What made you interested in snakes?

Sometimes I wonder how people get interested in what they want like what made you want a snake and actually go for it?

Did you see one at a petstore, learn about it on Animal Planet or at school?

When I got interested in snakes I was probably in seventh grade and it was because I seen it on some movie from Dusk Til Dawn. Some girl came out dancing with it on her body. http://wpcontent.answers.com/wikiped...lDawnDance.jpg

I was like OOOOO and no Im not lesbian lolz Im talking about the snake :P .

I'd go to the zoo and look at all the snakes amazed :O .

Than there was a time I went swimming at a lake and caught a water snake, it bit me but I insisted on trying to keep it. :D .

And when I lived on the reservation a bull snake got into the rabbit cage and ate a bunch of her babies. Here I go again, hard headed wrestling a huge snake out of a rabbit cage and trying to keep it but some guy wanted to eat it so I let it go.

I have ate snake before. I kind of regret it now. It tasted like spicy chicken :( .

My mother said I was a weird little girl, I look back and I agree :rofl: .

She's terrified of scorpions and I would sit there picking them up outside speakin apache in my pamper :rofl: .

Some can call me a weirdo, I even wanted to get Thug Life tatted on my stomache like Tupac before so I guess I am different :rolleye2: , all into different things because I dislike being the same as everyone else.

Anyways my mom let me probably get every animal,reptile,etc I wanted except a monkey of course but other than a monkey she told me forget having a snake.

Finally I got a job and bought my own and in no time my mom started loving them. Its funny how she bonds with the one I have now and it likes her nose for some reason haha but I also got my sister Stephanie (who recently passed away) into liking snakes. She had a ball python and a corn snake.

I do love all animals,reptiles and stuff but thats how I got interested into snakes.

I know I personally always been interested in snakes, but I was afraid of them. I watch them on discovery and animal planet but never owned one, just geckos and turtles. I had a few friends that try to talk me into them, but I was still afraid. What did it for me was I was looking at them on youtube.com and seen all these little kids holding the Ball Pythons (mainly little girls). I felt like a complete PUNK! So I went the the MARS show and Baltimore and got 2 of them. Now Im at 7 lol. So I can see honestly say the little kids having ball pythons and me as a grown man scared of them made me face my fears. Now I love the snakes and so do my kids and my wife

I've always been fascinated by snakes, for as long as I can remember. By the end of the first year (3rd grade) at my new school when I moved out here to AZ, I had read every book in our school's library that was about snakes. I love to watch specials on Animal Planet and the Discovery Channel about snakes and other reptiles. I cried when my mom told me I couldn't get a snake for Christmas this year. I'm insanely jealous of my friends that have ball pythons. I can't wait until I'm older, when I'll have multiple rooms dedicated to simply reptiles. I have no idea what it is that fascinates me so much, but they are so loveable. I still remember when I caught (and got bit by) a garter snake my dad found in my backyard up in Utah. My dad threw it across the street into a neighbor's yard and it hit a stopsign :'( I plan on working with snakes my entire life, and a worker at my local zoo has offered to allow me to help out with their snakes sometime (Can you imagine it? Feeding anacondas before you are halfway done with highschool! :P Lucky me, eh?) Oh, how I love snakes :)

My dad likes critters and when I was a kid, we'd vacation often at this place up in northern Michigan near Boyne Highlands that was jointly owned by my parents and several other people. There was a golf course that ran less than a few hundred yards from the back of the house, and some of the natural water features were swamps and bogs. Plenty of golfers would knock nice, expensive balls into the swamps and not be willing to wade in after them. My dad would put on his swampers and wade in to track down the golf balls for his own use, and when I was like...six, he started letting me come with him. I'd follow, with two buckets...one for found golf balls, and one for CRITTERS.

He'd catch me frogs, turtles, sometimes salamanders in the drier areas of the woods, and of course snakes were the best. Little garter snakes, cute little things. I loved them. The rule was I could keep 'em but only for a little while, then I'd have to let them go again. My dad even showed me a hog-snake once, showed me how it'll play dead if you don't let it be. XD

I grew up loving reptiles and amphibians. For some reason my kid brother never did.

I had a few anoles and things as pets when I was still young, and some wee snakey things, but got away from herps in general...

...until many years later when I was in college. I needed a pet that was silent, easy to care for, didn't need much in the way of space, and wouldn't die if I didn't pay attention to it for a day or three at a time (exams suck) and what could be better than a snake?! I did some research, and decided that the Ball Python was the right animal for me.

