Taiwan Beauty Progress at 14 Months

Beautiful beauty! :love: Man, I can't wait to raise one up from babydom down the road. :)

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Originally Posted by Holbeird

Pretty snake, I personally am not into rat snakes as much, I like my snake's with a bit more girth, but he's quite an eye catch, and awesome color on him.

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While he will never have the girth of say a boa give him another year, he will get just a bit bigger around then a coke can. At 9-11 feet that is plenty of girth. :) Right now if I let him crawl on the floor he can raise up about 2.5 feet! By the time he hits 9 he will be able to reach up to my chin from the ground. With that ability I would prefer he not get any bigger LOL, :rolleye2:

This snake is about 22 months of age in this photo and is now a bit fatter then when this was taken,

http://www.jackspirko.com/images/sna...iwanbeauty.jpg

GORGEOUS! I saw one that needed rescue and you have convinced me this might be an interesting lead!

I had absolutely no idea that they got this big, so this is a Taiwan Beauty Rat Snake? It is stunning. i would say that the snake in the very last picture has quite a bit of girth. Are they hard to come by, I have never seen one around here?

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Originally Posted by jjspirko

I just love working with kids and breaking down barriers and fears. I thought I wanted to breed a lot at one time but I am learning the education and opening up hearts and minds to possibilities is my true calling. I have found children especially learn a lot about life in general from snakes and reptiles.

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That is awesome. What sorts of things are you doing with kids? Tell me more. I would love to hear about it.

So far, our BP has visited a local library for an after school program and my son's nursery school. We would like to continue doing this, hopefully, expanding our reperatoire (with our KSB and others to come). We did general snake education (facts, pictures, answered questions), extreme snake facts (longest, heaviest, fastest, most venemous, smallest, etc.), then let each child pet our BP while I held him.

Our goal is two-fold, 1) help children to grow up appreciating snakes and not fearing them, and 2) to provide greater sanctuary for the snakes of the world by educating the adults of the future (fewer folks with the 'ole "the only good snake is a dead snake" addage).

Melissa,

So, so sorry to take so long to respond.

Here is my usual show for kids.

I introduce myself and mention the snakes I will bring out. Then I ask who wants to come touch them about 40% are coming out of their chairs to come touch them, 10% are unsure and 50% want absolutely 0 to do with them.

I then ask the kids to tell me what is bad about snakes and out it comes.......

• They are all poisonous (I don't bother with the venomous vs poison thing because I know what they mean)

• They all bite

• They all get huge

• They are all slimy

• They are all mean

And it goes on and on

Then I bring out some snakes and start to teach, I bring up the kids that are not afraid to hold and touch the snakes. We go over not slimy, don't bite, some don't get big and on and on and on.

Then the magic happens about 40%-60% of those that wanted nothing to do with a snake come up and touch them, hold them etc.

Then I close with hey look kids if we can absolutely believe all this stuff about snakes and be wrong who and what else can we be totally wrong about. Don't you see how we can be just as wrong about people. Color does not matter, religion does not matter, etc.

It is of course not just people kids it is everything in life, don't let prejudice and fear stop you in any part of life. Understand that which you are afraid of just might be special, it might be beautiful, embrace life and embrace each other.

It is amazing what a snake can teach a child,

Jack,
You rock. Thanks for getting back to me. Who cares about timing. Can I steal your show from you and use it, too?

We took the Ball Python into my son's nursery in November and are scheduled to take the Kenyan Sand Boa in March. I plan to read a kids picture book called "I Need a Snake."

Sure you can steal it if you want to call it stealing :).

I just want to impact kids lives, it is an amazing thing. I am who I am because of my herp mentor from my childhood (His name was David). He had me handling rattlers at 11 and understanding the balance of danger and common sense needed to do it. At 13 we moved and at 15 we got a call that he died in a car wreck. I cried inside because I did not know how to on the outside.

The impact that man made on my life (now 35) is why I am building my 3rd company now and could have retired twice if I wanted to. Such a gift is meant to be passed on, so if you passed it on too, well that would just be special, not stealing. In short I would be honored to know someone was saying the same things,

OH and yea one important thing is write down on the board all the bad things when the kids give them to you. As you kill the things in your talk draw a line through them as you go. Small detail but I think it has a huge impact.

Jack, you truly are an awesome and stand up guy. That's so cool that you do shows like that.