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Zoo-otics is a major Fortune 500 company. Wait, actually I like to think of us as the "little reptile company that thought we could". Owning reptiles (and some amphibians along the way) is not a conscious decision I decided on one day. I literally have had reptiles my whole life continuously, even before I can remember. My mother loves turtles and tortoises and had a nice little group of desert tortoises in our backyard in southern California since I was "knee high to a grasshopper". She would make nets out of coat hangers and netting material for my siblings and I. We would go to a drainage ditch in my hometown to catch tadpoles, and frogs that I would set up at home. Those early days I kept garter snakes, fence lizards, anoles, and painted turtles. |
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John at the Universal Studios Petting Zoo, 1975 |
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Growing up I was interested in all animals and had a menagerie of pets including tropical fish, game birds, conures, cockatiels, a ferret (hey California DFG the statute of limitations is up!) and while I am confessing things, a great horned owl and a barn owl that were confiscated. Luckily we were just kids and didn't suffer the wrath of the game warden. Most of my reptiles were all species I caught and there was no thought of captive breeding. Most animals were kept for awhile until you caught something else at which point we would trade or release the animals. I caught a lot of different species (check out my life list). |
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John at Reptile Gardens, South Dakota, 1995 |
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It wasn't until after I graduated high school in 1985 that I actually bought an "exotic" reptile. A green iguana got me rolling and then all hell broke loose with me buying chameleons, tortoises, bearded dragons, and various milk snakes. The Vivarium was first published in 1988 and I poured over every copy. I started going to the first reptile shows and got interested in breeding reptiles. My first successes were with bearded dragons, leopard geckos, Jackson chameleons, Sinaloan and Pueblan milk snakes, rosy boas, gray banded king snakes, Arizona mountain king snakes and pancake tortoises. Like a true addict, as I sold animals I turned around and just bought caging, supplies and more animals. |
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Boas and pythons caught my eye and I began assembling breeding groups of these. I also had (have) an insatiable appetite for tortoises and began collecting a collection of various species. I have hand-picked my breeding stock over the years from many of the big names in the hobby, Lloyd Lemke, Gary Sipperly of San Diego Reptile Breeders, Bob Applegate, Dan and Collete Sutherland, David Blair, Dwayne Richards, Glades Herps, Cal-Zoo, Ron Tremper, and Ectothemics, to name a few. I also raise my own rodents and also quite a bit of the vegetables and greens to feed the torts and iggies. |
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My partner in crime is my wife Muriel who I have been happily married to since 1990, actually snatched her up just prior to her graduation in 1987. Luckily the whole "pets in the house" thing was taught to her by her father who had caimans, foxes, and ferrets. She has been a trooper and even went to reptile shows with me. She didn't yell at me too much when the 1000 count box of crickets escaped in our apartment (holy smokes there were crickets all over the walls & under furniture!). She always looked the other way when I crammed rodents next to her Eggo waffles in the freezer. She also put up with a 25 pound savanna monitor temporarily living in our guest bath tub. Heck, she even drove around with me on dark desert roads hunting for snakes. She is and will always be my "greatest capture"!! |
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Please look over and enjoy my website, and check back periodically because I have a lot of pictures to add and a field journal that will be continually updated. If you are in the market for a reptile that we are working with check out our "available pages" or contact us now so we can put you on a waiting list. Thanks again for looking!
Sincerely, John and Muriel Yocum
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