Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to PenniJo Brenke. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
PenniJo, thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts with us today. We’re excited to dive into your story and your work, but first let’s start with a broader topic that might be stopping many of our readers from pursuing their dreams – haters, nay-sayers, etc. How have you managed to persist despite haters and nay-sayers that inevitably follow folks who are doing something unique, special or off the beaten path?
I think in whatever hobby or business there is always going to be someone or multiple people who are always going to be unsupportive of you and your choices. Doing your best to push them aside is the way to go because you can’t let them dull the sparkle inside your creativity. Most of the time the people that hate are the ones jealous of your success.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
What is Cowabunga Cresties?
Cowabunga Cresties is located in Southern Minnesota. Primarily focused on breeding Correlophus Ciliatus, commonly known as the crested gecko. My 3 main focuses on breeding crested geckos are Olives, Tigers, and Dark Phantoms.
What sets me apart from others in this hobby is what my focuses are. There are not very many people in the hobby that works with these morphs or colors. I also work very hard towards making sure my animals are happy and healthy.
I really love to take pictures of my animals as well. I’d like to consider it one of my passions along with breeding the crested geckos. I really like to think they go hand in hand with each other as they both help intensify the beauty of each other.
As a breeder we are always out doing shows on weekends to sell our crested geckos. At the same time we are at these we are also educating people about these little critters that were thought to be extinct up until 1994 when they were rediscovered.
Show schedules are always tbd as we never truly know when we will be able to vend them.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
3 skills or qualities or areas of knowledge that were most impactful for my journey were photography skills, networking/social media, and knowing how to be a salesperson.
Growing up I always had a fascination and skill for photography, I was always taking pictures with my dads camera he had while I was growing up for fun and 4H. As I got older my photography skills improved, in college I ended up taking photography classes to improve my skills even more and I was gifted the camera I grew up using for college to eventually be used to this day for taking pictures of my animals.
Social Media these days is everywhere. Everywhere you look there is social media and technology everywhere you look. Knowing how to navigate through these platforms. Knowing how to navigate through these platforms is beneficial to making a name for yourself. vending shows and expos are also beneficial to networking as well because people meet with you face to face and get to see your animals in person. While pictures are good seeing them in person makes them even better as pictures never do justice for the animals.
Being a salesperson is never easy. For me my selling experience came from starting out as a Girl scout. Being a girl scout helped me be able to obtain the skills of selling products and being able to develop the people skills to interact with others.
Okay, so before we go we always love to ask if you are looking for folks to partner or collaborate with?
Being a crested gecko breeder there are times when we reach out to other breeders to collaborate with a project that help both breeders to reach a certain goal that sometimes we cant reach on our own as we don’t have the animals needed to reach these goals. We also do this to introduce more genetic diversity into the hobby as well.
There is alot of thought throughout the the process of doing a collaboration. Knowing which breeder to collaborate with is the first step to a collab. Knowing which crested gecko we would like to do the loan/collab with and which of our own crested gecko we would like to pair with. Males or females can be borrowed or loaned out in these situations. It all depends on what the outcome of the project you would like to achieve and which animal you have in your collection. You many have the perfect male for someone else’s female or females, there may be more than one breeder you reach out to have access to your male. Males can be paired with multiple females in a season, whereas a female can only be paired with one male for the season.
Breeders will have a loan contract that goes over terms of the loan. In these terms it goes over the period of the loan, which gecko or geckos if there are multiple are being used for the loan. In some cases there is vet care that needs to be taken care of if something happens so that is discussed in the terms as well. How the offspring are split up between the breeders. Which gecko or geckos the are being paired to.
Breeders will typically reach out in the middle of the season to reach out to others to try to set up potential collaborations for the upcoming breeding season. Not every breeder is willing to do a collaboration, as they don’t fit into the vison or goal you may be trying to accomplish, or they just aren’t willing to do a collab in general as not all breeders are open to the idea.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cowabunga_cresties/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CowabungaCresties
- Other: Morph Market Account: https://www.morphmarket.com/stores/cowabunga/
Image Credits
Pictures taken by Me PenniJo Brenke Logo Designed by Noah Bounds Studio
