Reptile & Amphibian Forums

i know that the who's who of the king snake world are on this site. so i was wondering what is the one thing in your life that made you want to keep snakes.was there one event or encounter that sparked it or did you just one day say "hey i want a snake".
i know this may sound cheesy but i think it would be cool to compair these events or reasons to each other in one thread. heck who cares how long it is i think it is worth the effort.
thanks
jason

I have one event that sparked my interest. I was around two years of age(and I remember this like it happened yesterday) when my Dad brought home a tiny red phase eastern hognose. He brought me outside and placed it in a plastic tub for me to see. He told me where they liked to live, what they eat, and that they are harmless to us, but some people confuse them with bad snakes. I wanted to keep him, so Dad bought us a tank and all the other stuff to place inside it. He raised me for the next several years teaching me to respect snakes and other animals that most folks enjoyed killing for no reason. Now I am a hunter who loves to hunt deer/turkey/etc....and so was he, but he didn't see the necessity in killing non-game animals. So we kept the hognose until I was 11 when he died of unknown causes. I have kept snakes ever since, and now my collection has grown into a hobby that takes a considerable amount of my time out of each day. Just goes to show what happens when fathers take the time to encourage and lead their children into wholesome activities. I'm sure glad my Dad took the time to show me all he did.

My passion for snakes came at an early age. I was twelve. I lived in a wooded area and one day a big copperhead came out of some tall grass and into a clearing. I was scared to death! I did what most ignorant people did when they saw a snake in the south, I killed it! I ran and got an old field guide from my house and went back to the snake to identify it. I went straight to the poison section of the hand book and the dead snake looked nothing like the one in the picture. So I thumbed through the pages and found it. It was a red rat snake! I read everything on the page and in the description it said in bold –MAKES A GOOD PET. The thought had never crossed my mind-a snake for a pet-I have never forgiven myself for being so ignorant. And to this day I do not keep corn snakes. I was like a sponge from that day on, absorbing any information about snakes. Catching and keeping snakes filled the rest of my childhood. The most inspiring person was Dr John Rossi who I met when I was about sixteen or so. He took me snake hunting with him all the time in the spring. I learned so much from him on those trips. He and his brother Mike were the best heroes that a boy could have!

when i was 6 i found a box turtle in my west philly back yard....we lived across the street from old cathedrale cemetery

my first pet snakes were all wild caught. i grew up just outside of mendota california and spent most of the summertime on the river. This is were i caught a lot of cal kings, gophers, and a few garters. I was able to observe snakes feeding in the wild and once i even saw a pair of gophers mating. Since then i was always into snakes. but i didn't start keeping captive bred snakes untill recently.

I, like most boys was into the dinos! But, alas none could ever be found! Live, anyway. So the next logical step was herps. I lived for 16 years of my life a few blocks from a golf course that had everything a growing boy needs; lots of herps, golf balls to resell for cash, and the hint of danger! (Not allowed on the course and was always being chased off by the "greenies"! It even had a gator or two that someone had put in there. Water, garter, ribbon, atrox,anoles, red eared sliders, Texas spiny softshells, Texas spiny lizards, even box turtles, gopher tortoises, rat snakes, and the prize,Texas horned lizards! I couldn't imagine a Shangrela more perfect. I spent many happy years catching and i.d.ing all the known herps. Then one year my dad took me deer hunting, we were buildilg ground blinds, and the Holy Grail of Texas shot out of a pile of limbs, crawled up his arm and down the other! The Texas indigo! I have never looked back! Now I look at that old golf course and it is almost a thing of the past. Sure, you can still see a few Diamondback watersnakes, and the turtles thrive there, but everything else important is gone. It was a magical place and now I find myself having to travel further each year to find those treasures. As long as there are riparian corridors and delapidated farms, I will be there, asking the landownres permission to seek treasure on his property.
Todd Hughes

I think I waws about 6 or so my dad told me about spotted adders and showed me what they were, a harmless eastern milksnake but I thouht they were deadly so I killed them alot of them I'm sad to say. anyway I was always interested in dino's so naturally that meant to reptiles and amhibians well I got a field guide at around 12 looked and looked but no spotted adders only thing close was an eastern milk I read everything sbout it and found out it was a constrictor I was amazed took me another 3 years to see this event. eastern milksnakes are my favorite to this day. wish there was a way I could pay back what I destroyed
wayne

My love started with chelonians but i could never have them growing up... about 6 yrs ago when i was 12 my cousin died in a car accident and his parents gave us his bearded dragon.... jake started my obsession... a few yrs ago wew were in petco and saw an add that somebody was selling a corn snake for 40 bucks with the cage and everything so i got him!!! Since then i have had numerous reptilia and aphibians and now i even have tortoises! and only a few months ago i got me first king snake chiquita...its amazing how such a horrible thing can change somebody's whole life or the better... who knows where i would be now if i never got jake unfourtunatly he died this pass summer but i will always remember him for showing me how much an animal can change a little girl soo much and have come out of her shell and not be so shy.... my animals help me live and my life would be empty with out them

