Family is passionate about reptiles

Not many families include 85 reptiles. For Mike Mertens, however, they are his passion.

“I get up at four o’clock in the morning, five days a week,” says Mertens. “I spend two hours in the basement with them. Then I go to work. On the weekends, depending on the time of year, I’ll spend anywhere from two to six hours a day down there.”

Snakes, lizards, dragons, tortoises and turtles – Mertens has them all. His wife, Teri, and his son, Toby, don’t mind. But it wasn’t always this way. When Toby was a baby, Mike enjoyed his first two big snakes, until Teri got a little nervous. Now that Toby is 11, however, boas and pythons are fine. In fact educating children is part of Mertens’ hobby.

“We go to Toby’s school every year,” says Mertens. “We bring some of everything, and run through as many classes as we can. We talk to the kids, answer questions, and let them have hands-on. We’ve been doing it for six years.”

The Mertens have five different types of snakes. The corn snakes, from the southern United States, are small and docile and make great pets. The ball python and red-tailed boa might not be to everyone’s taste – although strikingly colored, they are rather large, their biggest one at eight feet long. The milk snakes like to mimic the deadly coral snake.

The snakes eat about once a week. They have escaped their homemade cages, but have not yet ventured upstairs. Just in case, some relatives and friends won’t visit, although all of the reptiles are nonpoisonous, and rarely bite.

“Some of the babies will jump at you, but they’re smaller than your finger,” says Mertens. “Your hand is just monstrous to them, so they’re frightened of it.”

Next are the lizards. Frilled dragons are so called as the males display a frill around their necks when frightened or trying to attract a mate. The Saharan Uromastyx, or spiny-tailed lizard, looks as prehistoric as its name. They are very brightly colored, with males often being almost entirely red to vivid orange or yellow. The morning geckos have their own distinct feature; they are females only, cloning themselves to reproduce. And then there are the bearded dragons, Mertens favorite.

“The beardeds have their own personalities. They know us,” says Mertens. “They love to be held and ride on your shoulder. The tortoises have personality too, but they don’t like to be held.”

Along with the Russian tortoises are tiny musk turtles, found throughout the U.S. and Mexico. They also have rats, mice, cockroaches, crickets, mealworms, and super worms, but they’re mainly bred as food for the reptiles. Some of the rats and mice are sold as pets.

Mertens began his enterprise in 1996. He now has eight incubators ready for the hundreds of eggs that will arrive from May through the first part of October. Summer is his busiest time of year, with up to six hours a day spent cleaning and caring for the babies. Winter, on the other hand, is a quiet time of semi-hibernation, where the reptiles slow down, eating nothing and drinking very little.

“I remember the first time (semi-hibernation) with the beardeds I was like a little kid,” smiles Mertens. “Every week I was in there waking them up to make sure they were OK. The second year, I learned that if you just tickle their sides, then their eyelids will flicker. The third year, as long as something didn’t smell in the cage, they were fine.”

Mertens grew up in an area of California of many lizards and snakes. He learned their behavior early from hands-on experience, and their care later by studying, reading, and research.

“Reptiles are not just for kids,” says Mertens. “They’re for any age, any lifestyle. Reptile shows are fun to go to – very interesting crowd of people there.”