Good reply, and I love your honesty in both of your posts.



Bless your heart, I imagine that my first reply bordered along "aggravating" due to me pretty much just repeating the things you had already mentioned. Ha! I did it for a good reason. You're thinking on the right track, asking yourself, and others, the right questions; I just wanted to try to make them stick in your mind.



I'll try my best to keep this short so you can spend more time reading "laurafl's" first reply to you. That, my friend, is an excellent response she gave you, especialy considering that she was once in very similar poistion that you're in now.



From the way you capitalized "Bit" in your first post I knew that you meant pretty much the same as what I said, "wee bit." Not a total newbie, but not an expert, either.





> > > "...me and my boyfriend. Hes a pretty massive guy, about 225 pounds of muscle, so I'll always have at least one person extra person."



Yeah, I'd say the he would make at least one extra person. Ha! Ha! Tell him I said, "Howdy!" I want to stay on his good side. Ha! Ha!





> > > "As with their power and force. I understand that there is always a chance for emergency situations, regardless of how tame they are. But doesnt everyone who owns a burm take that chance?"



Yepper, we sure do. If a person has the gumption to take that risk, then they've got a trait that will help them with keeping burms. The lack of that gumption is probably the #1 reason some people don't keep burms. And rightfully, they shouldn't. The paragraph that the above excerpt is from shows me that you've got a lil' bit of spunk. I like that.



If I sat here & painted a rosy picture of keeping burms then I would be doing an injustice to you and a burmese python. That's why I felt like I had to say something about it.





> > > "It never stopped you from having them did it?"



Yes & no. As a child (6yrs old) I started catching yellow & red rat snakes. Playing with them throughout the day & letting them go later on that day. I got a summer job at the age of 14 just so I could buy a boa, and I did. It was a 4-footer that hadn't been handled in awhile and was fairly aggressive. After a few bites here & there, and less than one week, he was tame as could be. The following year I got my first burm, an 8-footer that was tame.



A few years later my interests changed & I got rid of all my snakes. One year later I was wishing I hadn't. I could've bought a 6ft burm that was somewhat aggressive but I decided not to because I wasn't so sure I could deal with taming it.



Here I am 30 yrs later with virtually no fear of any of the big boys (burms, retics). Virtually no fear, BUT, plenty of respect. I know what to do & what not to do. I know when to do it & when not to do it. It's one of those things that only comes with experience. Please don't misunderstnad me, I'm not trying to brag, not by any means. I'm, by far, no expert.





> > > "This might sound dumb, i know that i dont have experience with burms or Large snakes. But if I were to have one from a baby, and train it and handle it regularly and learn its behavious and attitude and tells, wouldnt i be capable once its fully grown?"



No, that's not a dumb question, it's a perfectly logical one. My answer is: Not necessarily. It kinda falls back on that "gumption" thing, along with a few other things.



Learning to read an animal's body actions, behavior, is good, it's very important. However, it's not everything. Once we interpret a behavior, we have to, sometimes within a split-second, devise a plan to deal with that behavior and act upon it.



My personal experience:

I got two baby burms 3yrs ago. They've gone from 2ft - 10ft long. I know them like the back of my hand, or so I thought.



When my female was 8ft long, she was in a shedding process, with cloudy eyes, and I had to clean her cage. I got her out & into a holding container I use and cleaned the cage. I got her out of the holding container and held her for a few minutes. I'm hard of hearing, in both ears. My wife walked into the room and said, "Boy, she sure sounds mad."



"What do you mean?" I asked.



"She's hissing up a storm. You can't hear her?" my wife replied.



"No, I can't." I said.



Then I noticed her body inflating as she inhaled. I turned her face towards mine, a few feet away, though, and she exhaled hard enough to blow my hair quite a bit.



I felt a tad bit of fear coming up from the pit of my stomach, along with a whole lot of respect for her size. It was then & there that I realized we were at the point to stop handling her alone. I've had her since she was a baby. She has never even looked like she was going to strike. And so far, thank goodness, she hasn't. She still hisses a lil' every now & then but she just keeps right on trucking, letting me do what I want to do with her. But I'm more watchful of her now.



Well, I wrote a heck of a lot more than I intended to. Sorry about that! Read "laurafl's" post a few times, I think it's really a good, appropriate one for your situation. But notice that she went from rat snakes to boas & then to burms, like I did.



I'm not saying that a person has to do that. Like I said in my first reply, I think it's possible for someone to be pretty much ready within the timeframe that you laid out for yourself. The choice is yours. How hard will you work on preparation? (That's not really a question, but more of a thought provoker.)



Just yell if you've got any other questions. That'll make me feel right at home since my wife yells at me all the time anyway. She claims it's because I'm hard of hearing, but I think that's a scapegoat for her. Hahahaha!!!



Take care!

HH
-----
Due to political correctness run amuck,

this ol' hillbilly is now referred to as an:

Appalachian American

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