What was your first experience with snakes?

Mine - I was about 10 years old (over 20 years ago). I was looking for lizards, and felt something under my foot in the tall grass. It was a Pacific Gopher Snake. I picked it up and initially thought it was a Rattlesnake because it was vibrating its tail, but then it bit me - and it didn't hurt very much. I knew Rattlesnake bites were suppose to hurt a lot because of the fangs. Then I looked at the tail and saw that there was no rattle, and it didn't look like the Rattlesnakes I had seen at the Academy of Sciences.

So I brought it home and tried to hide it from my Mom. Well, she saw it, but did not react the way I thought she would. She put it in a container, and we went to the pet store to buy a cage for it - turns out Mom likes snakes, something I didn't know until then.

The next day, we bought a mouse for it. The pet store (East Bay Vivarium) said not to try to feed it the first day, because it might not eat the first day it was caught. We bought the mouse at a closer pet store.

I had second thoughts, the mouse was so cute, I didn't want to feed it to the snake. I decided I would let the snake go and keep the mouse instead. I picked the cute little mouse up - and the damn thing bit me. The snake bite - didn't hurt. The rodent bite - that hurt. So I put the mouse into the snake cage, and the snake immediately grabbed it right in front of me and ate.

That's when I fell in love with herpetology.
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3.0 WC; 0.1 CB L. getula californiae
0.1 CB L. pyromelana pyromelana
0.1 WC Elgaria multicarinata multicarinata (gravid)

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