardest to respond to emails ASAP however it might be up to 24-rarely 48 hours before a response.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; Having been born and raised in Tampa, Florida for the first 7 years of my life, I was exposed to all kinds of animals and reptiles. We had alligators in the<a class=\"moretag\" href=\"https:\/\/www.eriksreptiles.com\/?page_id=49\">Read More&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eriksreptiles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/49"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eriksreptiles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eriksreptiles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eriksreptiles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eriksreptiles.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=49"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.eriksreptiles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/49\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eriksreptiles.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=49"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}