Anyone have a pet snake?

[Nakia]

My girls are asking for a pet snake. I'm not really opposed to it. I'm not scared of snakes. And considering they asked for a tarantula first (I AM TERRIFIED OF SPIDERS), I can handle a snake. I think. Anyway, does anyone have a pet snake? We are obviously going to research this extensively before we get one, if we even do get one. I know they eat live rodents, but Patrick has already said he will feed it. I would like to know what kind makes a good pet, how often they eat, how big the cage needs to be, etc.

 

I think my biggest concern is that I wonder if it is inhumane to confine a snake to a cage. :001_unsure:

[Jennifer3141]

We have a Russian tortoise who lives with us and we keep snakes for observation for a few hours most days in the summer.

 

I think snakes are one of those animals you need to research the heck out of. We've done so many stupid things with snakes like releasing Anacondas into the Everglades... :(

 

But I do know that there are lots of pretty and small snakes out there. :)

[thescrappyhomeschooler]

One of my close friends had a pet boa constrictor that just died a few months ago at the ripe old age of 23. I don't know what size she was when they got her, but she was probably about 7 feet long fully grown. Her cage was fairly large- I'd say about 10' X 8' X 5'. It took up most of one room. My boys loved her. They would watch her and pet her as she slithered around the back yard. She did eat rodents, which I could never watch. She was a great pet. My kids miss her. Her cage could get a little stinky and needed to be cleaned out regularly.

[Kalmia]

You can feed the snake dead mice which can be kept in the freezer and thawed out on the counter. In fact, feeding snakes live mice can be dangerous as the mice may bite the snake and cause infection. Zoos feed their snakes dead mice for this reason.

 

At least one species of snake eats (gold)fish which can be provided in a bowl of water.

 

I'd suggest a corn or milk snake, whichever is legal in your state. They stay relatively small and are beautifully patterned.

 

Tropical snakes have special heating requirements. Do not get a boa constrictor or python, they can grow to an enormous size very quickly. While ball pythons are calm and stay small, they often stop eating in captivity.

 

Remember, a snake must be handled daily so that it doesn't become people-shy and strike out of fear. Snakes live much longer than you'd expect. Be prepared to take care of it once your kids leave for college.

[Matryoshka]

My dd begged and begged for a snake, and we finally caved. :tongue_smilie:

 

We have a ball python, and I have to say, it's a nice pet! Much nicer than I thought. It's very gentle and doesn't mind being carted about or handled.

 

We do feed it live rats, which it turns out I'm not even squicked out by (although dh and dd take care of the actual handling of rat and snake). Sometimes the snake isn't hungry and won't eat the rat, and then we can just bring it back to the pet shop and give it another try in a week.

 

It lives in a 30 gal. tank.

[Matryoshka]

Remember, a snake must be handled daily so that it doesn't become people-shy and strike out of fear. Snakes live much longer than you'd expect. Be prepared to take care of it once your kids leave for college.

 

This was one of my objections to getting one... my "helpful" friend mentioned that they made great dorm pets (apparently she had one in her dorm)...

[Truscifi]

Ds wants a corn snake. I have no objection to it per se, but he already has a dog and a lizard and I just don't want another pet in the house. We did look into it though, and they don't get too big and seem to be easy to care for.

[elegantlion]

I have a friend who has snakes, I'll ask what a good starter would be.

[Laurie4b]

My ds's have corn snakes. Very easy. They eat frozen mice (thawed) so no need to send a live mammal to a certain death. Snakes don't do much of anything. I don't think it's inhumane to keep them in cages. Even nice zoos,etc. keep snakes in small cages. You can get a cage with a sliding top that is escape-proof (unless you don't close it!)

 

Corn snakes come in a variety of colors, are easy, and don't get very big.

[Nakia]

We have a Russian tortoise who lives with us and we keep snakes for observation for a few hours most days in the summer.

 

I think snakes are one of those animals you need to research the heck out of. We've done so many stupid things with snakes like releasing Anacondas into the Everglades... :(

 

But I do know that there are lots of pretty and small snakes out there. :)

 

Thanks! I am a researcher by nature, so I will definitely be reading a lot before we decide!

 

One of my close friends had a pet boa constrictor that just died a few months ago at the ripe old age of 23. I don't know what size she was when they got her, but she was probably about 7 feet long fully grown. Her cage was fairly large- I'd say about 10' X 8' X 5'. It took up most of one room. My boys loved her. They would watch her and pet her as she slithered around the back yard. She did eat rodents, which I could never watch. She was a great pet. My kids miss her. Her cage could get a little stinky and needed to be cleaned out regularly.

