Pet Snakes

[Dec]

Hey peeps!

I thought seeing as me and my wife both like snakes we should get a "non-venomous"(cheezee..), easy to handle snake.

A bit of research has brought me to a corn snake.

Right..what is it going to cost to buy and import one here (no I can't buy them here unfortunately) and food costs?

Cheers Dec

[pat42]

Try this place:


http://www.trv.net/trv98/actionsports/snake.htm

[Dec]

I just got a tip-off from a mate that they do actually sell snakes there.

I still can't see myself coming to grips with a cobra...maybe a corn snake for now!

Cheers

[pat42]

Get a cobra...........and file his teeth down!!

That way, you get a cool looking snake and very little chance of being poisoned.

[drowningbitbybit]

very little chance of being poisoned.

...except for while you're trying to file the teeth down

[pat42]

Thats why you must hit it on the head to knock it out first........


Everyone knows that

[WooD]

Hey peeps!

I thought seeing as me and my wife both like snakes we should get a "non-venomous"(cheezee..), easy to handle snake.

A bit of research has brought me to a corn snake.

Right..what is it going to cost to buy and import one here (no I can't buy them here unfortunately) and food costs?

Cheers Dec

Shame you don't live around here. We have great multitudes of snakes. I don't like snakes, but the only ones I'll kill are the water moccasins. I try to avoid the rattlers as best I can.

I had a neighbor that works with venomous snakes. One day he brought over his newest snake. It was only about 14" long. He opened up the case, and was waving his hand around it, about that time it hissed, and its head swelled up. It was a damn baby king cobra. He's been bitten a lot of times, but said the worst was when he was doing a shoot for National Geographic, and his black mamba bite him.

[GowerCharger]

i got a boa constrictor, had her for years, great pets.

Corn snakes are good, chilled temprament, not too big and easy to look after.
Is there any reptile shops or anythign near you? a corn snake will need to eat whole mammals, baby mice at first (pinkies) then gradually move up to full mice or small rats when its grown up. Mice are about £1 here frozen, you thaw them out and give them whole to the snake, there are some companies who ship them and you can keep them in the freezer for ages, but i prefer to by mine locally. If you cant get them there is always the option of raising the mice yourself but thats a lot of hassle.
Baby corn snakes go for about £30 here i think, but id be loath to buy one and get it imported cos you wouldnt be able to check the snake out first.
If you can get the food and stuff sorted id say go for it, snakes are great, the most lazy laid back creatures ive ever come across.

if you have any questions or want advice feel free to ask.

[.Jen.]

Weve had loads of snakes... Had two Boa Constrictors which were both around 8 feet when we got them, had a black king snake (evil fleshin'!!), 3 amenalistic corn snakes, 2 normal corn snakes and an orange ghost ball python.

Most of them came to us from the JSPCA (my Dad is one of the emergency reptile carers) as rescue 'pets' - people bought them and then got rid of them when they got too big. Most of them were rehoused, but we kept one of the boas, the black king snake (my brother loved it), one of the amenalistic corns and the ball python.

Got some great photos of me feeding a rat to the Boa a few years ago, will have to see if I can find it - it grosses everyone out

So anyway, snakes are GREAT pets and we never had any hassle with ours (with the exception of the black king said, like I said, it was an evil fleshin' and constantly escaped - even with bricks on its tank, it used to headbut the roof until it came off). Feeding time was great fun too

[Dec]

i got a boa constrictor, had her for years, great pets.

Corn snakes are good, chilled temprament, not too big and easy to look after.
Is there any reptile shops or anythign near you? a corn snake will need to eat whole mammals, baby mice at first (pinkies) then gradually move up to full mice or small rats when its grown up. Mice are about £1 here frozen, you thaw them out and give them whole to the snake, there are some companies who ship them and you can keep them in the freezer for ages, but i prefer to by mine locally. If you cant get them there is always the option of raising the mice yourself but thats a lot of hassle.
Baby corn snakes go for about £30 here i think, but id be loath to buy one and get it imported cos you wouldnt be able to check the snake out first.
If you can get the food and stuff sorted id say go for it, snakes are great, the most lazy laid back creatures ive ever come across.

if you have any questions or want advice feel free to ask.