No sooner did people find out I was in the market for a Ball that one basically got handed to me. e.e He was a skinny, dehydrated wild-caught thing with ticks under his scales and an infestation of mites from the crappy dealer. His face was all banged up, too...shipping accident. I fed him up, cleared up the mite issue (god that sucked, too) and got rid of his ticks...dealt with his wounds (loooots of vet bills) and named him Precious, since at the time I was reading Lord of the Rings and it just seemed appropriate. :)

I had 'im for a few years, then sadly had to sell him due to moving...I was moving out of the country and could not take him with me.

I kindof forgot my love of snakes...I spent so many years without even really thinking about them, and moved back to Michigan.

I did somewhat enjoy snakes vicariously through my boyfriend, though. He has a few Corn Snakes, and I loved seeing pictures of them and hearing him talk about them. :)

One day someone at work (I work in a pet store) peered around the corner and asked if I was afraid of snakes. I said "NO, I love them" and when she came around the corner she had a very scared little Pueblan Milk Snake in her hands. Seems she arrived at the store more than six months prior as a juvenile, was sold and promptly returned for "agression." For the next six months she grew and grew, but still lived in a little six-by-twelve box on the sales floor, being harassed by everyone who walks past. The store declared her unsellable and offered her up basically for adoption just to get rid of her, but since she doesn't like being handled they were even having a hard time finding anyone to take her for FREE.

That irked me so I drove to my dad's, rummaged in the attic for my old herp stuff, and set up an enclosure for the little snake and took her home the following weekend.

BTW, she's never acted agressive at ALL, never S'd up or acted like she was even THINKING about biting. She's easily scared and still not thrilled at being handled, though. We're working on it. :)

Having the little Milk Snake around (named her Bowline, a type of sailing knot, since she's kindof goofy...tried eating a Fuzzie SIDEWAYS for crying out loud!) made me miss my Ball Python terribly...years ago when I had Precious, I remembered that a new morph had come along, the Mojave, and it was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen and so far out of my price range it HURT. Just for fun, one afternoon a few months back I did a google search for Mojaves...and found that not only had the Super been bred and god is it prettier than even the Mojave, but that the price had fallen into my range.

Cue my glee. I hit an expo, met a breeder, drove to his place a week later to pick out a Mojave male and couldn't be happier. :) I love having a Ball again!

I plan to breed myself a Super Mojave at some point, and would love to have a small collection of my own. For purposes of selling superfluous animals, I decided I'd eventually set up a website or something, and I'd name my little home-based hobby "Heathertoft," since the house I learned to love snakes at was called the Heather House, since it faced Heather's Run at the Boyne Highlands ski area. The -toft part means "homestead" or just "home;" it has a lot of personal meaning. ;)

Yeah I'm a sentimental kind of guy, LOL.

Anyways, that's my story of how I got into snakes. I blame my dad...he's awesome. :)

Visually, I like snakes over other herps and mammalian pets because they are unusual, streamlined animals with beautiful colors and patterns to choose from. They are mostly easy to care for once you set them up in the right environment, and they're variable even within the same species, whereas I honestly couldn't tell two of the same specie tortoise or something apart if my life depended on it.

Emotionally, I enjoy that they are extremely predictable, schedule-able animals (IE next Tues I need to feed, next Sunday they're due to shed). They aren't needy nor are they untouchable as some delicate animals are. They live quite some time, which is great for me because I get really emotional over pet deaths.

That girl is Selma Hayek :gj::bow:

Anyways, I have always been interested in them. From the time I was walking I was picking up Meditteranean geckos and rough earth snakes.

I never was allowed to have one though, until I was a sophomore. I stopped asking and just brought one home. They dealt with it, and still do :rofl:. It was a young Texas rat snake :snake: a friend of mine caught and brought it up to school.

Next was a ball python, then everything under the sun. Alligator included for a short time.

I think i was around 13 or so and I was watching The Crocodile hunter or just Animal planet. That led me to look for snakes online after watching that for years and after reading what was nice and easy to take care of Ball Pythons seemed to be the best choice. Well i reasearched and reaserached and was 95% sure i was going to buy a Ball Python, then i realized i do not have the right money situation and i should wait. Well finally on October 8th of this year I bought my first snake as a rescue off a family with tank and other things. Now i currently have 6 snakes and will be breeding later this Fall, i also now breed Rats and that has now taken over a whole mind of its own. Snakes are amazing and i love how well they live with the least amount of food and water any animals can have!

