You Might Be a Herper If...

I know you've seen these herper if lists around the net but I decided to make my own.
The difference here is I am actually guilty of all these acts. It is at the same time humorous and frightening when we look back at the lengths some of us have gone to for the love of our hobby.



  • You have ever found yourself rolling change to buy snakes.
  • You have ever taken 3 dozen hatchlings to a friend's house, ordered a pizza, and had a probing party.
  • You have ever given a C-section to a mouse who died giving birth because you really needed pinkies.
  • You have three freezers in a spare room, but only one has people food in it.
  • You have ever excitedly displayed boa semen on your fingers pronouncing "I think he's ready".
  • If your wife, upon seeing the aforementioned boa semen replied only with a casual "uhuh, that's nice".
  • You have ever had blood stains in your vehicle from rescuing an injured turtle from the highway.
  • You can tell the difference between a dead mouse and a dead reptile by smell alone.
  • If the FedEx driver needs help getting your mouse order off the truck.
  • You've ever choked on frog water while siphoning the tank.
  • You've ever restrained an uncooperative female snake so the male could mate with her. (Reptillian date rape --- only did this once haha).
  • If, due to a power failure, everyone in the house has stayed home to hold snakes under their shirt for warmth, and nobody considered it an inconvenience.
  • You've been unable to bathe for a few days because a large snapping turtle is living in the bath tub
  • You fed your 2 year old son's pet cricket to a day gecko as an illustration of the food chain
  • You have 20,000 roaches in your house and calling the exterminator is the last thing on your mind
  • You have a collection of shed snake skins that's older than your children
  • While picking up the next snake during a probing session, you accidentally put the wrong end of the probe in your mouth
  • Even after six years of never finding a snake under it, you still refuse to get rid of the piece of tin in the back yard
  • You have ever gotten your wife a snake for Mother's Day. (It's been seven years and she still refuses to accept ownership of that boa.)
  • You have trained your dogs to stay out of the herp room for their safety rather than the snakes.
  • If you've ever had a dog that you trained to catch escaped mice, but it would never offer to harm an escaped snake.
  • You daydream about what it would be like if you had a dollar for everytime someone asked if you have ever been bitten.
  • Your wife has ever caught you defrosting mice in the toaster oven.
  • If, after the event with the toaster oven, your wife merely rolls her eyes because after 13 years of these type things nothing surprises her.
  • If your wife always knows when you're sexing the baby carpet pythons from the repeated phrase "Ow, dammit" coming from the herp room.
  • Your yard is 25 percent grass and 75 percent weeds because it's good for the tortoises.
  • When everyone else is touching up their yard in the spring with grass seed, you're sowing extra clover because you want to be sure to have plenty.
  • If you put off mowing your weeds as long as possible to give the dandelions time to go to seed.

These are a few I that came to my mind as I wrote the page. I'll add more as they come to me. Oh, and kids, a few of these you shouldn't try at home.