About us
Lil Monsters Reptiles
"How did you get into this?"
That's a question we get a lot. I remember when I first saw a Nile Monitor at a small local reptile shop Town and Country Pets. I was so curious and really had no idea that there were shops out there that had reptiles you could just walk in and buy as pets. From what started as a curiosity, turned into a passion.
When I found out that little monitor would grow to around 6 feet, I imagined building a custom terrarium to keep him in and him roaming around my house. I was 14 at the time and my mother quickly responded with a smile and a look that said, "Pick something else." So, I quickly turned my attention to the storekeeper who showed me some of their starter animals. It was a yellow baby gecko with thick black bands. I had purchased my first Leopard Gecko, her name was Hex. She went everywhere with me, from grocery stores, parks, friend's houses, I even took her to school a few times. I did tons of internet research and discovered morphs and genetics, and other species like Ball pythons and Red Tail Boas. I remember when the first Piebald came out and going to see it at Prehistoric Pets in 1999, it was incredible. I went on hikes and out herping with my cousin, and to local deserts looking for all sorts of animals.
When Crested Geckos started becoming more popular and available my interest quickly turned to them, but their price tag and rarity made them difficult to acquire. So I began searching for new morphs of Leos, learning about genetics, and spending several hours a day just scouring forums and breeder's websites. Somewhere along the way, I knew I would love to do this for a living someday and so I started thinking about a name. I spent months thinking about it, one day I was working with my uncle and asked him what he thought about my future venture to which he quickly responded, "Name it LIL MONSTERS" and that was it! He even sketched it out on a piece of paper, from that point on I wanted nothing more than to make it a reality. Life always has a funny way of mucking things up though. In this case, however, I sat on LIL MONSTERS for 7 years.
Enter Jessica!
It wasn't until I met Jessica Hunter in 2007 that the idea of a reptile shop came back up. She, breathed life back into LIL MONSTERS Reptiles. I mentioned to her that I needed to stop by the house to feed my Leos before going to dinner and a movie. She asked about them so I explained to her what Hex and Bite were. She asked if I ever owned a snake, unknown to me at the time it was a pet she had always wanted to own. I told her I had a few. The date turned into a reptile handling and me showing off my animals and nerding out about all the morphs there were. I was shocked at how much she loved to handle and observe Phantom, Hex, Bite, and Nirvana.
We moved in together several months later and together we began to re-build the collection I used to have. It all started with 5 Crested Geckos and over the years we grew those 5 to around 500+ Geckos, and various other lizards and snakes. Today we have collected some of the rarest crested gecko morphs we could buy and, in many cases, negotiate away from other breeders. Our Gecko's lineage can be traced back to lines from Doug Healy, Betty Miskie, Allen Repashy, Anthony Caponetto, Mark Orfus, and countless other shops that have come and gone over the years.
Now!
We have been devoted to the industry for well over 2 decades and spend hours reading and sorting through information. I want to create a collection of information from genetics, to breeding, and husbandry. We specialize in Cresteds, Chewies, Leachies, and Gargs and are working hard to bring comprehensive industry standards and best practices to you and everyone who lands on our page. We want to share our knowledge, just like our heroes before us shared their knowledge in husbandry, care, and breeding with us. We couldn't have gotten here without them and couldn't have gotten here without your support. We aim to provide information that is agreed on by the majority of the community members with several years of experience and practicing different methods and have first-hand knowledge of the topic being presented. We will not post information we do not have first-hand experience with unless otherwise specified. There is too much information in the community right now to sort through and try to make sense of. We want LMR to be a place that you can trust and know the information we provide has been tested, tried, and proven and will continue to evolve as things improve.
Come see us at the Shows!
Our first Expo was in 2009, after several years of breeding and going to local shows and selling we decided to finally open a website and sell to the greater part of the community and share what we breed, our knowledge, and where we have taken our 80+ Groups of animals and holdbacks over the years. It's all thanks to the feedback and overwhelming support from customers and fans that we can make a website and expand our collection. We now breed Tegus, Spiney-Tailed Iguana's, various gecko species, and will be opening a small reptile facility after 2021. We thank every single one of our customers and welcome all feedback. If you have anything to share please drop us a line or text any time. We'll have a list of shows and events on our main page so you can come to see us and chat in person too, in the meantime have a look at some of our shows below, it is one of our favorite times of the year to see our breeder friends and interact with past customers for updates on life and their animals!
