how did you get started with snakes?

[Cornsnake124]

Hi. I want to know your story of how you got into snakes. Here is mine:
My brother in law was one of the owners of the business "striking serpants" and when ever I went to his house we would get to clean the cages of all of his big boas and carpet pythons Etc... one day I was holding his pastel ball python while he cleaned his cage. when my mom came to pick me up he had extra peices of plastic from making some water bowls that day. Then I told my mom that I wanted to have the peices of plastic to serve as pads for the cages of bugs that I would make a colony out of. (remember, I am still really little and am still thinking up wierd plans.) Well, of course she said no, so then I said "well if I can't have that I want a snake that has white on it". and again, of course the responce was no! well then it was either the bugs, or the snake. So, about a month later my sister calls and says that my brother in law bought me a cornsnake! when he brings her over I see to my joy that she is a snow corn! (notice that I mentioned that I held a pastel ball python that day and also asked for a white snake.) Thats how I got mine, so now.. how about yours.:crazy02:

 

[halicorn]

I bought my brother a Ball Python for his birthday 10 years ago...ever since then I have always loved snakes and wanted a Ball myself. But at the time I was married and my wife at the time didn't like snakes, plus we had 2 kids and a 5.5 foot female green iguana. So now that I am without said wife (divorce) and said green iguana RIP Margarita, and after having 2 cats and fish. I got my first corn snake due to me falling for how cute it was at the pet store..Love ya Maximus. Then followed Myan. The addiction lives on because I am getting 3 more with 2 weeks.

 

[velosus]

Some good stories there... mines pretty simple though,

My g/f's dad has been keeping tarantulas for a number of years, then he decided to see what a snake was like. finally got a okeetee corn, called Sid lol. so after a few months, i thought id like one. so got in touch with the same person he got his from, and sure enough he had some of the same kind, and plus whanted a female, just for the possibility of breeding. so he had a female, was gorgeous, so we bought he. had her about 3 weeks now, and its going great, great feeder great to handle and now looking for a another one, but probably a ghost or charcoal. im liking the darker colours now.

thats the story so far anyways

Ian

 

[Chester'sDad]

I got straight A's for the whole year in order to get my first snake. My next 4 were a birthday present, and my last one was just cause I wanted him.

 

[Blue Apple Herps]

I used to catch them all the time around the woods where I grew up. I'd keep them for a month or two and then they'd die. I had no idea what I was doing...

When I was finally 11, my mom helped me get my first cornsnake. But she made sure that I read up on them and talked to the store a lot about it, she didn't want me killing off mroe snakes; but also recognized my interest in them. My first cornsnake, Jake, just recently passed away about 8 months ago. He was 14 yrs old, not sure what did him in. But he's the one who started it all for me.

 

[Nanci]

I caught and released native Minnesota snakes (and skinks and salamanders and frogs and toads and turtles) since I could walk. Taught by my sisters and cousins. Sometimes I would sneak one home from the cabin for a week at a time, then release the next weekend. Blah blah blah, I grew up, got married, got divorced, had a baby, got married, got divorced, moved to Florida.

I caught pneumonia in July of 2006. I had to stay home from work for two weeks. I was sicker than you know what. But I had this notion that I ought to be doing something constructive, so in between fevers and chills I had gone out in my pajamas to do yard work. It was early morning, and I was out in pajamas and bare feet. I picked up an armload of brush under a huge pine, and saw a glistening jewel of a snake. In my delirium, I thought it was a baby. I didn't know what it was, and had bare feet, so couldn't pin it with my foot, so I got a stick and picked it up. The snake crawled quickly up the stick to my waiting arms. Ok, I guess it's a friendly snake! I brought it inside to be ID'd, and it was a cornsnake. The gentlest, most personable snake I had ever met. I found this site that day, went out and bought snake supplies, and that was my Maizey. The end of August, my friend Bill gave me Chocolee. And later, Addy. And I was shopping on line for a birthday snake and found Inez, but thought she might get sold before my birthday, so bought her early. So Zee was my birthday snake. And Big Jake was my Christmas snake. And I adopted Lila, the skinny runt. Then I was good for a long, long time. Until Carol had a big sale, and I bought three snakes. And Rich Z. put my dream snake, a lavblood, on half price sale. Then I was good again until I was window shopping at VMS and found Bacon. And then I went off the deep end at Joe Pierce's sale...Now, a year and a half later, I have 15 snakes. But only one lizard! I am controlling that!

 

[xerxes]

long story short... i had a cousin that loved animals and was quite rebellious. so he bought two mice, snuck them in his house so his mom didn't know. he accidentally started a colony. so he asked the guy at the pet store how he could get rid of all these mice. the guy jokingly suggested to get a snake. so, he went out, bought a ball python, snuck that in. his mom eventually found out, but he somehow got to keep the snake. then i got to hold it and watch it eat and i wanted one ever since. finally got a preowned 5 yr old last august.

