In a dark, hot room last week, a juvenile black rat was no match for a hungry 35-pound Colombian red-tail boa constrictor.

The rat barely had time to squeak before the female snake, kept for breeding at Bend’s The Reptile Zone, had him wound in a coil of thick muscle and scales.

On a shelf above the snake’s cage, inquisitive baby bearded dragons pressed against their glass enclosure, eyes darting around at humans watching the scene below.

“This can be really hard,” 22-year-old Eric Jensen said, watching the snake squeeze the rat. Behind him, the shop pet, an African spur thigh, or “sulcata,” tortoise named Shelly peeked out of her basketball-size shell and promptly made a mess on the floor.

Eric’s father and Reptile Zone owner Jeff Jensen turned to clean up after Shelly, who he says could live up to 120 years and grow to 250 pounds. Shelly is one of the dozens of reptiles Jensen breeds and sells.

Although barely 2 months old, his small store off East Second Street in Bend is beginning to tap into the market of reptile owners and lovers in the city, many of whom have felt limited by Bend’s existing pet stores or traveled north to Redmond’s Animal Land for products. Unlike those other stores, Jensen boasts that his store is the only Central Oregon pet store dedicated solely to reptiles, and one of only a handful in the state.

He has 27 species for sale — including snakes, chameleons, iguanas, tortoises, turtles and lizards — not including cages of mice, rats, cockroaches, crickets and mealworms he breeds for reptile food, or “feeders.” Jensen also is attempting to breed an endangered species, the Savu Island python, for which he says no legal issues or regulations exist in the breeding.

Natural population growth in the High Desert is bringing more reptile lovers, Jensen says, and he’s here to appeal to them.

In Redmond, Animal Land has been in business for a decade, but first started 25 years ago in Gresham, store owner Gregg Smith said this week. The store sells most animals except kittens and puppies and currently houses 40 to 50 types of reptiles, Smith said.

His store has done well with the “bread and butter” reptile pets, including ball pythons, corn snakes, bearded dragons and leopard chameleons. With business doing well, Smith says Central Oregon can support more stores like his and The Reptile Zone.

“There’s probably room in Bend, with the sheer population growth down there,” Smith said. “Up here, we have a good, loyal customer base.”

Central Oregon reptile lovers need these independent pet stores that offer specialty products and feeder animals that larger chains don’t carry, says Bend resident Jodie Perez. Perez owns more than a dozen reptile pets and is a nutrition specialist with Nutro pet-food products, for which she’s done demonstrations at Petco, eventually earning herself an additional job in the reptile department of Petco late last year.

“We have been in need of things we don’t carry,” Perez said of Petco. “The local community is very populated with reptile (owners). We definitely welcome (Jensen) here.”

Young to old

As the new pet store in town, Jensen, a former youth pastor, acknowledges his competition and is working to pull the community in support of his venture.

“I’m trying to meet the needs of the everyday, 9-year-old kid with a leopard gecko,” Jensen said, “or the die-hard like me who has a lot of animals and needs specialized stuff.”

All his reptiles are legal in Oregon, Jensen says, noting that some animals, like certain species of turtle and amphibians, are illegal due to their threat as an invasive species.

Jensen’s merchandise is likely to attract a clientele hunting for the unusual, he says, and he hopes to eventually network with area schools to offer a show-and-tell demystifying the reptile world.

“I want to propagate what’s not just popular but what’s endangered,” Jensen said. “Last year, the reptile industry did (billions of dollars) in sales; it’s growing faster than cats and dogs. There’s an absolutely incredibly market out there.”

Jensen also is attempting to network Central Oregon reptile-lovers with other groups throughout the state. His business’s Web site, www.thereptile zone.com, lists upcoming events for the pet-reptile industry. Additionally, Jensen emphasizes that his pets come from certified captive breeders throughout the United States.

The best pets are captive-bred, both Jensen and Animal Land’s Smith say, because they tend to be healthier. Jensen says customers can look up breeders on the Internet to check the genealogy of the animals.

“My purpose is to share my love of reptiles and to teach and educate individuals in the right husbandry and responsibility,” he said. “I’ve talked more people out of certain animals than I’ve sold because I felt (the customer) wasn’t ready for the responsibility.”

