>>Speaking of rattlesnakes, what do You think of Steven's suggestion for a Sistrurus miliarius ssp. as a first hot? Small and manageable, right?

I had a new trainee at the refuge try handling one of our pygmies on his first day. He confided in me many months later that he almost didn't come back, because he figured that if a pygmy was that difficult how could he possibly control a "real" hot snake?

The lesson, that I apparently hadn't communicated well enough at the time was that small snakes can sometimes be more difficult than larger ones because they only have to move a few inches to be off the hook and are light enough to fling themselves in any direction if the feel like it.

I would guestimate that 50% of the pygmies I've worked with were fairly easy to handle and the other 50% were some of the most difficult snakes I've ever met...

I have 3 snakes at home that I don't look forward to handling:

1) A 12 foot rock python that was never handled by it's previous owner and tries to bite me every time (and has about a 5 foot strike range).
2) A six foot forest cobra that has tried to kill me every time I've handled it for the last 8 years.
3) An 18 inch pygmy that won't stay on a hook long enough for me to move it 2 feet.

Granted, of the 3, the pygmy is the least likely to kill me but he's still a pain in the butt.

I haven't worked with nearly as many coppers, but almost all of them have been fairly easy to handle most of the time.
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What goes up must come down...unless it exceeds escape velocity.

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