 

[ghosthousecorns]

A long time ago (the mid 80's) my sister had a pet snake named 'Vipper". I visited her and fell in love with this snake. I didn't get my own first pet corn snake until a couple of years later, it was '89. At the time we had 4 corns, a pac man frog, and a green iguana. I broke up with b/f at the time and he kept "his" snakes, I didn't keep them again for a long time. I always missed having them, I got another one in '97. He was just a pet for a while, then I added more..in 2003 I bred corns for the first time. Between that and finding this website in 2004 there was no stopping me. I'm like an addict that keeps relapsing lol.

 

[CALIVIK]

My 5yr. old daughter! She is my official snake handler! I would have never thought to have one as a pet if it wasn't for her skin disorder (ezcema) Everything furry makes her brk out. These guys she can hold for hrs!
We got our first one in 6/07 & just added our 6th but not last one...LOL

 

[KJUN]

Hmmmmmmm. I've always been an animal person, and I grew up outdoors in the marsh more than in areas with running plumbing....lol. I never had an exceptional love for snakes since so many we observed were venomous, and there was always a risk of getting tagged by one in that area. Snakes were just another necessary wild animal in the habitat, but I tended to ignore them at best. I kept a few turtles growing up since my mom was OK with that, but was scared to death of snakes. NO SNAKES was definitely the rule. (BTW, I still keep turtles including one that I've had for almost 20 years now.)

Enter College. I moved into an apartment with the Evil Incarnate (Kasi) - she is my wife now. She got a cat, but we wanted additional pets. Snakes are perfect for College kids since they are fine when you go home for a visit for 3 days...or a week. I was ALWAYS in the woods, so I picked up a ribbon here, a speckled king there, etc. Really, the only thinkg I kept was the ribbon for a while and one or two of the speckled kingsnakes for a good long time. Then, a good friend told me that "his sister's neighbor just hatched out some albino cornsnakes." It interested us since a friend in the lab at work was really into them. We went visit the neighbor, quickly became friends (we are still friends today), and we bought a pair of sibling albino corns het snow. He mentioned he'd have some normals hatch out soon, too. The male albino ("Aye" - because he had an A-shape instead of a spear point) was for Kasi, and the female (Bea) was mine. Bea is still alive, but Aye had to be euthanized recently due to just plain old senescence.

We went back and got a pair of normals het snow (Cei and Dee). Those turned out to be problem feeders. They would hardly eat lizards, and it was almost a year before they would eat scented pinks. They never did eat unscented mice, but they did accept unscented rat pinks once they were large enough. The whole thing stunted them and they never got large enough to eat anything over a rat pink in size.

The CHALLENGE of those normals is what got us addicted. If those would have been good feeders, we might have stopped there. The challenge made it fun, though! Within a year of that time, we were cranking out babies to pay for my third and final year as an undergrad. The following year, breeding pretty much paid for mt graduate degree and for much of my wife's DVM.

Funny where you end up from such a meager start, eh?
KJ

 

[snakewispera snr]

My story is simple...I just wanted a snake as a pet, it was around 1970. I didn't know anyone with a snake, I didn't even know you could keep them as pets. I just figured if you could keep fish, why not a snake. My folks didn't see it my way,LOL......
I had to wait until I moved out at 17. By that time I had met one other guy who had a couple of snakes... Thats it.

 

[K'Bear]

Mine is not interesting at all really. I just went to the pet shop and saw this snow corn and had to have her so i went and bought her.

 

[Snake Dave]

My story was a quest that spanned 13 years after going to the reptile house at Bristol zoo. I fell in love with snakes that day and I've been fascinated ever since. I've always loved animals of all shapes and sizes and we've always had pets. Every year from that day forth, on my birthday, I begged my Mum and Dad for a snake, and every year the answer was the same. Obviously they said no because I was too young to maintain a pet by myself, and they weren't going to look after it. So when I got to about 13 I started getting serious about it, and a little agitated because I felt that I had earnt the responsibility of looking after an animal, but still the answer was no.

When I got to about 15, I looked on the internet for snakes that were commonly kept in captivity as pets. Corn snakes were obviously the number one choice, closely followed by Royal pythons. So I did my research, and tried to put forth that knowledge to my Mum, but she wasn't interested. She knew that I did well in school, I did chores around the home and I was hard-working and respectful, but she let her prejudices dominate her decisions. So last year I asked her if we could visit a local reptile shop on the weekend; she reluctantly agreed. I found the perfect little fella, and I asked if I could handle him. I did so, and showed my Mum what wonderful creatures they were. She quite liked him.