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1.0 Boa
1.1.1 Corn Snake
2.3 Bearded Dragon
0.1 Ball Python
2.2 Leopard Gecko
0.0.1 Marbled Gecko
1.0 Crested Gecko
1.0 Russian Tortoise
0.0.2 Fire Belly Toad
1.0 White's Tree Frog
0.0.1 Pacman
0.0.1 Sudan Plated Lizard
0.1 Banana Cali. King
0.0.2 Egyptian Toads
0.0.1 Bullfrog Tadpole
1.0 Saharan Sand Boa
2.1 Canine
1.0 Dwarf Hamster

I love all animals. I have always enjoyed watching all of the animal, sea creature, and bug shows. I guess I got that from my father because he was always watching them also. I was 18 or 19 still living at home in the late 80s, and I decided I wanted to get a snake. My mother said "sure, but we're going to double your rent to $200 a month". I said "GREAT". My father was never afraid of snakes, so I think that helped. I did some reading on keeping pet snakes, and I looked around alot. It came down to either a ball python or a boa. I went to a local pet store, and they had some real nice balls, and I asked the teenage employee if I could hold it. He said sure, and he reached in to get it, and it bit him twice. I was shocked and so was he. He started to bleed badly, so I decided I wanted a boa constrictor. Later, I thought about it, and it must have been because he was cleaning fish tanks. He had the smell of fish on his hands. Whatta dummy. I went to another pet store that had some beautiful boas. I bought a red tail for $315. Now that was an awesome snake. I had it for about 2 weeks, and it started to regurg, and in the middle of the night I woke up and saw it twisting around and tensing its body tightly. I was really scared and didn't know what to do. I took it to the vet and they gave it some water injections under the skin to help with dehydration from regurgitation. They also gave it some flagyl, but 2 days later it died. I was pretty upset. I had an ectopsy done, and it had a liver disease. The whole litter did. They all died. It took 2 months to get my money back, but I did. I then found a breeder in VA that bred all kind of reptiles for zoos. He had some boas, but they weren't as nice looking as the other one I had, but it was very docile, so I got it. I had it for about 4 years, and gave it to a friend that had just had his adult male die. To this day, it is doing great. It must be about 15-16 years old now. My kids and I visit it once in awhile. I went awhile without snakes. One day, I went to a new local pet store and saw a tiny little female GBK. That was all she wrote. I bought it, and now I am up to 23 now. I have stated breeding snakes, and I just love everything about snakes. My kids are now involved, and they will never be snake killers because of fear. I don't know what else to say other than I am totally fascinated with them. This GBK restarted it all.

When I was a kid, Dad used to bring home reptiles occasionally for me to see. Mostly, he brought home box turtles that he found sitting on the road near our home. Occasionally, he'd bring home a little snake. The ones that I remember most clearly were what think are gray rat snakes. They had a gray and maroon pattern and were gorgeous little animals. I always wanted to keep one, but for some reason, I always let them go in the woods behind our home. I think I may have wanted to stock the woods with snakes so that I could see them whenever I went outside. Every so often, I'd have to rescue one from locals who were certain that they were copperheads. Strangely enough, I never saw an adult in our woods.

I read about all that I could find on snakes at school, and I wanted to keep one very badly. I found a green snake but couldn't keep him alive. I found a worm snake but again he died also. I wanted a python or boa, but my parents never wanted me to try one of those. I had enough other things in life to pursue that I didn't need to spend time keeping a snake.

After college, I was living in Oklahoma City and became interested again. I think I called the zoo to ask for advice, and they gave me Bob Clark's number. I called him one day and talked for about thirty minutes. I ended up deciding against trying to get a snake at that time.

Periodically, I've thought about getting one, but the desire has always passed. Over the past few years, I've done more research. I've gone to websites like this one and asked people for advice on the best "entry model" snake. However, I always talked myself out of taking the plunge.

Last summer, I saw a large number of dead snakes on the road near my home as I took walks. One evening, I saw a nice-sized Texas rat snake, grabbed him out of the road, and brought him home. He didn't like being held so I let him go. Later, I caught a speckled kingsnake in the road. I kept him for a few days because I wanted to show him to a friend. The friend never made time to see him, so I let him go.

I think that speckled kingsnake hooked me. I started researching again and visiting pet stores. After Katrina and Rita moved through the area, I was still interested, so I looked more closely. Eventually, I found the two that I have now.

Bill

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It's not how many snakes you have. It's how happy and healthy you can keep them.

I had always been into animals when I was really little. I would catch everything from butterflys to bullfrogs, and the ocasional garter or ringneck snake. Once when I was about 8, I went to visit a friend of the family, Mitch, who had several snakes, mostly boas. He had one, a female named Caduessus whom I will never forget. She was nearly 30 years old when I saw her and just under 12ft... much bigger than me. Mitch asked if I wanted to see her eat and I was psyched. He placed a live rabbit in the cage... and for a moment nothing happened. Then, with speed and precision beyond my 8 year old understanding , the snake (which I was pretty confident was asleep) errupted and the rabbit disappeared from view. I was enamored and for the next ten months my mother heard about it every day until she fianlly caved. My first snake was a baby cal king. He is getting to be an old man, but i still have him today. Mitch is still a good friend and mentor.