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Well finally on October 8th of this year

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Welcome, to the past :) What does my collection consist of in October??

Just playing. I couldn't resist...

My family moved to the US from Venezuela when I was 13 years old (I'm 26 now). Before that, It was not un-common to see Boas around abandoned/neglected patches of land where trees and weed would grow unatended.

We used to live in a tall apparment which had a big parking lot and next to the parking lot, there was a neglected piece of land with tall trees/weed/grass. Now and then Iguanas, lizzards and the occasional snake would cross over to the parking lot, where we were usualy playing games. One time a Boa crossed over and everyone freaked out, but I was just standing there watching from a distance. I felt in love at that point. Sadly, everytime this would happen, the Janitor would rush out with a big machete....

Anyways to this day Im yet to own a Boa, Im waiting untill I own a house of my own for that, and also for "the one" for me ;)

I have always been fascinated with them for as long as I can remember. I actually had a book on snakes as a kid and I would constantly bring it in for show and tell XD I should go dig that book up when I am home next!

I've just always liked snakes. As a kid, I used to catch little garter snakes in fields by our house...and would keep them until my mom would make me let them go.

Been married twice...and both wives said no way. But my current girlfriend also loves snakes, so I finally got the okay.

was upstate new york getting wood from the woodpile and found my first snake. a garter snake. i was like 11 years old. I then began to look for them found a few corns and more garters. I went to a local reptile museum and bought my first ball python at the age of 11 or 12 it was when i was in 6th grade. been keeping ball pythons and reptiles ever since.

My dad was an outdoor kinda guy. He hunted, fished, and loved the outdoors, even if it was just working in the yard. He would always show me things like interesting bugs, snakes ect. That probably started it for me. Then later in school I was into helping care for the snakes in the biology lab. Everyone thought I was nuts.
I've always been unafraid to go my own way. Having people think I was nuts was half the fun.
Then I had kids and my kids wanted a snake, so we got Sarah, our Corn Snake and from there it grew. When I got my first Ball python, Boo, I was hooked.

I don't remember a time when I wasn't excited to catch and play with a snake! I think it was in my blood!

My friends uncle had a huge albino burmese. Probably 16ft long, he was a monster. I loved the color of him, I was fascinated with how they eat. He let me feed him a pre killed rabbit that was huge. I was so scared but the snake was a gentle giant, not to mention the tongs were real long lol.

Now I am hooked on albino ball pythons

I LOVED dinosaurs as a little kid. Almost all my toys were of them or some other animals lol So I guess I had a thing for reptiles partly due to that.

I was around 8-9 at the time. We have a pool and when we got tadpoles in it we raised them up. Every week I went with my mom or dad to get the baby frogs crickets. I found my local herp shop this way and while looking around I saw this little cornsnake in a display and I loved it instantly.

He/she ended up being my first snake and I had her for about 5 years if memory serves me right.

I have been fascinated by snakes as long as I can remember and never had any fear of them, despite growing up with a mother and two sisters that were (and are to this day) completely terrified of them. So, of course I didn't get to keep real snakes as a child, but I was allowed to collect rubber and stuffed snakes. I still remember hauling my collection my toy snakes to school for show-and-tell when I was in kindergarten. Now that I am grown up and have a good-sized collection of real snakes, I make sure my kids get to have live snakes for show-and-tell or a special presentation every year. It is always a hit and helps the kids to see that snakes can be really nice pets. :snake:

wow great stories everyong!! Well though I was a total animal freak since I was born...it was always mammals. I grew up being terrified of snakes and that just continued throughout my life. Now living in AZ....I wouldnt even go hiking in the summer months for fear I would run into a rattlesnake. And I was just as much a freak with my son.

Well then...move forward to my son wanting another pet for his B-day. He made a list of all of the things he would want and my hubby and I went through it. The two things we picked out was snake....or lizard as they are not stinky. :rolleyes: We were going for a cham...but then I found out they were a little difficult as a first reptile. So then onto a snake. I told the hubby that he would have to feed them as I could in no way do that. Well we looked at milk.....we looked at corns....then this woman at the reptile store handed me Elizabeth. She was a total love bug. So my sons Grandma went in and that was his birthday present from her. A normal BP. Needless to say.....2 days later...........I was so hooked. LOVED HER...wanted to hold her 24 hours a day....and she really liked the interaction. It took about ....oh.....3 weeks...and I had my bee. Another 6 weeks and I had my butter.....then about 2 and 1/2 months....I got my little funky normal. I am hooked ....the hubby is hooked. My son....loves his BP....but realizes mommy has totally taken her over...:rolleyes:....now he wants a tegu and a beardie as well. lol.....I think he is slowly trying to build a reptile zoo here.

