Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Just thinking back...
My first was a albino prairie king.
Just a tick over 30 inches.
Secretive and sneaky. Picky. Pale coloration. Didn't like handling.
Was thinking about just selling him and quitting snakes forever.
I had him for almost a year then found a reptile guy that was willing to trade me a 42" regular cal king for my snake and $10.
I jumped at it. No regrets.
This snake was the most calm and friendly snake I had ever seen.
Loves to be picked up. Eats anything. Anytime. Bright black and white. Still have him, he's prolly 15 years old now. Still friendly and personable as ever.
That cal king is what I show people who don't like snakes. They all fall in love with him from the first time.
I think of this snake as my first, as if I hadn't met him, the albino prairie king juv would have been my last.
I have lots of kings, milks, and corns now.
What was your first snake?????
Love to hear these stories.

My first was a corn snake that I had for 3 days after I bought it. I got it when I was 10 and after like 5 months of saving/research/begging my parents well my little 6 y/old brother got it out one day I guess and did'nt properly close the lid, well it was gone. After that I convinced them to take me to a reptile show after more and more saving and got me a pretty female sonoran gophersnake. I was thirteen at the time thus the story of how my screen name/user name for everything emerged. I gave her to a freind at a local pet store, in exchange for a leopard gecko and like 20 bucks. I then purchased my Yellow Guy (hypo male brooksi) and Mera (66% hypo het female brooksi). Thus the story of my snake owning. (the amphibian/lizard story is too long for anything short of a novel.

My first snake was a WC Pacific Gopher.
Found it just off of San Pablo Ave. in San Pablo, near the Big T that no longer is there. Found it while looking for lizards.

Mom got me a tank and mouse for it, but the mouse was so cute I didn't want to feed it to the snake. Mom said I could keep one or the other. I was going to keep the mouse, but then the damn thing bit me - so I threw it in with the snake. Rest is history.

Oh - rodent bites really really hurt. Snake bits are nothing (though I admit - I've never been tagged by a GTP or a hot). Rodent bites hurt.
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3.3.5 L. getula californiae
1.0 L. getula nigrita
1.0 Boa constrictor constrictor (suriname, fostering/rescue)
2.1.2 Elgaria multicarinata multicarinata

Rodent bites hurt.
They sure do.
Mice aren't bad, as they don't seem to be smart, at least not the inbred lab mouse variety.
Rats are smarter, and they can inflict permanent damage, as they are smarter about where they bite, and tend to be large.
The worst are dwarf hamsters. Those b@stards are malevolent.
Main Entry: ma·lev·o·lent
Pronunciation: -l&nt
Function: adjective
Etymology: Latin malevolent-, malevolens, from male badly volent-, volens, present participle of velle to wish -- more at MAL-, WILL
1 : having, showing, or arising from intense often vicious ill will, spite, or hatred
2 : productive of harm or evil
The little b@stards just won't let go.

>>My first snake was a WC Pacific Gopher.
>>Found it just off of San Pablo Ave. in San Pablo, near the Big T that no longer is there. Found it while looking for lizards.

Small World
I grew up in Elsobrante in the 70's and worked at my Dads hardware store in San Pablo, on San Pablo Ave. Whats the big T your referring to?
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R.BICHLER
http://www.webspawner.com/users/rbichler/index.html

Big T in Tara Hills - where Tara Hills ave hits San Pable (close to the Pinole border)
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3.3.5 L. getula californiae
1.0 L. getula nigrita
1.0 Boa constrictor constrictor (suriname, fostering/rescue)
2.1.2 Elgaria multicarinata multicarinata

>>Big T in Tara Hills - where Tara Hills ave hits San Pable (close to the Pinole border)

OK, know the area pretty well grew up in El Sobrante, went to De Anza High school, graduated 1974. Now live in Vallejo. Are you still in the area?
Bob

No, I'm not in the area anymore - I'm in Redding now, but I use to live in El Sobrante fairly close to Crespi for awhile - on Hiltop Drive where it hits Manor Rd.

I went to Pinole Valley though, not Crespi.
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3.3.5 L. getula californiae
1.0 L. getula nigrita
1.0 Boa constrictor constrictor (suriname, fostering/rescue)
2.1.2 Elgaria multicarinata multicarinata

Allright, I went to Crespi, use to walk Manor Rd all the time. use to live up Sobrante Ave. Well have a Merry Christmas;
Bob
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R.BICHLER
http://www.webspawner.com/users/rbichler/index.html

First snake was a garter that bit me and hung on so was real easy to catch! First hot was EDR I bought from Thompson in Clewiston for $25.00 and he threw in a cottonmouth for five more bucks... I was fifteen, a friend with a drivers license drove me up there, had no permit and no brains. Man those were good times!!!

I’ve been bitten by an Eastern Diamondback (no, not that first one!), stepped on a stingray, and gotten pricked by a 3 inch long fingerling salt water cat fish that I was trying to catch by forming a cup with my two hands, and it got me right in the middle of my left palm. It was a microscopic pin prick, and I swear it was the most painful of the three by far. The EDR lasted for four days, no comparison, the sting ray was very painful but o.k. in a couple of hours, but for most intense pain right away, cat fish fin was worst! Who’da thought...
Happy Holidays everybody!!

A banded brown and yellow Cal King when I was 7. Seems only fitting since I was born and raised in S Cal. She layed a clutch a week later!