I believe snakes are truly natures most amazing animal. With patience beyond belief, they are capable of remaining motionless for days on end and then at the flick of a neuron they exert one of the fastest movements in nature. They are strong, lithe, and ferocious when they need to be, and intensely reclusive when they do not. They are as amazingly beautiful as any marine fish or songbird. And they survive in a fast paced world, deaf to its chaos, with no limbs or appendages to aid them in their journey. They live a simple life, something we all should envy. When I look at my cages and I see them happily basking half burried with a full stomach, I know they they are truely content and have everything they need from life. If only they could smile... then everyone would love them. But they can't and for the few who do love them, the fact that they are misunderstood makes them all the more unique. They are a species in need of some love.

and I didn't like rodents. So there you have it . . . . . .

Zee

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"I am an expert on everything, but I know so little and have so much to learn!" -Carsten "Zee" Zoldy-

YOU DA MAN, ZEEBO!!! THAT is GREAT lokking w.c. GRAYBAND from THE BEND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That is another reason it carries on to this day!
Todd Hughes
and all I got was a night snake!! DOH!

Well, my interest in animals and herps in particular was instilled in me by my father. I can remember many a family vacation to some park or other where we often came home with anoles or fence lizards or one even an Eastern Hognose Snake. So, armed with that interest I began to catch my own snakes, starting at the age of 10 when I caught a gravid Eastern Garter Snake at my grade school. Of course I didn't know at the time that she was gravid - that came a couple weeks later!

Over the years I caught a lot of snakes, kept a few, kept other herps, learned a little here and there. I kind of drifted away from herps and herping when I went to college, and it wasn't really until I was in college the second time around that my interest was rekindled. I caught a HUGE female Black Ratsnake on a road near my apartment one morning on the way to class. I built a cage for the ratsnake and kept her for a few months before releasing her.

Over the next few years I mostly bought exotic herps, wrote some magazine articles on husbandry and vivarium design, finished school and went to work for a zoo. I think once I got back into herps the second time around I focused more on snakes. I find snakes fascinating because they are so highly evolved to live in so many different habitats, eat so many different food types, etc. Mostly I think snakes are my favorites among herps, and even though my dad shakes his head when I tell him, I owe it all to him and the respect and interest for wildlife that he instilled in my so long ago.
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Matt Campbell

Big animals, little animals, plants - right down to the sea itself. We need them, not just for their own sake, but because all this has to be here for everybody forever. Only one thing is certain: if we are to preserve our environment and save this priceless wildlife we need much, much more knowledge.
Harry Butler from 'In the Wild With Harry Butler' 1977

What a great question.

Three things do it for me.

ONE: Brain food; they make me think and ask questions.

TWO: The resposibility and joy I feel towards nature, and in particular, snakes.

THREE: In recent years, sharing it all with my son. Watching him pick up his first alterna a few years back is something I will never for get.

The combination of these factors makes it easy for me to do all the silly things we do.

I started keeping toads and lizards, and said I'd NEVER keep a snake as a pet (for alot of reasons too silly to mention here). I work part-time as an activities coordinator for a residential juvenile probation facility. One of the things I get to do is take the residents on hikes. On our hikes we'd seen lots of lizards (W. Fence Lizards), but never any snakes. On our first trip to the Santa Monica Mountains I decided I was looking specifically for a snake. We went all day w/ nothing, and as it was getting dark about 7:30 (July) we found a 2.5' Cal King meandering across our path. She's about 3' now, eats like a champ and lives in a tank in our living room. I've since become fascinated w/ native American colubrids.

I can't think of a single event that sparked my interest. I just always loved snakes. The first snake I ever kept was a 6'5" black rat. My brother and I were out in the woods playing and my brother ducked behind a fallen tree. He ended up being face to face with "Midnight" who was wrapped around the huge tree sunning itself. So I ran and got some leather gloves (although it never once tried to bite) And took him home (without my mother knowing) I didn't know anything about snakes then and that is why he was in a 10 gallon for about a week. He escaped and I put a towel under the door to keep him in. You would think it would be easy to find a 6' snake in a 10x13 room.... I found him the next morning as he was crawling across my floor. Apparently he spent the night curled up on the top shelf of my closet (found a present he left me) After that incident I realised I could not properly care for him and let him go where I found him the next day. Now I am up to 5 cb snakes INCLUDING 2 black rats. Black rats are my obsession.
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0.1 Snow Corn "Hope"
1.0 Ball Python "Wilson" (Castaway)
1. Orange Albino Black Ratsnake "Chunk" (Goonies)
.1 Orange Albino Black Ratsnake "Peaches"
0.0.1 Mexican Black Kingsnake "Onyx"