Meet PenniJo Brenke

We had the good fortune of connecting with PenniJo Brenke and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi PenniJo, is there something that you feel is most responsible for your success?
For me the most important factor to my success would be my photography skills and representing my animals to the best of my ability to how they look in person. I also think having a very active roll throughout social media has helped with my success as well

What should our readers know about your business?
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.

Getting to where I am today was a bit difficult! Starting out nobody knows who you are and they are skeptical about purchasing from you or getting to know you. So I had to make a name for myself and get out there. Now there were multiple ways I was able to achieve this. First was making social media accounts to help get my name out there. Second step was creating a morph market sellers account which you have a few steps to go through to be a verified seller on there. The third step is vending shows and getting out there to make others see you and know you and be able to see your animals and know you’re a reputable breeder. Networking is a huge thing to be doing to put yourself out there, traveling to other shows out of state, meet other breeders and vendors to make connections.

Some of the lessons I learned along the way was to produce what I love to produce and not what others want or what is popular. Know what you want to produce before you just jump into it. I didn’t always know what i wanted to work with right away. However I knew that I wanted to work with olives right away, it took some learning and figuring out what I love to know what it is I want to primarily be focused on and it has helped me take my business in the direction I want it to continue to go

I want to be known for my Photography skills and the Olives, tigers, and dark phantom crested geckos.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
Honestly I am such a homebody I don’t really go out much to do anything. However if I were to plan something it would probably be something like this.
The very first thing we would probably do to start the day would go to get some coffee and breakfast from Caribou coffee.
There would maybe be a few hiking spots we would go to.
Minnesota’s largest candy store is always a neat place to visit, while they have so many candy options, the art work inside the dome of the store is probably the coolest part of it all. (this is open seasonally)
The art institute and the Science museum are super cool as well. There’s the walker art museum which takes place outside
The Minnesota zoo is fun place to visit as well.
Visit snake discovery
Depending on when you visit there is also the state fair that happens around the end of August to September
I would absolutely be driving 2 hours to go visit my absolute favorite ice cream shop called Flapdoodles located in Rochester Minnesota. The only 2 locations in the state are located in Rochester
We would also probably stop and get sushi, plus go get some tacos.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I’d like to thank my mom for being one of the biggest supporters in my life. She has always been around for me and supported my decisions. She also one of the people who taught me to love every animal.

A lot of my knowledge was hands on experience so I didn’t really have too much help when I started this, however there were a few people along the way that I had gotten to know and help inspire and encourage me through out this.

I work in a very male dominant work environment, so when I started getting into breeding crested geckos I noticed there were quite a bit of women in the breeding and keeping of them it inspired me even more.

My first inspiration/encouragement:

My second crested gecko I had ever gotten I had received from Weird and Wild Ones who is local here in Minnesota from me and was just as into reptiles like I am! We hit it off and became really good friends and we would talk about breeding plans and vend some shows together and it was great to have someone pretty local to me and just as reptile crazy as I am. She no longer breeds much anymore but we do still hang out chat reptiles and I will still share my breeding plans with her even though she doesn’t breed them anymore.

My second inspiration:
Giuliana’s Geckos Located in Colorado.
She was one of my biggest inspirations to me. I had actually come across her Instagram page in March of 2021. She was doing a giveaway at the time with multiple other breeders and was getting the breeder community involved and it was just one of the coolest inspiring things to me. Especially being a women in the hobby. She also has multiple different species of animals as well and we just hit it off and she just has the most amazing personalities. When my first crested gecko had hatched out she was one of the first people I had reached out to and told about that very first moment of falling in love with breeding these critters. She has been one of the people that has continued to be a friend and inspiration to me since 2021. And I am really excited to work together with her more in the future!

My 3rd encouragement

Scalez 4 Dayz located in Florida
He quickly became one of my closest friends in this hobby and we talk about a lot. Whether its about our crested geckos or our lives in general it was great to have some one that I could talk to. He helped me figure out how to ship my first box with a crested gecko. (Which is super easy to do, but doing it for the first time is stressful and there wasn’t the best instructions on how to do it when I was starting out) However the anxiety of shipping a live animal doesn’t ever go away, as there are many things that can happen to the box or animal.

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cowabunga_cresties/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CowabungaCresties

Other: Morph Market: https://www.morphmarket.com/stores/cowabunga/

Image Credits
Pictures taken by Me PenniJo Brenke @Cowabunga Cresties