My roommate found a Texas rat snake on the road under the you are now entering Eden Texas back in 1986. He figures the snake was about a year or so old then. Now this snake is not the brightest bulb in the package. In fact he is a strange snake. He refuses to eat rats. He misses the strikes about 85% of the time and sometimes I wonder if he can see and how he managed to survive as long as he did in the wild. We actually have to hold the mouse by the tail inside the cage while he thrashes around and tries to get it. I don't think I have EVER seen him hit the mouse on the fist try. It usually takes him between 5-10 strikes before he will come in contact with the mouse.
Last week he scared me. I was feeding him his mice and he was on his second one. I looked in the cage to make sure he had actually eaten it and he was on his back. Fully on his back acting like he was trying to get up but couldn't. I picked him up and turned him right side up and went to tell my roommate. To my surprise I was told this is not the first time he has been unable to right himself. I guess he has been doing this, every once in a while, for at least 10 years or more. When he first did it my roommate figured he was about to die, but he didn't. He is still alive and is now about 26 ish years old.
He has never been bred and never will. He is very beautiful. Oh and my room mate named him Lucifer :)