Today we’d like to introduce you to Jennifer Vanessa Lagusker.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Jennifer. So, let’s start at the beginning, and we can move on from there.
I am the owner of Reptacular Animals. I started Reptacular in 2008 with a friend that was working with me at another animal facility. It was meant to be just a part-time job while I was still going to school at UCLA. Little did I know the journey I was about to undergo taking this path. I truly just enjoyed educating the kids in life science. Exposing inner city kids to something as little as chickens, let alone the reptiles, I had acquired from just a passion.
I had all of the animals in my room, at my fathers’ house in North Hollywood. We started doing birthday parties and then quickly picked up after school enrichment program throughout Los Angeles. I moved from having my reptiles in my room, sometimes sleeping in the living room myself because my room was too uncomfortably hot, to converting my father’s garage into an insulated reptile room. My business partner then started acquiring birds, and we added birds to our programs.
We started getting busier and busier, then we started hiring some college kids to help us with the programs. 2011, we decided we had outgrown my dad’s house lol! And looked for a larger property in the valley. Sun Valley became the new home to the business. As the years passed, we grew and grew. Started hiring more educators/animal handlers to hire an office manager. 2014 my, then, business partner decided to move to other ventures, and my husband took over as a business partner.
I met my husband while he was trying to re-home some tortoises back in 2008; while I was looking for animals for my programs. 2015 we both decided to move from our 1.5-acre property in Sun Valley and buy our, now, 17-acre ranch property within the Angeles National Forest. We took two years to build the property, and opened it up to the public for events; particularly weddings. Then, in the early morning of December 5th at 3:30 am, the Creek Fire burned our entire property.
From our home to our animal structures, and buildings. We evacuated all animals and humans, but we did not plan to come back to nothing. From then on we have been in the rebuilding process. But with a lot of love, sacrifice, effort, and drive we rebuilt the wedding area and are still in the process of rebuilding the animal enclosures. My menagerie went from a few reptiles in my bedroom at my father’s house to now having 450 animals.
Anywhere from Madagascar Hissing cockroaches, 13 ft. Pythons, 5 ft. Lizards, frogs the size of a small plate, a variety of different sized parrots, many farm animals such as alpacas, cows, goats, sheep, donkeys, mini horses, to a camel and a zebra. We have a beautiful 4-year old that absolutely loves his ranch. I now have four full-time animal keepers, two ranch staff, an education coordinator, about ten educators/animal handlers, and an office manager. We continue to perform programs for birthday parties, and after-school enrichment classes.
But now we offer programs at our property as well. This all goes back to my principles of educating tomorrow’s generation. We recently just had a non-profit organization with foster kids visit us free of charge. Where they not only learned about the animals but enjoyed a beautiful day in the forest. Almost 11 years later, I never thought I’d still be educating the world about animals. But here I am, loving what I do and feeling very fortunate of what has been accomplished.
Has it been a smooth road?
It was by far easy. Starting a “business” early in life can have some challenges. People not taking you seriously is one of them. I was 21 when RA was started, so most people didn’t think this would lead to anything. It was also very “outside of the box” as a business idea.
We started with $50 as an investment each. We went a bit without taking a salary for ourselves initially. Whatever we made was put right back into the business. We lived and breathed the business; and with that, I focused my life solely to the business. I missed many birthday parties, friend and family outings, and family members growing up.
When I came to realize I had nephews and nieces that were all grown up. But I think the hardest challenge was having to start ALL OVER AGAIN! When the fire wiped us out in 2017 everything I had worked for, for ten years, disappeared in a morning. Savings were quickly used up to rebuild asap some of the animal enclosures.
Took everything in me to not give up and rebuild. Having my mother live with me, meant all my baby pictures and memorabilia was gone. 🙁 So on a personal and financial standpoint, I just wanted to raise my hands and say, “I give up.”
But I was surrounded by family and friends that were there to pick me up. Within four weeks we were out there fixing, and building. Relatively quick considering the chaos, we were taking on. But the love and support helped my family, and I get right back up.
So, as you know, we’re impressed with Reptacular Animals – tell our readers more, for example, what you’re most proud of as a company and what sets you apart from others.
Reptacular Animals has become “your one stop shop for any animal experience.” We specialize in programs that educate children around Southern California in the life sciences. We don’t train any of our animals to do anything on command, but instead, we specialize in socializing our animals to be comfortable around people. We have people interact with the animals during the presentations by petting and/or holding the animals. We try and hit all the learning senses from sight, hearing, smell, and touch.
There are many inner city kids that are not exposed to life, and we bring that variety of life to them. Now we have opened our business to weddings and now offer rustic forest weddings with animals. 😀 The educational part is definitely what I’m most proud of. I’m proud that I was able to make a business from a passion, and that I am able to continue that passion and offer more free programs to non-profit groups in a way beyond just bringing them my animal programs.
Let’s touch on your thoughts about our city – what do you like the most and the least?
I love that our city has so much cultural diversity. I can have authentic Indian food, and drive not too far and have authentic Salvadorian food (where my family is from). I have performed many programs for such a diver group of cultures. I am always fascinated by how animals can bring everyone together. The want and curiosity to learn about these living things that share this world with us. Love that the appreciation I sometimes wake up in people can cross many languages. Los Angeles is beautiful that way.
I really dislike how expensive and crowded things are in this city. The one thing I dislike about what I do is my travel time. There is always traffic no matter where and what time you go. As the cost of living increases in LA so does the cost of my programs. 🙁 And sometimes the cost can deter people from booking our experience if it’s out of their budget.
Contact Info:
- Address: 8828 Gold Creek Rd. Sylmar, CA 91342 (Physical Address)
8309 Laurel Canyon Blvd. #316 Sun Valley, CA 91352 (Mailing Address) - Website: www.reptacularanimals.com
- Phone: 818-727-1594
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/reptacularanimals/?hl=en & https://www.instagram.com/reptacular_ranch/?hl=en
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ReptacularAnimals/ & https://www.facebook.com/reptacularanimalsranch/
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/reptacular-animals-sun-valley
Getting in touch: VoyageLA is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
