Raising a kid with snakes.

I hadn't seen the video at the time at all. They mentioned it, not me. I looked it up after two different people mentioned it to me. I don't even know if it was a wildebeest or an antelope or what. I think it was probably cgi'd or something anyway. Seemed completely unbelievable to me.

Oh yeah if this is your first pregnancy then you'll probably receive a lot of unsolicited - and often bad - advice. A smile and "thank you, I'll keep that in mind" deflects most of it.

Most people who know me realize I'm not going to listen to them, but also realize I know enough to be able to keep my child safe. When people do find out i Have pythons and boas (ball ptyhons, rosy boas), and the "danger" issue comes up, I tell them simply and bluntlly (that's just my style): "The rosy boas will only get 2-3 feet in length. The ball pythons most likely won't exceed 4-5 feet in length and only about this big around (showing them with my hands). The biggest animal that has to worry about my snakes is a rat. If these snakes come in contact with my child, she'll probably hurt them worse than they could ever hurt her. That's assuming she even finds them should they get out, which they won't because they are in locking bins. If they were to some how escape, they would find the darkest, quietest place they could and just hang out. If they are found, they'd curl up in a ball to protect themselves. They are very shy, docile snakes."
Most people leave it at that and move on to another subject. If they bring up the topic of larger snakes, I again respond simply and bluntly, "Sure there are larger snakes out there, but those aren't the kind of snakes I have." The topic drops shortly after that.

The people I keep company with are generally very reasonable. My family can get a little hysterical at times, but they've figured out they can't "get through" to me and just leave it. I've explained to my family before what kind of snakes these are and how they are only dangerous to rodents. They accept it. I think they've seen enough of the menagerie I keep to realize I'm capable of keeping multiple critters safely in the same house without incident, so my child is surely safe too.

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Originally Posted by Neal

I'm sure people have run into this, and if I recall correctly somebody recently had something similar to

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It was me, and I run into stuff like this all the time.

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Originally Posted by pkore1015

I am pregnant and my best friend has told me that I am "reckless and irresponsible" for raising a baby while owning ball pythons.
Do you run into this problem often and how do you handle it?

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I have two boys a 3 and 6 year old both have been around snakes/reptiles since the first day they came home from the hospital. I run into people like this all the time I live in a small town in the country where everyone knows your business and big news like the last big snake kill travels fast and is the talk of the town for weeks.

My grandparents give me a lecture all the time, about how my snakes are killers and if they ever get around one of my boys necks and kill them they're going to kill me. This lil debate started when my grandmother seen a picture of my big female ivory. I told her the snake that killed those boys was 4xs bigger and stronger, and was kept by a brain dead owner.

I also have to deal with my kid, and his friends that come over. Its the fear of parents not letting there kids come over and play with my kid.

I just walk away from them, some people are so scared of snakes that they don't want to trust them ect. So they never want to be educated on them or there behavior. My kids are also both active in handling and taking care of the rats and snakes. As long as you are a responsible owner and have OCD about shutting tubs like I do and properly care for your animal there is nothing wrong.

I don't tolerate people who try and tell other people about there life choices. I don't tell other people how to run there's so leave my life alone. Sounds like your friend is uneducated, educate her or if she still doesn't understand just ignore her.

I know this is alot to read, I also understand how you feel about this... its very stressful. Hope some of this helps you.

Thanks for everyone's response.
I especially like the link for the coconuts. Even coconuts are more dangerous than snakes.
I showed her statistics for snake vs. dog deaths per year. She didn't have anything to say.

I think most reptile keepers have gone through all kinds of questions about reptiles. The whole Canada story has been a big impact on the people close to me, thinking that pythons are man eaters and whatnot. I try to educate people the best I can, but some are not so open-minded about reptiles, which is too bad.

I love the link to the coconut-thingy. I don't know if statistic will change their negative opinions about reptiles, but I will definitively show people this. :D

I was 5 when I got my first ball python. I was apparently all about them from an even younger age than that, and couldn't be stopped from getting one myself. We all know roughly how fast snakes grow - so little 8 year old me was running around with a roughly 1800 gram ball python, which I kept as I got older.

I was fine. My little brother (who was 2 when I got my snake) was fine. All the customers I've helped have been fine, including the pregnant ones and the ones with small children and the ones with terrified parents who eventually came around.

I feel, and have always felt, that the best response is to be calm, and ask them why they think it's such a bad idea. If it's size, explain the size, if it's biting, point out that there's no reason the baby would even be near the snake until it could walk (or even older than that) anyway. Simple, logical counter arguments and/or explanations work best.

The snakes don't get that big. They're in cages that lock. You're (presumably) a reasonable, intelligent human being who isn't going to drape cranky, hungry snakes around their baby. You're going to wash your hands after handling them and before you touch your child. The snakes go into contained, lockable spaces that the kids can't get to - as others have pointed out, they're a safer pet in that regard than a dog wandering around with a child that could potentially provoke it.

Good luck with the naysayers, and have a nice, easy pregnancy and a healthy birth :) Don't let the negative people get ya down!

-Jen

This is something that came up for me recently, I; however, don't keep bps or boas. I specialize in retics and monitors. Naturally my girlfriend was worried about them as was her family. Originally they where all extremely against the idea, now we are 23ish weeks pregnant (depends if they move the due date again LOL), and it's not a concern that is even mentioned.. I think my girlfriend/her family seeing me interact with these animals, seeing how absolutely docile they actually are put them at ease. I think education helped a great deal, especially after the Canada event where I sat down and explained to them why the entire story was nonsense and how impossible it is, and how silly it is to be so worried about that instead of carbon monoxide, car crashes, a dog, things like this...

I do think that it's extremely important to make sure everything is kept well away from the child.. All of my animals are in locked cages, behind locked doors. Each door has a standard lock as well as a deadbolt in case he figures out how to pick locks with a credit card (I sure knew how!). Those sort of steps are very important for responsible keepers, especially when dealing with anything that gets even a little bit on the large end.