Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hey, I bought myself a snake because on a trip during the summer I found 2 snakes that I picked up and held, one was a plain garter snake, and the other a baby rattlesnake (I didn't know it was a rattlesnake until I picked it up, and I didnt' get bit). I've loved snakes for YEARS, and I've always wanted one. I'm kind of curious as to why you all have snakes or wanted them. What makes people so attractive to snakes? Thanx!
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~Banana~

well, i seemed to have gotten into snakes when i was very young. I use to cacth little salamanders in my yard and always thought i was catching garter snakes lol. When i finally learned that i wasn't catching snakes, i needed to get some for myself
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Zach Lim
Carnivorous Plant Grower and Herper
http://www.geocities.com/sf_snakes/index.html

What a cute story, picking up salamanders instead of garter snakes, I love it!
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~Banana~

The first snake I caught was a pygmy rattler. I was five, the snake was also very young. I think the fact that it was a cool day is what kept me from getting bit. I showed the snake to my mother who gently took it from me after offering me a horned toad in exchange. She released it outside and took me to the store for my (25 cent-in the fifties) lizard, and also bought me my first book on snakes....I was hooked.
Frank

I have kept aquariums of all sorts for many, many years. For me the transition to reptiles was natural and predictable. I have worked with and bred many animals through the years and I found myself in smaller quarters without pastures and barns. I began searching for animals that I could breed and work with which didn't require a lot of room or even being outdoors. Snakes fit the bill and also challenged me at the same time. Whether it is a tiny hatchling or a mature snake I am facinated and intrigued at these marvelous creatures. Forums such as this also were encouraging to me and full of usefull information, observation and many times humor. Thanks, Kingsnake and thanks to all the experts who post here with priceless experience.

I have always loved animals of any sort, my Mom drew the line at snakes though so I never had one as a child. When my daughter was about 6 yrs old we were in a local pet store and a guy walked in with a Boa around his neck. My daughter absolutely freaked out and it took me and 3 employees to catch her as she ran around the store looking for a way out! I decided right then that I wasn't having her that scared of anything, so I looked around and found a guy selling baby corns and bought one. She got over her fear of snakes once she saw it wasn't going to hurt her and we both got hooked.
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1.3 Ball Pythons
1.0 Brooksi
0.1 Goini
0.1 Goini x Brooksi
1.1 Blairs Grey Banded
1.1 California Kings
1.0 Normal Corn
1.0 Pastel Motley Corn
0.1 Okeetee Corn
0.1 Emory Rat x Corn

When I was little girl growing up in North Carolina in the early 70's I noticed my little dog barking at something in the grass. I ran out to see what it was, (being quite the tomboy I was barefoot of course) and found myself standing on what my dad identified later as a baby copperhead. Luckily I was light enough to where the little guy could slither along easily under my feet through the grass, and I did not get bitten, he didn't even deviate from his course. That vision is etched in my mind clear as a bell to this very day, and it still fascinates me.
Another is at that same time during the 7 years we lived in NC, my dad 'took care of' many rattlers, copperheads and cottonmouths by way of the garden shovel. But, there was this one HUGE black and yellow kingsake who roamed our property, and I remember my father telling me never to harm that one as he was a 'good' snake, and we called him 'King George'. I loved him, I watched him year after year, must have spent hours tracking him around the woods and fields and around the house. I'm pretty sure thats where my love of kingsnakes came from. Now I know he was an eastern king, and I am happy to say after years of keeping/breeding cal kings (and others) I am about to receive my first pair of eastern kings from WillStill sometime soon
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"Klaatu...Verata...Nicht--cough, cough, cough!"

I don't know what it is about them. From the first moment I flipped a board and saw an eastern gartersnake neatly coiled beneath in the fall of 1978, I've been hooked. Something happened to me on that day, other than experiencing my first bloody snakebite, and I've never looked back. I have to be around snakes, I need to be able to look at them on a daily basis, and doing so just simply feeds my soul. That is the only way I can explain it. Later.

Will