Not an impulse buy

As Jensen walked through his store last week, a lime-green chameleon eyed him with one of its ever-shifting eyes. Jensen stopped at its cage, reached in and gently nudged the ficus tree branch gripped by the chameleon’s toes. The adult chameleon made a hissing sound and flushed a vivid yellow as Jensen moved on.

Down another isle, a Savannah monitor whipped its forked tongue into the air and paced its glass cage. Monitors look like the velociraptor in the movie “Jurassic Park.”

While the monitor isn’t exactly cuddly and Jensen warns that some snakes tend to nip — although he has no poisonous animals — he admits that some could be considered cute.

Many people coo over the baby bearded dragons or baby sulcata tortoises. He has a special affection for his Savu Island python, which isn’t for sale because it’s breeding.

“This guy is adorable,” Jensen says of the endangered species. “I love him.”

But many would-be customers don’t realize the maintenance these pets require, Jensen says: the perfect lighting, heat, humidity, food, water and bedding, to name a few.

“I don’t want to sell to someone who thinks it is just a really cute animal,” he says. “A reptile is 100 percent dependent on you. If an individual is not willing to take the time to be responsible, that animal will suffer and ultimately die. I won’t sell to someone who comes across in that manner at all.”

Jensen recently adopted a customer’s large, Mexican green iguana, which perches on a fake tree limb fixed along the ceiling. When regular customer Nathan Ronan, 25, came into the store that afternoon, the reptile fanatic marveled at the big lizard.

“Dude, this guy’s cool,” Ronan said, reaching up to touch the iguana, which flinched and eyed Ronan warily. “Is he friendly?”

“I’d watch out for him,” Jensen said, displaying his arms, scratched and red from a recent scuffle with the iguana’s long claws.

Ronan was there to buy cockroaches and crickets for his pet reptiles, saying he prefers these pets to dogs and cats because they are so unusual.

It’s exciting to see all the different exotic animals he gets in,” Ronan said of the Reptile Zone. “I was stoked (when they opened) because it’s a little place instead of a corporation that doesn’t care (solely) about reptiles.”

Taking care

While Jensen has no formal education in animal care or biology, he says he has 40 years of experience working with animals. In the 1980s, he worked in San Antonio breeding marmosets, which are small monkeys with fluffy white fur on their head that resemble big ear muffs.

He also has worked with the California Department of Fish and Game, helping rehabilitate raptor populations.

Beyond that, Jensen has kept reptile pets for decades, so he draws from that wealth of experience in his dealings with customers. For example, many people aren’t prepared to handle reptiles as they grow to maturity. He points to his shop pet, Shelly, who has grown exponentially from her baby size and likely will outlive him. Owners need to realize that these pets live longer than other domestic pets, Jensen says, so they need to organize a caretaking plan for the entirety of the pet’s life.

Additionally, many owners don’t know exactly what goes into feeding the larger snakes, which need live, or frozen, mice or rats.

Sometimes, when a snake strikes its prey, the rat still has a chance to tear into the snake’s flesh with its sharp nails or teeth. Jensen says he’s seen snakes badly injured by such incidents, which is why he recommends knocking the rodents unconscious — or using already dead rodents — to feed the snake.

In the back of his store, Jensen houses hundreds of reptile feeders, from boxes of mealworms to cages of squeaking mice and fat rats. Jensen breeds the animals himself for the sole purpose of reptile food. That way he keeps prices low for his customers.

And snakes can eat a lot, Jensen added, which gets expensive. For example, his female boa constrictor could eat three rats in a row, then digest the animals for weeks after, depending on the rat’s size.

In his back room, Jensen opened a freezer door, revealing bags upon bags of frozen rats and mice. A box of frozen food and a package of chocolates were stuck in between the rigid bodies, including rodent babies, known as “pinkies” because of their hairless, naked bodies barely bigger than a peanut. Snakes with smaller mouths, like the corn snakes, need these babies for food, Jensen says.

Before the frozen animals are fed to the snakes, their bodies must thaw completely and come to a live animal’s normal body temperature, Jensen says. Otherwise, the snakes won’t touch them.

Back at the boa constrictor cage, Bend residents Ronan, Brandon Miles and Jensen’s son, Eric, watched the snake finish swallowing her meal. Afterwards, Ronan quizzed Jensen about new animals he’s added and ones he hopes to get in the future. The men often take time just talking about reptiles, like their scaly pets are a common hobby.

“The biggest thing I’ve found since opening,” Jensen said, “is this is truly a community.”