Hi I'm Nic the owner and breeder at Blackrock Reptiles. As a kid I enjoyed going and playing in the creek and seeing what I could catch. I would find salamanders and crayfish and put them in jars until Mom made me let them go. I always wanted to know what they ate and how they lived. Later on my family moved to a neighborhood that was in walking distance from South Mountain in MD. I would spend all of my free time up on that mountain searching for snakes and salamanders. I would bring one or two of my findings home and build them an enclosure and keep them for a couple weeks try to feed them and just see what I could learn about them. Occasionally I would try some captive breeding.At the age of 15 I was hired to work at Mt Aetna Retreat center were I was able to catch all kinds of animals to study and work with. Soon after I talked my Mom into letting me buy an albino California king pair with a friend. I kept the female and he kept the male. We hibernated and bred the pair our first year having them. I got 14 eggs two were infertile (slugs). I hatched all 12 good eggs and sold all but one baby to friends. The one I kept is the albino striped male you can see in the California King section of the collection pages. After the first breeding I was a reptile addict. I wanted to grow my collection and try to breed new species. I started with box turtles and native snakes and soon turned my attention to captive bred animals. I started going to Reptile shows and buying anything I thought was pretty or interesting. This was the start of my business. I still go field Herping whenever I can. You can see my In The Field page to view some of my discoveries. Every time I photograph a new species in the wild I will add it to that page.