Well actually my intrest in snakes and other reptiles has been since i was a young child. I am now only 22 but my intrest has turned into an extreme hobby. I remember as a child prob 5-6 i would go catch garden snakes and even turtles. I would keep them for a few days and release them back in the yard. Now my passion for reptiles has turned into a lifestyle. I now have 30 plus breeding ball pythons and any given number of babys and other odds and ends. I now have a 3 year old daughter that is starting to show the same intrest so I am hoping to continue the trend of a true herp loving family.

I am a preacher(pastor) awesome church in Indiana....no we are not a snake handling church.. however I have always love snakes and animals...
It is like God formed me in my mothers womb to like animals.
I like snakes because of the uniqueness and relatively easy care.
I can't understand why so many people are freaked out about them.
Weird.

I was scared to death of snakes. I was tired of this fear so i went into the pet shop and pciked up the first snake i came acrost. He was my central boa petie. I am now in love with the idea of having snakes and i am gearing up for the purchase of my first ball python.

Animals in general have been something I've always loved. I've had hamsters like everybody else, but I also saved up my own money to buy my first bird. I also have handled dogs, cats, and recently added fish. But I'd say my love of snakes started with the Columbus Zoo. We have a great collection of snakes there, along with many other animals. I think the CZ may have just passed the San Diego Zoo as the top rated zoo in the country. Anyway... The snake thing started there, and only got stronger. My best friend Chelsea has an 8ft burmese. After handling Zach I knew that I needed to get involved myself. My parents were iffy for a very long time but I worked it out, and now I'm the proud owner of three ball pythons. I'm perfectly happy to stick with ball pythons, although I'd like to volunteer somewhere where I can work with bigger snakes as well as hots.

I also used to catch garter snakes as a child. I always thought they were really neat; however, I never thought of owning a snake when an adult because I just didn't think they would make good 'pets.' My husband had a ball when he was younger and kept telling me what a hoot she was and how he would love to eventually get another. It wasn't until he got me to handle a baby ball at Petsmart that I began to think it could be fun to be a snakekeeper. I went home and started to research the everything about ball pythons and we ended up getting two within a month of each other last year.

I am finding them facinating, challenging and overall wonderful creatures. I am very glad hubby finally convinced me. We both enjoy them tremendously! :D

I love animals in general (feeding our snake is hard for me). I was around 8yo when my dad brought me to a snake farm. I held one and it was love at first sight. Thankfully, I've never grown up afraid of snakes like most people, and now am raising our two girls to bypass that fear too. :)

I had always liked snakes in a vague childish way but what caught my interest was when i was camping me and a buddy found a baby texas ratsnake which looks like a corn with a burm pattern. We had to let him go. I really pleaded with my parents to get one and reasearched a ton of stuff. Within the month I had a Ball Python. My parents are now actually liking them. Imagine That! :rofl:

I'm just one of those people who can relate and communicate better with animals rather than humans; always have been and always will be. Despite the fact that snakes may seem... not very "communicable". I understand animal body language and behavior very well, and it fascinates me. That, and when things get rough, I love to escape the human sounds and aggravations and just turn to my dog, or birds - or have my beardie lay with me. In a way, I find the slithering and slinking of a snake around the neck and hands to be somewhat therapeutic. :rolleyes:

That's my excuse. :D

I was interested in snakes when I was little and my Mom would let me go down to harbour by myself. My friends and I would go down and hunt for snakes(milk and gartners) all day! Then when I hit about 15, the city turned the grounds into a city park! I grew up and kinda forgot about snakes and if I did pass a pet store then I would stop in to look at all the critters and I finally talked my wife into letting me get a scorpion about 2 years ago because I always loved them but my Mom would never let me have one. About a year after that my sister in law started dating a ball python breeder and I went to pick her up from his house one day and he invited me in to see them. My wife stayed in the car and my daughter came with me. My daughter and I held most of his collection and fell in love so we bugged my wife for one and after weeks of bugging the guys eggs hatched and she gave in so I took one home and never looked back! I want more but my wife said not until you get me a bigger house then you can have a whole snake room and as many as you want!!! We are currently house shopping! LOL!

