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Why did you get your first snake?

I've loved snakes for as long as I've lived. It all began with a childhood toy and a game my dad played with me. I had to wait until last year before I got my first pet. I fell in love with the awesomeness of corn snakes. It wasn't that difficult to convince my family to go along with me and now we have two corns and one adult ball python.
 
I never really considered owning a snake. I didn't know you could handle them and they didn't seem to do a whole lot at the pet store, so I guess I wasn't really interested. Of course, my mom would have locked herself in the car until I returned it or killed it if I brought one home when I was a kid.

My daughter just turned three, and I thought it might be a good time to get another pet (we have three cats), a small pet. I saw a deal on an aquarium setup at a garage sale, so that got me thinking. We ended up going to Petco that night to look at reptiles. After talking with a very knowledgeable reptile-owning employee, we ended up getting a little corn snake. I guess here are the reasons.
1) Fish really are boring.
2) Hamsters are smelly and messy. They have cute tubes to play in, but cleaning them is a pain. I decided, after seeing how much work they were when I was a kid, that I'm not going to get one for my kids.
That left reptiles as the main candidate.
3) Snakes are pretty clean.
4) Snakes can be handled.
5) Feeding them is pretty easy. Imagine, they get frozen dinners every meal! Why can't my family be happy with that? It would make cooking so much easier. And only feeding them once or twice a week? "Guess what day it is, kids? That's right, it's FOOD DAY!" Another no-go with the family. I'd be fine with feeding live, too.

BTW, Taz Monkey, I love your snake's name! I wish I'd thought of "Fluffy." Maybe something along those lines for my next one.
 
Shepherd said:
I never really considered owning a snake. I didn't know you could handle them and they didn't seem to do a whole lot at the pet store, so I guess I wasn't really interested. Of course, my mom would have locked herself in the car until I returned it or killed it if I brought one home when I was a kid.

My daughter just turned three, and I thought it might be a good time to get another pet (we have three cats), a small pet. I saw a deal on an aquarium setup at a garage sale, so that got me thinking. We ended up going to Petco that night to look at reptiles. After talking with a very knowledgeable reptile-owning employee, we ended up getting a little corn snake. I guess here are the reasons.
1) Fish really are boring.
2) Hamsters are smelly and messy. They have cute tubes to play in, but cleaning them is a pain. I decided, after seeing how much work they were when I was a kid, that I'm not going to get one for my kids.
That left reptiles as the main candidate.
3) Snakes are pretty clean.
4) Snakes can be handled.
5) Feeding them is pretty easy. Imagine, they get frozen dinners every meal! Why can't my family be happy with that? It would make cooking so much easier. And only feeding them once or twice a week? "Guess what day it is, kids? That's right, it's FOOD DAY!" Another no-go with the family. I'd be fine with feeding live, too.

BTW, Taz Monkey, I love your snake's name! I wish I'd thought of "Fluffy." Maybe something along those lines for my next one.
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hehe. I named my snake Fluffy, kind of as a joke, before I even picked one out. I just thought it was funny to have a snaked named Fluffy. I had every intention of changing the name when I got her, but it kind of stuck, and I love it now :)
 
I had always been fascinated by snakes, by my mom hated them. When I was growing up, I had kept a garter snake for a few weeks before she finally made me let him go... I let him go in a field near our house, and a few days later, he was in my front yard... So I set him up a home under the deck in our backyard, and we stopped having problems with mice in my mom's garden.

Years later, my hubby and I went to a snake show and saw this gorgeous little albino hatchling. We brought him home, but he was TOO YOUNG and was probably a trouble eater and died without ever eating a single pinkie we gave him (and they were live). A strong warning as to why you shouldn't buy hatchlings from non-reputable breeders at shows.

We still wanted a snake, so we went down to a local reptile store, and bought a sunglow amel. We had him for a few years, and he got HUGE. Sadly, he passed away last year, but I still miss big old Beezlebub.
 
I've always loved snakes and various other critters. I live in WV and grew up in the middle of nowhere in a forested area (trees all around the house) so there was an abundance of wild life to fascinate me. But the snakes were always my favorite. We had a basement to our house and snakes always loved hanging out in there. Mostly the ringnecks stayed down there. Sometimes a copperhead would wonder in (which to my dismay would always end up with his head copped off by one of my parents). We also had a pond and a garden which the water snakes and gardersnakes liked to hang around. Plus the cute green tree snakes which I didn't see very often.

My parents hated snakes and so did my sister and everyone that I knew and would kill any snake they saw even if it was a harmless one. I always wanted one and often played with the snakes around the house buy my parents refused to let me have one.

Once I turned 23 and though I was still living at home I bought bought myself a snake for my birthday against my mothers wishes. But once the little hatchling arrived and my parents saw her for the first time they fell in love with her. Now they can't figure out why anyone would hate snakes and they were among that group!
 
Well, I have always been an animal lover. When I went to college, I was all alone and friend-less. I left behind my family's 5 dogs and living in a tiny room with a stranger (we had nothing in common) was making me miserable. I missed my dogs, and I really wanted an animal to keep me company. Since all we were allowed to have were fish, I got a betta, but it just wasn't the same as an animal you could pet and stuff. I decided to go sign up for all animal-related clubs I could find, hoping I could get my animal fix there and possibly find some friends. The Herpetology Club was one of the ones I signed up for, and by far the most interesting because it was the only club I went to where people brought in their animals. I was instantly hooked. It was totally unexpected and extremely fascinating to see all these snakes and lizards being handled by everyone and actually not minding all the attention. I never saw snakes as the sort that would put up with such behavior. After that meeting I went back to my dorm room and (after gushing for like 20 minutes about how AMAZING that meeting was to my not-so-enthusiastic roommate that I had barely said 3 words to before this) immediately started researching reptiles as pets. I found that corn snakes make the best starter reptile, but I didn't actually plan on getting one until I got this random email (totally unrelated to anything that had happened before) about baby corn snakes for sale for $15. The person had amels, anerys, and snows. I quickly formulated a plan on how I could secretly keep a tiny snake hidden (really quite easy) and responded to the email saying I would take one, and told her to surprise me with what kind. A few days later she brought me a little amel I named Drake, and I kept him in a shoebox sized tupperware under my desk until I decided to introduce him to my roommate, who then promptly kicked him out. I sent him to live (as mine still, I didn't give him away!) with a friend who then sent him to live with the herpetology club president, Brandon aka Snakewhisperer, and that not only started my fascination with herps but also my relationship with Brandon (who is now my fiance) :p
 
WingedSweetheart said:
Once I turned 23 and though I was still living at home I bought bought myself a snake for my birthday against my mothers wishes. But once the little hatchling arrived and my parents saw her for the first time they fell in love with her. Now they can't figure out why anyone would hate snakes and they were among that group!
Click to expand...

Awesome. SUCCESS! Well done! :D
 
I always like snakes and as an adult I was involved with Snake avoidance training for dogs so we always kept the rattlesnakes at our house that we used for the training. My husband noticed on the internet an announcement about the show in Pamona and we decided to go. We saw the cornsnakes there and we decided to get one. I brought home my first amel cornsnake in 2003. Now we have over 30 snakes of many different species as well as some venomous. The cornsnakes are now fewer and the other stuff is more, but I'll always have a special place in my heart for my first amel boy. He now lives at a school with a teacher from this forum and is the school mascot snake!
 
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