I'd recommend garters. The periodic fasting that hognoses are notorious for can make them a trying first snake. Garters are typiclly enthusiastic eaters and are very personable snakes. If you go cb, you can often get one that's already conditioned to accept mice. You can check out this page for a good caresheet: http://www.gartersnakemorphs.com/ . Mine are just about always out and about and if they see me looking at them they'll often crawl over to see if I have their dinner (great display snakes). I've managed to switch all but one of my 4 over to a predominantly rodent diet. My two T. elegans are particularly aggressive rodent feeders and were the easiest to get to accept them. They're very active snakes so they'll never be a "lap snake", but if you handle them regularly they're pretty quick to get over nasty habits like musking.



You may want to peruse the rosy / sand boa forum too. Most rosys and sand boas stay under 3 feet, they're calm, docile, and easy feeders. If you intend on doing a lot of handling, these are worth looking into too.



-Alice

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