So after about two weeks of research, talking and persuasion, I succeeded.

And now, on Tuesday, I'm getting my second; a Carpet python

All the best

David

 

[SNAKEWISPERA]

My storys is............My dad gave me a book full of reptiles, and info on them...i loved that book..and he use to take me to a local reptile shop. then I thought why can't I have a snake....asked my dad and he agreed straight away, mum thought differently,
Then my dad showed me pictures of him wresling with his burm's, and anaconda's and boas hanging off him LMAO

 

[Kokopelli]

After being denied the privilege for all of my life. I found myself near a pet store that sold a cornsnake, and I had money in my wallet.

It didn't take me long to realize that as I am living alone, there's nothing to stop me from buying one.

Now I have 7 snakes, and I blame my parents for it. Saying that this is payback for all the years of deprivation.

 

[insomniac101]

It's cool to see how everyone else got into this hobby!

I'll try to keep this brief since it's a 40-year story! I started out catching garter snakes, spotted salamanders, and leopard frogs around our house back in the mid 1960s. I would keep them for a few days, and my Dad would make me let them go.

I met my first husband in 1980, and he owned a pet store. He specialized in reptiles and salt-water fish. Things kind of snowballed from there what with the almost endless supply of snakes! Unfortunately, I ended up selling all of them when I was in college since funds were so tight at the time.

Anyway, I got back into the hobby as soon as I could. As you can see, I'm up to over 30 snakes now -- what a fascinating addiction!

Kathy

 

[Plissken]

Great stories, everyone!

I've always loved slithery things as I grew up with slow worms in my garden. A couple years back I worked in an exotic pet shop, and that's when I discovered I LOVED snakes in particular.

My first snake came along by surprise - I wanted a snake, but didn't have any immediate plans to acquire one. One day some guy comes in the shop to drop off his snake, because it's "so aggressive he can't handle it." As it turned out, this idiot was punching the snake on a regular basis. The little guy had no water, bugs crawling in his dirty aspen, and was thin as a pencil. Needless to say Connor came home with me, and that's where it all started.

 

[Squeaker]

My youngest son (36) decided that he wanted snakes. He ordered two and off the venture went. Welllll, he then bought a creamsicle for his son. Then, he mated his creamsicle to his okatee and ended up with eighteen little babies. One of them came up to me right away and I realized that it wasn't cold and clammy and icky and he was very comfortable with me, as I was with him. Every time I went to my sons house, I HAD to hold the baby which I knew by the markings and fell in love. When he was six mos. old, my son brought him to me in a new tank and all of the other stuff that he needed and there is my story. She is now a year and a half old. 42 inches long, not sure of her weight. She eats like a champ (in my lap) and loves to hang out on me, most of the time. What a gentle and sweet little creature. Too bad that snakes have such a bad reputation. I LOVE HER>

 

[wade]

Long time ago my wife would get up in the morning and get naked and go down to the garden for a walk. There was this snake that hung out there that would always come up to her and talk her into buying apples. Before long we had more apples than we could eat.

When I finally had enough of it, I went down to the garden (fully clothed) and grabbed the skinny bugger by the neck and threw him in a box. I couldn't bring myself to allow him to starve so I started tossing in a mouse from time to time. After a while we kind of grew fond of having him around.

I wish the wife would find some other form of exercise besides nude garden walking.

 

[Wylie]

Altho I used to catch Garter snakes as a kid, I never really thought about actually keeping a snake. I guess I just always assumed that it would be too difficult to keep one in captivity. I didn't really start contemplating about getting a snake to keep in captivity until my step son kept pesting his dad off and on for one, so that put the idea into my mind again, and then what topped it off was when we went to a nature center and in the snake house I saw a few corn snakes and that's what really got me hooked again on snakes. I just thought the corn snakes were so cute and pretty so when we got home I decided to do some research on snakes in general, what kinds were kept in captivity and what kinds were best for a beginner along with what the requirements were for keeping snakes. Once I learned it wasn't as difficult as I'd first thought, I decided to see about getting a snake. My next decision was to pick what kind of snake and that was pretty easy once I learned of how docile corn snakes are and that they are recommended for beginners. I had sort of fallen for the corn snakes I saw at the nature center anyway so that was perfect. Then I just had to decide which corn snake morph to get. I googled corn snakes and looked thru quite a few websites of breeders selling corn snakes. I finally settled on Don Soderberg's page and when I saw the photo of the Abbott's Okeetee he had on there, I was sold! I had also checked around the local area, called pet stores and such, and searched the local newspaper ads but nobody had a morph even close to what I wanted. Seems around here you mostly find the amels. So anyway, that's my story.