 

Cool! I really don't want a boa constrictor because they get so big. And I heard a story last year about a boa escaping out of its cage and killing the owner's two year old. SCARY!

 

You can feed the snake dead mice which can be kept in the freezer and thawed out on the counter. In fact, feeding snakes live mice can be dangerous as the mice may bite the snake and cause infection. Zoos feed their snakes dead mice for this reason.

 

At least one species of snake eats (gold)fish which can be provided in a bowl of water.

 

I'd suggest a corn or milk snake, whichever is legal in your state. They stay relatively small and are beautifully patterned.

 

Tropical snakes have special heating requirements. Do not get a boa constrictor or python, they can grow to an enormous size very quickly. While ball pythons are calm and stay small, they often stop eating in captivity.

 

Remember, a snake must be handled daily so that it doesn't become people-shy and strike out of fear. Snakes live much longer than you'd expect. Be prepared to take care of it once your kids leave for college.

 

I just talked to my cousin because he used to own snakes. He said the same thing about feeding dead rodents. That makes so much sense! I just looked up corn snakes and milk snakes, and they are beautiful! Thank you so much for your suggestions!

 

My dd begged and begged for a snake, and we finally caved. :tongue_smilie:

 

We have a ball python, and I have to say, it's a nice pet! Much nicer than I thought. It's very gentle and doesn't mind being carted about or handled.

 

We do feed it live rats, which it turns out I'm not even squicked out by (although dh and dd take care of the actual handling of rat and snake). Sometimes the snake isn't hungry and won't eat the rat, and then we can just bring it back to the pet shop and give it another try in a week.

 

It lives in a 30 gal. tank.

 

Thanks for the info!

 

This was one of my objections to getting one... my "helpful" friend mentioned that they made great dorm pets (apparently she had one in her dorm)...

 

LOL! Maybe I should make my girls sign a contract that someone has to take the snake when they leave home.

 

Ds wants a corn snake. I have no objection to it per se, but he already has a dog and a lizard and I just don't want another pet in the house. We did look into it though, and they don't get too big and seem to be easy to care for.

 

We have 5 cats, 2 dogs, and 2 goats, so I'm fine with one more.

 

I have a friend who has snakes, I'll ask what a good starter would be.

 

Thanks Paula!!

[Nakia]

My ds's have corn snakes. Very easy. They eat frozen mice (thawed) so no need to send a live mammal to a certain death. Snakes don't do much of anything. I don't think it's inhumane to keep them in cages. Even nice zoos,etc. keep snakes in small cages. You can get a cage with a sliding top that is escape-proof (unless you don't close it!)

 

Corn snakes come in a variety of colors, are easy, and don't get very big.

 

Corn snakes do seem to be a great pet snake. I think we will go look at some tomorrow. And thanks for pointing out about zoos keeping snakes in cages. I hadn't thought of that.

[DarlaS]

My ds has just recently acquired a ball python. My 10 yo dd is quite smitten. Here he is (and dd too) hanging out with Jerry the Snake. He's really very docile. Snakes are such easy pets, I may never housebreak a dog again! :w00t:

 

 

[Peela]

Here in our state in Australia there are very strict quarantines rules and there are only 2 local non poisonous snakes we can keep as pets. We have one called a Stimson Python and it grows about a metre to a metre and a half in length. We have had Monty for maybe a couple of years now and we love him- he sheds every couple of months or so.

Snakes are great escape artists. We found ours in the backyard one day- very lucky we didn't lose him.

There are very strict laws here about feeding them live animals- not permitted as it is cruel. They eat specially bred and humanely snap frozen dead mice. It's pretty easy.

Low maintenance. Monty has never struck any of us- although when I was dusting outside his cage recently he did try to attack the feather duster which probably gave him quite a headache as he hit the glass. But to handle, he is beautiful.

As far as cruelty to keep them caged- Monty sleeps 95% of the time, and the other 5% is spent eating or trying to escape, or being handled. We have him in a fish tank with a home made lid with lots of mesh for air circulation, which then has heavy books on it because he's a clever dude.

[TXMary2]

We have four, well ds has four. They are relatively low maintenance, but set up isn't super cheap. Corn snakes and Ball Pythons make the best pet snakes. DS has two California King Snakes too, but they aren't really all that "friendly."

 

Feeding them can be :ack2: if you feed them live mice/rats. Two of ds's eat live and two eat frozen/thawed. DS is about to start his own rat breeding operation - in the garage to save on the cost of feeding.

