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musea-reviews · 1 year

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Terraria-Houten (event)

"The largest terrarium event in the Netherlands"

Location: Houten, Utrecht, The Netherlands Price: 16,- Duration: 2 - 4 hours Transport: the bus from the station to the event location only goes once an hour, so it takes some planning. You can call in a bus, but even those were usually too full to take everyone. Language: Dutch, German, French, English. Activities: buying reptiles, insects, invertebrates, rodents, and everything related to them. Date of visit: Sunday 26 February 2023 Website

so much to see

Terraria-Houten is part of the ‘’Terraria-’’ expo series, where every month there is an event like this in a different city. The price depends on the size of the event, the one in Houten being the biggest. At this event, you can shop and find good deals on enclosures, health lamps, food, substraid, but also things like insect-inspired jewellery and taxidermied animals. That is all next to the obvious main attractions, the animals for sale. The most expensive animal I’ve seen there were 2.000 euros, as this is also a good place to find rare animals they don't have in most stores. Or to get common animals for cheap. I got my beetles from a pet store, 15,- for 3. Here you could buy the same kind 5,- for 5… Insects and interbred are a rare sight in pet stores over here. So once you find a store that has them, they overprice it. But besides it all it was also fun to look at animals, even tho I feel bad for the small containers, tho those are temporary. I got to hold a giant millepede, and petted turtles, ferrets and giant snails. The event does also have a rodent section (and frozen rodent) but it's small. Fun if you're ALSO interested in rodents besides the rest, but don't go if that's your main goal. Also, if you go, you have to take cash with you and download the PayPal app. I was not prepared for this but since the people behind the stands come from all over the place and from other countries, specifically Dutch paying apps are not going to work. And at most stands, it's not possible to pay by card at all. Cash is your best option, so be prepared for that.

buy buy buy

I myself keep a terrarium with sun beetles and isopods, but I wanted to add more, so I went to get other kinds of beetles and millipedes. At the beetle stand, I asked what beetles would work well together with my beetles, and they told me beetles are actually racist!? no, but yeah they all have a different chemical smell and things, therefore pretty territorial to other species. So I decided to not get more beetles and focused on millipedes. i was so hyped by the first one I saw that I bought it immediately, it was a black and white millipede for 5 euros, I called her Mime. As we walked further, we found a whole stand with all kinds of millipedes. I knew about the giant millepede and really want one, but the enclosure I have right now would be too small (25 litres, 6.6 gallons). They were also kind of expensive on that stand, prices of the ones I wanted ranging from 10 to 25 euros per millepede. At the back of the event, something caught my eye, 4 millipedes for 10 euros. They were bigger than the one i bought before and that was a steal. As I bought them I got the entire enclosure including some wood pieces and stuff. He clearly wanted to get rid of them, but as the rest of the stand had no animals like that, it might have been that these were used for food or something.

Another thing I bought was homemade fruit jelly. This guy sold them for 90 cents per piece, and that was already cheap for fruit jelly. We wanted all 9 flavours, but I only had 5 euros cash left, the guy said it was fine because we were so chill! Lastly, I bought a bird leg, probably a leftover from a failed attempt at taxidermy, I'm going to make an earring out of it.

Not the best location

The location is not optimal as the bus only goes once an hour, and walking it will take you more than half an hour. Since it was already freezing, you (and the animals you probably bought) will not appreciate this. But the event does have free parking, so your best option would be to take the car. Definitely, if you have a long shopping list with you.

Another thing the event could do better is an advertisement or the site. If you see the site, it almost feels like it’s not their real site, but it is.. If I was looking online and found this, I would have never gone there. I only went because my friend have been there before and told me it was cool, and so that's also how they got the info about this event from other friends. From a marketing standpoint, it's almost impressive they even get people to come with a site looking like that and 0 advertisement. On the other hand, I'm glad, it was just the right amount of busy, so more people would make it chaos.

TLDR:

+ Fun expo with cheap deals and rare animals

+ anything you need for keeping any animal + handcrafted supplies from small businesses + free advice, and the ability to ask questions + A lot of stands

- bus only goes once an hour - how you can pay differs widely from stand to stand - the site looks sketchy

Would I revisit it: yes I would, it's a cool place to get good deals and get inspired. Who do I recommend it to:people who keepreptiles, insects or invertebrates.

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