Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have kept non venomous snakes for ten plus years, always wanted to keep a cobra from the beginning. Now that I'm older I realized that I should not try keeping a cobra as my first venomous species,and was wondering if anyone could help me out with which do you feel would be the best venomous species to "start" out with? attitude,size and deadly issues all considered.
I really don't want to lose my life just to say "I owned a cobra" if you see where I'm coming from!

I recommend CB copperheads as the best starter. They are moderate in size, temperment and toxicity. They hook like champs. They were the first hot that I kept and they are really a fantastic and under rated pit viper.

There is no real "best starter" snake. I looked for this for some time myself when I was first getting ready to buy a hot snake.

What was explained to me, firstly is, if you are worried that you can not care for all hot snakes safely without being bit, then you should stick with non-venomous.

While this is somewhat true, I also believe that with anything else in life, being new makes you nervous and opens you up to errors. With this in mind, you will want to research your snakes and find something to start with that will not kill you on its first bite. Obviously, you will not want to get a learning strike from an eastern Diamondback, or a Gaboon Viper.

A few hot snakes to look at, just to learn how to handle them, would be: A pygmy rattlesnake, a Mangrove snake (rear fanged), or a copperhead.

However, there is something else to consider. While you say you have raised snakes for 10 years, take a look at what you have raised. If all your snakes have been: Ball Pythons, Bermease Pythons, or Redtailed boas. Then my suggestion would be to stay away from venomous just yet. Make sure you have some experiance time put in with an aggressive non-vemomous, before making the change. Some non-venomous that I suggest to work with first to get you ready: any natter snake (VERY bite happy)perhaps the fish natter since it acts exactly like a cobra, spotted rainbow watersnake, Emerald tree boa, among many others. Do not try to tame this aggressive snake you are practicing with, but instead treat it as if it were a hot snake. Get used to handling it with snake hooks instead of hands like many people do with their non-hots.

Take as many precautions as you can to learn how to handle what you are getting into, our hobby does not need any more bad publicity, trust me, it gets enough.

Good luck to you