I'm Feeling Lucky
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Posted on 08/02/2007 8:26:56 AM PDT by george76
Burmese pythons are particularly popular for about $40 wholesale or just under $100 in a pet store, at about the size of a ruler. You feed a little one mice, and then rats, and then as it continues to grow in size and appetite, you offer up chickens and rabbits, the experts say.
You watch your snakeling graduate in about three years to a length of 10 or 12 feet, or longer. Ultimately it can reach 20 feet, and the heavyweights tip the scales at about 300 pounds, and live to about 25 years. Their defacatory production is renowned.
And while you're raising your young python, plan on accommodating its living needs, which make a teenager's look mild. At first, you can put it in a cage. Then you can put it in a very big cage. And finally, you'd just better give it an entire room, or the guest wing of your home. And if you get tired of feeding it four or five big rabbits at a time, go ahead and provide a small pig (or maybe an unruly child or, well, you get the picture).
Burmese pythons are breeding like rabbits.
Some wildlife biologists estimate their numbers in the park now at about 5,000, most of them wild-born offspring of animals from the pet trade either purposely released or escaped from owners after major storms...
"We had laws to control lions, tigers and poisonous snakes, the class one animals, but we didn't have a category to take care of invasive species - pythons, monitor lizards and iguanas, invasive rats down in the keys - things that are and can be super destructive to Florida's environment," ...
Just how destructive is anybody's guess.
"The devastating effect of the python is probably on the bird populations, young nesting birds,"
(Excerpt) Read more at florida-weekly.com ...
I change his water and feed him mice about every 10 days and he's happy.
He's never tried to bite me or anyone who I've let handle him.
I treat him well, and feed him regularly. He seems equally happy if I take him out and let him crawl around the room on a regular basis, or if I just take him out to feed him.
I do feed him in a separate, smaller aquarium because that was suggested as a good way to keep him from thinking that things being put in his home might be food, and I don't feed him live mice.
I would never want to own a large snake, but ass long as you have room for them and treat them well, the main difference is the cost of the food.
I have heard of some snakes being very temperamental. That has not been my experience, but I would guess that you would have to deal with a large temperamental snake in much the same way you deal with a large temperamental dog.
Snakes are generally low-maintenance, solitary pets. I'm allergic to both cats and dogs, and I really wouldn't want the hassle of having to let the dog out all the time.
I’ll certainly kill poisonous ones if I run across them in my yard (because my dogs wouldn’t know to leave them alone) but what’s the point of killing non-poisonous snakes? They eat alot of things I don’t want around.
susie
No..if I knew you owned him and you had told me that you didn’t want him fixed then of course I wouldn’t. If he was in my yard and with no identification—then I’d trap him and get him fixed with a rabies shot. It’s really only cats though, that I trap and get fixed. Haven’t run into any dogs yet.
My neighbor killed about 3 coral snakes in the last couple years.
Most of the snakes out here (S. FL) I see are harmless. Had many more poisonous ones in E. TX (mostly cotton mouth and copperhead).
Had the dogs bitten 3 different times.
susie
Carolyn
I don’t agree, but whatever.
Last summer I went into an art supply store in Santa Fe NM. I opened to door to the ladies restroom and thought what I saw was something like a big bean bag chair. As my brain made sense of what I was looking at, it materialized into a huge coiled snake. It was the owners pet and the snake’s room was being cleaned so they just put it in the ladies restroom. After slamming the door I saw a small note said “out of order”. I should pay closer attention to small signs posted on doors.
I am in east Texas.
The last coral snake I killed was in a public park on the hiking trail, shhhhhhhh don’t tell on me.
IS it against the law to kill a snake in a park? I would of too...
My pet corn snake has never bitten anyone. He is equally good with children and adults (he goes and hides from both). If there are people he isn't used to in the house, he hides in his aquarium. If I bring him out, he will crawl over people arms, but doesn't strike at people or get aggressive.
I just tell people not to move quickly so as not to scare him. I'm mainly afraid that someone might hurt him, or scare him enough that he jumps and tries to hide some place I can't easily retrieve him from.
He's not very bright. He explores his aquarium and falls out of the same branches in it over and over again, even in the same night.
However you are much more likely to get hurt by the playful actions of a cat, or by a large dog jumping on you out of friendliness than from most snakes.
However, if you can actually point me towards on of these alleged studies linking snake owning to antisocial behavior characteristics, it might make for amusing reading, so please pass on info about these studies.
Thank you for being a responsible snake owner. Sadly, too many snake owners go for the exotic and the dangerous. Not many of these types are being concientious (sp) or responsible. This is how the problem of pythons in the Everglades has occured (sp).
The study that I read involved pit-bulls and their owners. The owners have a disproportionate lean towards crime and anti-social behaviours. It seems that owning a pit-bull is a symbol of their overly macho-thuggishness. These same types of folks like to own dangerous snakes, venomous or large constrictor types. They identify with danger and the threat of danger. As I said before this is my observation in conjunction with studies done on the pit-bull-criminal owner. Glad to know that you have nice little snake that doesn’t hurt people and won’t become societies problem someday.
Clean the snake's cage after hours.
If the owner wasn't watching the snake, they weren't watching their store either.
Unfortunately, there are simply a lot of stupid people in this world.
I don't think I've seen this as the WFTD....
:-)
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