Snakes!

Post Reply New Topic

Does anyone else here have an interest in, or keep, snakes or any other reptiles? Have a favorite species? Do you go to any reptile shows? Have any opinions on laws banning large constrictors? Talk about anything reptile-related.

Awesome, awesome, awesome critters!
I them!
(swoon)

But, I am an incompetant animal nurturer
and would rather stumble over them in my travels
in Australia, in the wild, regard each other with respect and distance,and travel on, eagerly anticipating my next encounter,
in the future, than be so cruel as to trap and capture such
a magnificent beast
and condemn it to a life of enthusiastic voyeurism !

(that's just me though, I thoroughly encourage more people
to get involved with learning about the great green bounty
that is the wonderland of ecology to be found under every single leaf you could care to pick up in the park up your street.)

Ugh no reptiles for me. We have lived in same house since 1996, and this summer I saw several of them as I was walking my dog. They were the tiny brown colored snakes. I don't care if they are tiny or huge. Snakes scare me!

Interesting fact :

dogs are an excellent source of nutrition for many species of snake

Another interesting fact:

My terrier Muggs is an excellent source of death for many species of snake.

There's enough mutts in the world to kill every living thing on the planet!


Apparently there aren't enough Mugs!

Forgive me guys, but I'd say that this warrants me posting this.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXf_l93c6JM[/youtube]

I would have flooded that room with concrete and come back with a flame thrower to finish clearing the way tomorrow!

Ohhhhhh...... I love snakes. We have seven of them (and a leopard gecko who technically belongs to my daughter).

I tend to be a python person, myself... most of our snakes being pythons. We have three ball pythons (Chicken, Ayida, and Sophie), one blood python (Vlad), one burmese python (Na'as), one carpet python (Nola) and one guy out... a leucistic texas rat snake (Suigg... aka wh***y Ford... who sings the blues). I am sitting here with our burmese now. He is my mellow in the afternoon buddy. He likes to sleep all over my legs under a blanket. His lazy disposition is like a sedative to me.

I do like to go to reptile shows. My husband gets a subscription to Reptiles magazine and they usually have a few listed shows in our area. We do not have any coming up any time soon. I was kind of bummed to see that. They usually have one every six months or so... not that I make it to all of those now... I do not get out much... but they always have the coolest critters.

On the whole, I am still torn on how I feel about banning of large snakes. On the one hand, it infuriates me, as I am responsible with my pets... they are my family and I cannot imagine not being able to properly house, feed or care for them. That tends to be the biggest problem around here when people get to talking of banning sale of these animals... some people think they can handle a fifteen foot snake when they bring home the foot long baby... then reality hits and they abandon their pet. Not having any of my snake babies mortifies me. I do not understand how people can do that, but they do it.

On the one hand, this is wrong and needs to be stopped. It is hurting the animals, possibly the ecosystem by introducing a non native animal to upset the way of things... But on the other hand I am disgusted that I could be punished over the stupidity and carelessness of others. I do not think banning sale is the way to go. I think implementing some kind of regulation or even a pet registry of sorts might be the way to go and keep people accountable for their animals. Though I do not know how that would work.

Besides, making an animal illegal is not going to stop people from getting them... hell, I remember being a kid and some lady across town had a lion. It was crazy. My kids grandma has an illegal military macaw. Then what do people do with the illegal animals? How do they feed them or care for them if they get sick? It can be tricky enough to find local supplies/care for certain reptiles now. Add illegal to it... Meh.

I cannot imagine they will actually go through with it everywhere though. I can see laws in states like Florida where people letting retics out if becoming a serious problem, but there are enough hobbyists and breeders out there that I think if they push the law idea, they are in for quite a fight. I hope they opt to find a way to be stricter on rules or what have you.

I babble... sorry... I have a snake thing. Heh.

So ColdBlooded, what kinds of critters do you keep?

^ Awesome post dossa !

Some very interesting points and a lovely image :
"I am sitting here with our burmese now. He is my mellow in the afternoon buddy. He likes to sleep all over my legs under a blanket. His lazy disposition is like a sedative to me."

You are so Lucky ! !!

Would it be possible to post some pictures?
(hint, hint, nudge, nudge, go on, you know you want to! )

No real opinion.

I do love that snake. I feel very lucky. I know a lot of people who cannot house snakes. I happen to have a ridiculously large living room, and what better to fill it with than pythons? Heh.

I would like to post some pics of them... I need to see what I have around. One of these days I will take more recent ones as well. The ones on our photobucket are a bit outdated, I think. But here is what I have from there...

Here is Sophie... our youngest ball python


This is Na'as when he was small... the burmese


Here is Nola's big head... she is the carpet python


This is wh***y, the rat snake. Sorry if he is blurry, but he does not sit still all that well.


That is all I can find now. If I do not manage to track down pictures of the other three I will just take some new ones over the weekend.

Nice snakes, dossa! I have a Columbian Boa Constrictor, a Corn Snake, and a Reticulated Python right now. Along with two Leopard Geckos and an Argentine Black and White Tegu. I get Reptiles magazine also, and for the past few years i've been going to the shows they have in Raleigh. I think it would be nice to get into breeding something like Ball Pythons maybe...









Snakes and lizards are my "special interest," if that wasn't obvious already, ha.

Love 'em, but never had one as a pet

I like snakes, but I do not want one for a pet. Norwegian laws forbid keeping reptiles and amphibians as pets, being one of the very few countries forbidding it. Hopefully, the ban will be lifted in the near future. There are roughly 100 000 illegal reptiles or amphibians kept as pets in Norway, out of an population of 4.5 million.

I'd like a leopard gecko as a pet when the ban is lifted.

I LOVE snakes, yet I've never owned one.

When I was growing up I wanted to be a zoologist and collected as many pets as I could, which wasn't all that many really. We had blue tongue lizards at one place - they weren't actually captive, they were just in the back garden and I would catch them and keep them for a day or so, hold them, talk to them, etc. One time there were three and I put them all on my shoulders and head, which was a mistake because there was a narky one and I think in the end I had to get Mum to get him off.

In my early teens I had mice, then rats (and a couple other things). I kept breeding records for them. I used to research pets a lot. I was totally fixated on having a snake and designed in my mind different enclosures for different animals.
I really loved corn snakes - I live in Australia and we don't really have them here. I researched many different breeds trying to find the one I liked best.

It really, really frustrated me that my parents wouldn't let me get a snake. I wanted a diamond or carpet python. Also love green tree snakes. I was obsessed with idea for some years so as you might imagine, it kinda hurt.

It really had started when I was 7 or 8 and had a set of books about reptiles. I could read all about different types, look at their pictures and identify them by sight (experts don't recommend this, they say you have to count scales, but .. I don't know. maybe) and look at maps of the regions they lived in. Later I began reading about the different types of head and fangs, as well.

Hope no one minds my rave.

I love all the photos in this thread, they are just so gorgeous.