Edited February 21, 2011 by TXMary2

[Nakia]

My ds has just recently acquired a ball python. My 10 yo dd is quite smitten. Here he is (and dd too) hanging out with Jerry the Snake. He's really very docile. Snakes are such easy pets, I may never housebreak a dog again! :w00t:

 

[ATTACH]4540[/ATTACH] [ATTACH]4541[/ATTACH]

 

CUTE!!! I love those pics!

 

Here in our state in Australia there are very strict quarantines rules and there are only 2 local non poisonous snakes we can keep as pets. We have one called a Stimson Python and it grows about a metre to a metre and a half in length. We have had Monty for maybe a couple of years now and we love him- he sheds every couple of months or so.

Snakes are great escape artists. We found ours in the backyard one day- very lucky we didn't lose him.

There are very strict laws here about feeding them live animals- not permitted as it is cruel. They eat specially bred and humanely snap frozen dead mice. It's pretty easy.

Low maintenance. Monty has never struck any of us- although when I was dusting outside his cage recently he did try to attack the feather duster which probably gave him quite a headache as he hit the glass. But to handle, he is beautiful.

As far as cruelty to keep them caged- Monty sleeps 95% of the time, and the other 5% is spent eating or trying to escape, or being handled. We have him in a fish tank with a home made lid with lots of mesh for air circulation, which then has heavy books on it because he's a clever dude.

 

Love the name! After reading this thread, we will definitely stick with frozen food, if we get one. Oh, who am I kidding? We'll probably have one before the end of the month. Thanks for the bolded, especially. I got rid of my saltwater fish aquarium because I could not stand to see those beautiful fish confined to that little space. I am really sensitive about stuff like that. That's exactly why we do not have a pet bird. I can't stand to see a bird in a cage. It makes me so sad.

 

We have four, well ds has four. They are relatively low maintenance, but set up isn't super cheap. Corn snakes and Ball Pythons make the best pet snakes. DS has two California King Snakes too, but they aren't really all that "friendly."

 

Feeding them can be :ack2: if you feed them live mice/rats. Two of ds's eat live and two eat frozen/thawed. DS is about to start his own rat breeding operation - in the garage to save on the cost of feeding.

 

Hmmmmmm.......a rat breeding operation. Why does that make me :lol::lol::lol: ??? Thanks for the recs!

[kokotg]

DH used to have a ball python (he got it when he was in college, before I had any say in the matter, and we had it for a couple of years after we were together before he eventually gave it away). My observations re: snakes as pets:

 

1. snakes are incredibly boring. YMMV, of course, but this was my take on it. I need a pet that does stuff.

 

2. snakes are very easy to take care of. DH did feed his live mice. His 20 year old self felt that she needed the mental stimulation that catching her prey could provide. I hated this part of it, since the mice were always both cuter and smarter than the snake. I was always on their side, and one time we rescued one who outwitted the snake for long enough that we felt particularly attached to it.

 

3. If you go out of town, make sure your housesitter is not so incompetent that she leaves the heat lamp on the floor of your apartment so that when you come home the fire department is just leaving your building and there's a hole burned in your bedroom floor, which you have to pay your landlord's $500 insurance deductible to fix, only he doesn't actually report it to his insurance company and you have to remind him for months that you have a big hole in your floor before he finally sends his brother out to patch it up with $20 worth of plywood. True story.

[Nakia]

DH used to have a ball python (he got it when he was in college, before I had any say in the matter, and we had it for a couple of years after we were together before he eventually gave it away). My observations re: snakes as pets:

 

1. snakes are incredibly boring. YMMV, of course, but this was my take on it. I need a pet that does stuff.

 

2. snakes are very easy to take care of. DH did feed his live mice. His 20 year old self felt that she needed the mental stimulation that catching her prey could provide. I hated this part of it, since the mice were always both cuter and smarter than the snake. I was always on their side, and one time we rescued one who outwitted the snake for long enough that we felt particularly attached to it.

 

3. If you go out of town, make sure your housesitter is not so incompetent that she leaves the heat lamp on the floor of your apartment so that when you come home the fire department is just leaving your building and there's a hole burned in your bedroom floor, which you have to pay your landlord's $500 insurance deductible to fix, only he doesn't actually report it to his insurance company and you have to remind him for months that you have a big hole in your floor before he finally sends his brother out to patch it up with $20 worth of plywood. True story.

 

1. I'm pretty ok with a boring pet. Nothing else in my life is boring. It might be nice to have boring for a while. :lol:

 

2. From what I'm reading here and other places online, they do seem easy to care for. I think our hypothetical snake will have to settle for already dead food. I kinda think mice are cute. We used to have rats as pets, and I LOVED them. So smart. Yes, dead food for the snake.

 

3. That is a funny, but not funny, story. Whoa. We are going out of town in May. I have no idea who would be willing to snake sit for us. Ugh. I better think that through before we get one.

