Snakes in the news ... somewhat bad press

[led4urhead]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5624844/ ... An article about Alice Cooper's albino python ( probably burm ). There are some things in that article that stick out to me ...

"Just hours before its owner, rocker Alice Cooper, was to take the stage at a theater in Wallingford last weekend, the 8-foot-long snake ate a live rat ... "
Ok ... so he was going to take the stage with a snake that had just eaten a LIVE rat none the less. Its important to let the snake digest before any handling at all.

"... and then swallowed a 12-by-14 inch heating pad, wires and all, that had been left in its cage by mistake."
Huh? The heating pad was inside the cage? Wires and all ... was it plugged in? This is a good example of the dangers of ... 1) Why you should be careful feeding on substrate that could potentially be ingested, and 2) The heating pad is supposed to go on the outside of the tank .

I'm glad there was a good reptile vet/surgeon available to remove the heating pad. I would only guess that ingesting something like that would probably be fatal to the snake.

[Marla]

Good grief! At least he can afford a vet at any time for any procedure. Anybody should know better than to put the pad inside, but I guess it could have been an error by a flunky who'd been cleaning the cage.

[UberAlice]

Not to mention that he's bringing this snake ONSTAGE, where no doubt the lights, sound and possible smoke could really harm him.
(This is probably riding on the too-much-information line, BUT....) I used to work as an exotic dancer, and often other girls asked me why I didn't bring in the snakes if I liked them so much. TV working as an influence again, they'd seen people like Alice Cooper bring animals onstage and figured hey, why not do it at the club? But I simply cannot imagine bringing my animals into such an environment, and most of all not onstage. It's dangerous and amazingly stressful (plus I'd probably get fired if one of the babies wanted to "snuggle" a customer. )
But yeah, it irks me so to see people bringing their herps onstage, even a documented animal lover like Cooper.

[Royal-y__Great]

also, doesnt it say that the vet guy let him borrow a yellow conda for the show?

well, first off, the snake doesnt know you and you dont know the snake

and it wouldnt be used to all the comotion at a show, so it could possibly do something if its scared

[led4urhead]

Yellow annies can be really nippy from what i hear. Would make for an interesting show.