We are bombarded with information and advice every single day. Think about the information on the dozen of STO care guides you've scoured the internet for. They are different from each other, I know many are different from mine. Not every one can spend over a hundred hours reading dozens of scientific papers on STOs (what lame person does that?...). We don't have that amount of time to look into every detail of our lives. To help, our brains take short cuts and trust other people they see as knowledgeable, but it can lead to accepting a lot of misinformation hurting your pets and therefore you. Here are some of the things I've learned to hopefully help avoid learning pitfalls:
Breeders get animals to do what its hard to get them not to do. Congratulations?
Some species can be a little tricky (looking at you pandas, you adorable evolutionary abominations), but in general, animals are pretty determined to breed. Heck, some die for it. If it took ideal conditions to make babies, most species would be extinct. Look up care for rats in labs vs pet rats in homes. They breed in both. STO’s are also bred in lab conditions, quite well (though so far no study I’ve read needed them alive past 18mo). “life will find a way” doesn’t require a human’s expertise.
Poor care doesn’t get better with time, just sadder:
Much like breeding, animals are pretty determined to stay alive. They wont shrivel up and die at the first crappy meal. Think of it like smoking. People don’t drop over with the first puff-- it takes time. You have iron reserves in your body so anemia won’t start the day you stop getting enough. Stress causes an overwhelming about of seemingly unrelated problems. Its the same for pets. When someone justifies poor care with ‘I’ve kept X for _yrs,’ I don’t drop over dead, but its going to eventually lead me to.
You don’t know what you don’t know:
Consider these arguments:
1. STOs can eat a variety of foods- > STOs are omnivores -> we should feed STOs a variety of fruits, vegetables, and meat.
2. Makes sense, right? But they aren't omnivores. Lots of animals can eat and even digest a variety of foods, but we categorize diets by the majority, not range. Between anatomy and studies that have looked at their poop, STOs are specialized insectivores. Beautify so. One look at that jaw, or even a tooth, and I’d think insectivore. Humans are fantastic omnivores. We can make a wide variety of diets work. Specialized eaters can’t. They are set up for their favorite cuisine and don’t do well being forced to the ends of their tolerances.
My point is—us humans kinda suck about drawing conclusions. We don’t know what information we’re lacking, so it feels like we know a larger proportion than we do. This is basically what you may of heard of as the Dunning-Kruger effect. The more information you find the more you realize is still out there. A freshman is more confident on a topic than a PhD student. Its normal, everyone does it, but it makes learning hard. We sometimes stop before we really start because we feel like we have it despite knowing one page of an encyclopedia worth of a topic. Understanding that at any moment we could learn more and that we were wrong is why biologist use “may”, “probably”, “possibly” and “likely”. Hesitation and caution are the strength of science and learning. It’s the difference between 1 and 2. The day you’re sure of something, you’re wrong.
Avoid white coat syndrome:
Being a professional/breeder/enthusiast etc. doesn’t mean one knows everything. Every field (science, medicine, plumbing etc.) is HUGE, no one can know all of it. I studied biology for 8yrs and have many fancy papers and student loans to prove it. I can tell you the reproductive development of STOs, but not one damn thing about.... most anything else. The heck is a Krebs cycle?
An expert isn't someone who "knows" everything, an expert is someone who can explain what they do know in a way they can discuss it with you. Don't trust people because of their title or duration of experience trust them when they can explain information in a way you understand or admitting when they can't. Few things make me trust information like being able to admit when they don't something.
I don’t care how long I’ve had STOs, how well I breed them, or that I’m putting years of student loans to use-- I’m sure I'm wrong about somethings on STO care and still learning.