What turned you on?

Personally I grew up in the woods of Blaine, TN with my grandma and mom. I would forever be catching and keeping black snakes, green snakes, anything i was told "This won't kill you." if i knew it was safe I would pounce it and bring it home. only one died, it was hurt :(

grade school started it for me. every year there would be this visitor who would come to my school and bring a bunch of herps with him, mostly snakes, but he also had frogs, lizards, spiders.. etc. He would ask for volunteers to hold a snake or two and I pretty much was the only girl to volunteer. Then when I met my hubby, he was into herps and he got an iguana, a chameleon, some Madagascar ground geckos and eventually I got a corn snake. Just natural progression toward it, but now Im thoroughly hooked and loving every second of it.

I was 7 years old, growing up in Cleveland Ohio, always catching lizards and snakes outside and letting them go. I came home one day and told my mom that I either wanted an Aligator or a ball python, we went to the store and came home with a ball :)

I have always wanted a snake. Loved them but was never allowed to have them. So when I moved out I got Orpheus my first normal..And it was all down hill from there.

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Originally Posted by neilgolli

I was 7 years old, growing up in Cleveland Ohio, always catching lizards and snakes outside and letting them go. I came home one day and told my mom that I either wanted an Aligator or a ball python, we went to the store and came home with a ball :)

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My mom was not into reptiles , so it surprised me for my sixteenth birthday when she gave me money to buy a caiman. She was more surprised when I came home with one over 3 ft. long. The housing was a pain in the butt though. If I had known how difficult it was I would have opted for a different pet. There was no internet to turn to for husbandry help back then. I also realize now that there was potential for serious injury. I was lucky and got off with only a lacerated hand. I'm sure your mom was picking the lesser of the evils.:)

sad to say i got interested when i got bit by an arizona black rattlesnake when i was 7 years old. luckly only a little venom was actually injected. after it happened my dad and a few friends went looking for the snake to kill it, but i felt bad for it and made them stop. but i was then on very very afraid of snakes, so much i wouldn't go outside and play anymore. so my dads friend brought over his sons black kingsnake.... and from then on i have been in love. but because my mom wasn't to forgiving she still hated them, so i couldn't get my first till i went away to college. then came the challange of getting the girlfriend to let me have one. but she warmed up the first time she held one. so that pretty much my story...

It's pretty interesting to read how so many people who were afraid of reptiles/snakes now own them ^^. My Dad made sure to imprint the love of reptiles into my brain since I was old enough to go to the Zoo. I remember when I was a little kid sitting at the dinner table, my dad and I would try to talk our mom into letting us have a snake, in particular some kind of boa (don't remember what kind now). She never would let him or me have a snake. So, after my parents got divorced, I still had the reptile itch. I ended up getting a normal leo, then I got a Blizzard leo. My next upgrade (probably a bigger step than what it ever should have been) was a panther chameleon for my birthday, which my step dad and I spilt ownership of. The last lizard I've gotten was a Bearded Dragon (HS grad present for myself). I'm really interested in getting some kind of dwarf monitor or two in the future. Now that I'm in college and half-way out on my own, my dad got me a BP cage set-up for christmas, and after I had everything moved back into the dorms after the break, I went with my dad to pick out my little girly. Then two weeks ago I picked up my little boy. It's so funny because my Dad still really wants a snake, but his new wife isn't so keen on the idea either. So when my girl gets up to breeding size, I'm planning on giving him one of the babies that I hatch out.

I have always had an interest in differant animals but not so much the furry one's. I started with fish and after a few years of them periodicaly dieing i decided that was enough for me with the fish. I wanted something that would live longer then a few years. So like many of you I got an iguana, unlike many of you i had it for 11 years she was about 5 when i rescued her from some terribble owners got her for only $20 with a huge cage.Im pretty sure they wanted some weed or something. About 2 years ago now she died from liver failure. 6 months later I decieded that i needed something new and I had all these old aquariums sitting around so i went to Tropic waters a pet store in my home town after doing much research and finding that they were the only place in town with captive bred ball pythons. Fell in love with snakes in no time. Now I rescue them off of craigslist i have 5 Bp's now i got most for free and all are good eaters and very friendly snakes I cant imagine why they would let them go. Well one i got from a mom who said her son was gonna let it go outside because he didnt want to care for it anymore. Anyway thats my story

I got hooked when I was two when I caught a garter in my backyard. Well for about two years my mom didn't like the idea of snakes so I kept catching them keeping them for a couple days then reasing them. At four my dad took me to get a snake of my own thats when I saw a little california kingsnake in a small petrie dish I knew I had to have it even though it was the runt of the clutch. I had him for two years then my brother got a king that I still dont know the subspecies and we stopped there for about 3 years when the unkown king died then I got a turtle we were living in arizona so we would keep lizards from time to time. I then moved to colorado at 11 and thought I need an iguana so I got a small one at a store that died two years later then i got a bp which was a small baby that ws mite infested so it died then I got an adult female for free and that got me hooked on bps and three years later (im 14) I have 41 different reptiles. 23 of which are ball pythons. So thats my story I know herp in different areas of western U.S and Mexico and breed differnet reptiles but my main focus is Ball Pythons and bearded dragons. Oh and I still have that california king.

I'm very late to the game.
I always thought snakes were interesting creatures, but I never thought I would ever own one.
Honestly what turned me onto snakes was/is working at petco. Being around when they fed the snakes or cleaned their cages I get to watch and hold them. I just fell in love.