I also had a transaction with Kevin that I was not very happy with. I paid top dollar for a white hypo (leucistic) female leather from him and another sunburst hypo leather male last year. I needed these specific morphs and sexes for 2 different projects.
The male who was larger arrived in pretty good shape but was very skittish and stressed even when I was just in the room feeding for several weeks. Then after around a month he developed this subcutaneous nodule on his elbow the size of a pencil eraser. I notified Kevin right away with pictures, he told me it looked normal to him and he didn't see a problem. So being very worried still I sent the pics to Tom Clarke who I purchased some of my other dragons from, he said this was definately not normal... Being a vet tech I brought him in to work the next day and the vet did an aspirate, it appeared to be viscous joint fluid, I increased calcium via liquid drops and removed all the deco from the cage in an attempt to rest him. He has since made a full recovery but it would have been nice if the seller checked in on him or actually took a close look at my pretty decent photos... The only thing the vet could think of was he injured the elbow- this was possible as this dragon was so stressed he would run and hit the wall when you went to handle him or clean out the cage, this made healing slow as well... The stress I believe was the seller's fault but this happened in my care so I handled it on my own and asked the seller for nothing (not another animal, not a partial refund, nothing).
Next was the white hypo or "leucistic" leatherback female. She arrived under weight and took almost 6 weeks to fully acclimate and start eating really well. Also this was not a hatchling when it arrived, probably closer to 2-3 months and upon initial inspection I thought it was a male and talked to Kevin on the phone about it, but he convinced me it was the musculature of the tail and I believed him as I hadn't bred dragons since high school and was rusty on sexing little ones. Once she started filling out a little I noticed that SHE was definately a HE with 2 large hemipenes. I once again contacted Kevin this time with pictures of the hemipenes. He agreed he made a mistake but had no females to trade out or sell me. He then tried to sell me a "colorful leucistic" female non leather he had. I was looking for white leucistics not colored ones but was open to the idea until he told me the deal was $200 instead of $250 for all the trouble. In my mind this was not a good deal at all and I had spent the last 6wk growing out an animal that would not fit into my projects.
At this point I didn't even want any more animals from Kevin. I believe the 2 dragons I recieved were poorly socialized and underfed and this is why they took weeks to acclimate. I bought dragons from other sellers and their dragons where thriving right out of the box day 1. Under my care the leucy leather MALE from him has flourished and is one of my favorite dragons but it honestly wasn't worth the headache...
On another note I breed creamback cresties and that is a buckskin! Salmon, red and light brown would have been a more accurate descriptionSorry about your headache, and good job getting that shed off.
Jack Nelson
Sorry about your loss Tom and I agree with you both. If you are going to charge quality prices, sell quality animals and provide quality customer service...
Thanks for sharing that. There were multiple issues, minor and not minor with your transaction.
It really urked me when this happened. Between the disappointment in your voice and I felt bad cause I told you to call him and he would make it right. As he did for me with the first two dead animals.
I dont know what he could have done about the knob on the elbow, but the mis sexed animal. That was messed up, and how he handled it.
The only good thing is, there both alive and well now.