There is only one place that I have tried contacting and they didn't answer so I am going to bike down there today or next weekend and have a look.

Also, yea more than likely I wont be able to buy any mice here. Is there anyplace you know that would send them?

PS. Ever know anyone Gower that'll send a corn over here tell me!


Cheers

[drowningbitbybit]

I used to go out with a girl who had an Indian Python.

It is generally agreed that the blink of an eyelid is the fastest human reflex.

I can, however, confirm that the human arm can move much quicker than I can blink when a snake moves with a hungry eye towards a pair of naked, dangling testicles

[Dec]

I can, however, confirm that the human arm can move much quicker than I can blink when a snake moves with a hungry eye towards a pair of naked, dangling testicles

LMFAO"! I think mine is going to stay in the enclosure...and I probably won't be walking around it naked after sex!

[GowerCharger]

I can, however, confirm that the human arm can move much quicker than I can blink when a snake moves with a hungry eye towards a pair of naked, dangling testicles

wtf are yoiu doing dangling your jacobs into a snakes vivarium anyway? actually, im not sure i want to know the answer to that

[GowerCharger]

Also, yea more than likely I wont be able to buy any mice here. Is there anyplace you know that would send them?

theres afew of the online places like livefoods.co.uk which send out frozen rodents by mail but im pretty sure they dont deliver internationally, not sure it would be possible without them thawing etc.

It is possible to feed live if you cant get frozen, but bear in mind a live rodent can do a lot of damge to a snake in an enclosed vivarium, if the snake isnt hungry right away it wont attack and the rodent can panic and attack the snake causing fatal damage (snakes are ambush predators, in the wild the rodent wouldnt be aware of the snakes precense until it was too late, this isnt the case in captivity), so you need to stun the prey by wacking it against a tabletop or something first, not the most pleasant thing to have to do every time you feed the snake.

really i recommend getting all this stuff completely susssed before you go ahead and buy a snake (your obviously doing research already which is good), maybe theres some reptile keepers clubs in your country on the net you can get in touch with for advice?

[Dec]

I have heard of a market that sell all animals and I might go and give that a try. About the snake itself..seeing as I live in 85-90F (25-30C) heat...will it still be nesesary to have a basking area with a heated lamp?


Also, there is a snake farm like Pat posted, so they must feed the cobras and other 200 snakes something!

[GowerCharger]

you wont need a heated lamp, i just use a normal bulb on a timer, a regular incandescent bulb gives out quite a bit of heat anyway which should give you a decent temp range from the end with the lamp to the other end, and you can add a heat mat with thermostat if its needed.

[dougirwin13]

Are said snakes on a plane?



-doug

[Dec]

That was a very funny movie!!

And gower'. Still necesasry even though i am in phuket and stuff? Also, if it is a regular bulb won't the snake like touch it and burn.or should I cover it up?

Thanks for the help

[drowningbitbybit]

wtf are yoiu doing dangling your jacobs into a snakes vivarium anyway?

Everyone needs a hobby

[GowerCharger]

And gower'. Still necesasry even though i am in phuket and stuff? Also, if it is a regular bulb won't the snake like touch it and burn.or should I cover it up?

maybe not, i dunno how cold it gets at its coldest, but a small mat costs very little and with a thermostat it will be off most of the time if its hot so wont cost anythign to run, i dunno what corn snakes temp range is. The main thing is to get a nice contrast in temp from one end of the tank to the other so theresomewhere the snake can go to cool off, and somewhere to go if it wants to warm up, but putting the bulb at one end should give you that.

You can cover the bulb, i never have and my snake has never got burnt even tho she is extreemly stupid at times. Ive seen her going to sniff the bulb and then backing off when she realises how hot it is, biggest problem is at night when the lights off she often tries to climb on it and breaks the fitting but she s a lot heavier than a corn snake so u should be ok.