We had the good fortune of connecting with Jeana Friend and we’ve shared our conversation below.
Hi Jeana, what was your thought process behind starting your own business?
There has always been some form of Jurassic Friends in our lives. We have always had reptiles as pets, and have worked closely with multiple retail reptile vendors over the years. We eventually came to the decision to turn our passion into a business, something where we can educate people about their new family members while ensuring they have the healthiest and happiest animals available to them.
Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
We started out when my husband and I were first together 2007 in Florida. We worked mainly with reptiles but a few mammals would come our way from time to time. I (Jeana) worked at Savanna Animal Hospital in Jensen Beach Florida. There, we honed our skills of care and expanded our knowledge thanks to the incredible staff who quickly became close as family. It was a shared mission to help the helpless and to educate people about the things they feared without understanding. In 2009 our son was born and my husband (Mick) started working on snake breeding. He started ted with corn and rat snakes and quickly moved into hybrid king/corn crosses. During this time he was a retail construction superintendent and towards the end of 2009 the construction market followed the housing market and money was tight. We sold the snake project of 180 snakes and it was a struggle for the next few years, we would have some animals here and there while our son Trey grew up but nothing close to the level of where we are now. During this time, Mick worked as a traveling construction superintendent and it made it difficult to dedicate time to breeding projects. When trey turned 9 in 2018, a good friend let us tag along to all his reptile shows and started paying Trey in leopard geckos.
Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
We love to take people to Noah’s ark sanctuary in Locust Grove, then eat at slices in downtown griffin followed by desert at cake n shake in Locust grove. We love to go to the water falls and southern belle farms
Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
Both our parents, Savanna animal hospital in Jensen beach Florida, North griffin animal hospital in griffin ga,
Website: Jurassicfriends.com
Instagram: Jurassic _friends_LLC
Facebook: @jurassicfriendsllc
Other: Tiktok @jurassicfriendsllc