My first snake was a Dekay's brown snake I rescued. She was just sunbathing in front of the building where I work and when the people saw her everyone just went nuts and basically went on a "snake whacking" mission. I took her home, fed her and kept her happy. Few months later she surprised me by giving birth to 10 little ones. I actually witnessed the last few being born. Anyways, was I surprised!!! When they were all in great shape I just had to let them go where they would be happy and noone will bother them again.

My mother always let me keep "weird" stuff. I brought home scorpions, spiders, chuckwallas, fence lizards, quail, and once, a dwarf owl as a kid in Mexico.

My first snake, though, was a Garter purchased at the mall here in Phoenix. I was 10 or 11, so it was around 1985-86. I took that poor thing everywhere I went! To school, the movies, shopping, church - you name it.

One day, right after Christmas, she got out of her tank never to be seen again. Coincidentally, that was the same day my grandparents returned to Mexico City from their visit...I always wondered if she made the trip with them!

It wasn't until recently that I got back into snakes.
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Diego

Diego & Tiffany's Zoo:
SNAKES
2.4.0 Corn Snakes (Different morphs)
1.1.0 Everglades Rat Snakes
2.1.0 Baird's Rat Snake
1.2.0 Trans-Pecos Rat Snake
0.1.0 Amel Pacific Gopher Snake
1.0.0 Het Amel San Diego Gopher Snake
3.1.0 Sonoran Gopher Snake
0.1.0 Amel Sonoran Gopher Snake
1.0.0 Mexican Black Kingsnake
2.1.0 Gray Banded Kingsnakes (1.1 River Road, 1.0 Non-Locale Specific)
0.2.0 California Kingsnakes
0.1.0 Thayeri Kingsnake
0.1.0 Florida Kingsnake
1.1.0 Boa Constrictor
0.1.0 Dumeril's Boa
1.1.0 Rosy Boas (Mexican & Mid Baja)
1.1.0 Kenyan Sand Boas
0.1.0 Indonesian Dwarf Pacific Boa
0.1.0 Tangerine Honduran Milksnake
1.0.0 Honduran Milksnake
1.1.0 Ball Pythons
1.0.0 Woma Python
1.1.0 Cape York Spotted Pythons
1.1.0 Macklot's Pythons
1.1.0 Western Hognose
1.0.0 Blacktail Cribo

LIZARDS
1.0.0 Frilled Dragon
3.1.0 Bearded Dragons (2 Normal, 1 RedXGold, 1 Citrus)
0.1.0 Eastern Collared Lizard
0.1.0 Merauke Blue Tongue Skink
1.3.0 Leopard Geckos
1.0.1 Yellow Niger Uromastyx
1.1.0 Chuckwalla
0.1.0 Banded Gecko

FROGS
2.2.0 Southern Bell Frogs
1.0.1 Green Tree Frogs
1.0.0 Bubbling Kassina
1.1.1 White's Tree Frogs
0.0.2 Gold Frogs

Firdt snake I found was a lined snake at my granparents house in Sherman, Texas when I was about 8. Then when I went home I had to get a snake so ny mom took me to the mall where I bought a melanistic eastern hognose. It fed on frozen toads, but that was a hassle back then so I switched it to live Gulf coast toads from my neighborhood. It only lasted 2 years and I am afraid I intrduced some wild pathogens to it that it wasn't used to. That is why I switched to wild caught animals from my area. Cut my teeth on ribbons, checkered garters, Southern Plains rat snakes and Mexican milks. I didn't find my first king till I was 18, a desert king unearted during excavtion of my brothers' oil storage yard.
Todd Hughes

My first snake was a ringneck which my dad brought me home from a construction site. I tried to feed it worms and it wouldn't eat so we let it go.

Well, for some reason, from elementary school through middle school we were around snakes a lot. I don't think that's normal.. but anyway, I think we went to some reptile thing when I was like 5 or 6 and they sat us down in a little circle and put pythons and boas on our laps and stuff. Then in 4th grade my student teacher's roomate or boyfriend or someone had pythons and they brought those in and just had them slither around on the desks while we were having a pizza party or something. In middle school we had an assembely where they brought in pythons/boas/a young crocadile/an iguana/etc. and in 8th grade science class we went out on "nature hikes" (cause our middle school was in the middle of the woods) and found snakes and frogs to feed the snakes and kept them in the classroom the whole semester or year. We had a ribbon snake named Willy which was about the nicest snake ever and a FAT garter, a couple milk hatchlings (one was kind of silvery and black and bit everyone and the other was a brown one that peed on people a lot) and I don't know what else. So, I've liked snakes for a long time but never got one cause my mom is/was scared of them and my dad doesn't like them.

Anyways. I finally got one in October. He's a Cal King named Inverse. I had a hard time choosing between him and this Sinaloan, but I'm glad I got him. My mom is getting used to him and I don't think she's scared anymore and both of them always look in my room like everyday to see what Inverse is up to haha. he's like 10 months old I think and 17" long. and he's still kind of nervous about me holding him or people looking at him(only sometimes). He's a cool snake and I want more but I promised I wouldn't get anymore till I move out. And I don't even know what the rules about snakes are in apartments or dorms.

Funny, all these stories of you guys from wayyy back lets me know what a "Johnny come lately" I am. My first snake I still have. She's a WC Cal King from the Santa Monica Mtns.

reako45

That's funny, growing up in Van Nuys Ca, the Santa Monica mountains were some of my best hunting grounds. Had years and years of fun looking for snakes in those mountains.