[TXMary2]

 

 

Hmmmmmm.......a rat breeding operation. Why does that make me :lol::lol::lol: ??? Thanks for the recs!

 

Yeah, I am still not completely sold on that. I have told him if there are escapees, there will be fines!!! LOL

 

Here are some pictures of his snakes.

[katemary63]

My DH found this tiny ring necked snake in the yard. We let my DD keep him for the summer. We just fed it crickets and worms that we dug up and meal worms from the bait shop/ pet store. I have no idea if you can buy ring necked snakes or how big they get but I think this little guy was so cute! We let him go come fall. There's a video at the end of the post of my DD playing with "Snape" the snake.

 

http://harmonpfarms.blogspot.com/2008/08/snape-snake.html

 

ps. DH is petrified of snakes although neither his wife nor daughters are. LOL! He would never let DD have a snake on a permanant basis and anything bigger then this guy would never come into the house in the first place.

[wendybird]

We have a ball python and a red tail boa. They are wonderful pets(although not my choice I have come to like them)! Cage care is very easy(Copper, our ball python is an escape artist though. By artist I mean this snake gets out of seemingly impossible set ups!). Zelda eats dead and Copper will only eat live. We breed our own food. That has turned out to be quite an amazing process! There is a lot of genetics learned by seeing something as simple as what color patterns emerge in what generation, which rats have the bigger babies or larger litters,etc.

If I were starting again I definitely would have gone with corn or milk snakes and would definitely recommend them as the perfect starter snake! :)

[DarlaS]

Yeah, I am still not completely sold on that. I have told him if there are escapees, there will be fines!!! LOL

 

Here are some pictures of his snakes.

 

The ball python slithering around in various places made me laugh. Just a bit though. DS recently found out Jerry is faster than he thinks at getting places he shouldn't be, and we had to extricate him from inside the sofa. The sofa is only slightly worse for wear, and we're just glad we managed not to hurt the snake.

[ktgrok]

I was going to get a pet snake, as I think they are really great pets, until I found out they can live 40 years. Um, I don't have that kind of attention span, LOL. Seriously, I can't make a 40 year commitment, and I don't believe in getting an animal unless I can commit to keep it it's whole life.

[Nakia]

We are going to look at snakes today. The girls are soooo excited!!

[creekmom]

We had a couple of snakes for a little while.. a milk and a corn snake. We bought them at a reptile show. The milk snake was very sweet - the man we bought him from used that snake when he went to schools to show kids reptiles. We bought frozen baby mice to feed the snakes. It became quite a hassle to feed them- clean up wasn't fun either. They kept escaping their "home" which freaked me out a little since they were hard to find. -One escaped the morning we were leaving for a one week vacation. The thought of a snake roaming the house while we were gone was more than I could handle. I offered a big $ reward for finding him that day! Luckily, we did find him before we left!! We ended up selling them, and I can't say I miss them...

[TheApprentice]

We have a corn snake, and it is by far the easiest pet we've owned. There is a bit of start up cost for the terrarium, heat pad (because they need a warm side to digest their food), and decorations inside the terrarium. But after that, we feed it frozen (defrosted) mice, $1 a piece, every 12 days. Spot clean after it defecates and deep clean every few month. We handle often, but not every day, because while it is digesting its food, you aren't suppose to handle it. Have owned it for over 2 years now, and have never been bitten:001_smile:. I enjoy the snake probably more than the boys, which I never would have imagined.

[Ariston]

Love the name! After reading this thread, we will definitely stick with frozen food, if we get one.

 

I know this thread is a few weeks old, but I thought I'd mention...snakes can be very picky eaters. A lot will only eat live mice. Some will only eat thawed, and some will actually only eat unconscious mice! So if you want a snake that eats thawed mice, make sure that that is what it is eating before you buy it. And make sure it is a good eater. I would even ask to come at its next feeding time and watch. Many snakes will starve themselves to death either because they are not taking well to captivity, or because you are not offering what they want to eat. They're not going to eventually eat a food just because they're hungry.

 

I had a lot of different snakes when I was young and BY FAR my favorite was the ball python. THey are the friendliest and most docile. They also are slow moving so it makes it very easy to play with them. They never get too big and are easy to take care of. They also do very well in captivity and are usually good eaters. Baby ball pythons are cute, and it would be fun to watch it grow. The only thing that is hard is that you need to have a source of food. Where I grew up (in suburbia) that was no problem as there were pet stores everywhere. Where I live now (rural) that would be a major problem and we'd probably have to breed the food source.

 

 

Good luck! I hope your girls get something they like if they haven't already!