I simple enjoyed watchign them swin in the dirt hole ( became a fishing hole ) and started to caught them never bother me.. I grew up with a family for the most part hated/ scared to death of snakes. I know if my grandfather was still alive he refuse to visit cause he be wantting to empty a large number of shell fro mthe shot gun into the snake room. Oddly enough my mother was scared of them but once i got the ones I have she is now ok around most of them. Just does not like the redtail too much right since one of the cats almost became dinner while snooping inthe room while I was in the bathroom/bedroom tryingto mutli task several porject at once and sick as a dog.

Two words.
Steve Irwin.

Do I really need to go into greater detail?:D

I grew up next to a prominent local breeder named Jack who allowed me to work off my first ever snakes by helping clean tubs and feed snakes. I learned so much about snakes from Jack and it was a sad day when he moved and sold off most of his collection.

:)Steve Irwin

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Originally Posted by herper55

:)Steve Irwin

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I thought it was cool how he loved snakes as a little kid also and how is little girl sits there holding em.

Like many others here, I have been fascinated by snakes and other reptiles for as long as I can remember. I don't think I ever remember being scared of a reptile. When I was in elementary school (5th grade I think) my father brought home a ball python, a male named Aries. That snake was awesome. Looking back on it now, there are tons of things I would have changed about his cage, haha. Then they got Sheena, a little columbian red tail boa. My mother was terrified of these snakes and my Dad and I were the ones to clean and feed them. I remember being fascinated by the way they ate and moved around. We also had a chameleon before that and had bearded dragons at the same time as we had the snakes. Eventually we had to move and we could not take the reptiles with us. Fast forward to 2006. I convinced my mom to let me get a bearded dragon. I was living with my grandmother at the time but my bearded dragon would stay with my mom (my grandmother hated reptiles and my mom loved bearded dragons). Of course my mom was supposed to care for my bearded dragon until I could convince my grandmother to let me bring him to her house. My mother ended up putting my little guy on crushed walnut shell and he got impacted and died. So later I was able to convince my grandmother to let me have a leopard gecko.

Then in December of 2006 I found the cutest little snow corn snake at a local reptile store. I had to have her and convinced my grandmother to let me get her (I still do not know how I did this). And thus began my journey into the world of snakes. In August of 2007, I purchased two ball pythons, a 100% het pied male and a normal female. October 31st, 2007, I purchased a pastel male. Early November of 2007 I purchased a pastel female (I really regret selling her now), By March of 2008 I had purchased a spider male, pinstripe female, and two normal females. I also rescued a male normal later.

I really hope to work with reptiles more in the future. My husband is not as enthusiastic about them and really doesn't like me spending money on them like I do. Our snake feeding bill is already at $130/month. I have promised not to purchase any more reptiles until our debt is paid off. As of right now I'm still allowed to breed them though. :rolleye2:

It was in my parents genepool, Dad started it and Mom fueled it, The best of parents..:gj:

i am just your typical enthusiastic animal lover but when i got my first bp years ago i just thought it was cool. i had no idea what a bp required & the pet store employees didnt bother to tell me, they were making a sale. needless to say the snake eventually died & i still to this day, mourn the loss. i am gonna be getting another bp soon & am researching my butt off here so that i do not make the same mistakes i made years ago.

Honestly, I don't remember what made me like snakes.
Maybe it was because I loved watching them at a pet store, or because I was just amazed at how they can more around without any legs what so every and that their body just seems to be pure muscle.
But I just find them so cute! After two years of begging my mom, she finally agreed to let me own one. Took me another year to save up and what not, but now I finally own my baby female ball python. Who's name is Snakey Kafusu. XD But I call her Kafusu for short. She's such a sweetie! She's in shed right now, and when I handled her (don't yell at me, I know I'm not suppose to. I was just double checking with the girl i bought her from, and I had to transport her) and she was crawling all over she, as if she didn't care she was in shed.

But anyways, sorry about that, she's my first ball, and she's just so cute!
I really don't remember why I like them, it could be just because I find them cute. I honestly don't know.^^;;

I went to this pet store, I saw a Green tree python. I started researching pythons and saw ball pythons I had always wanted to go to the petstore and see all the new morphs and thats what really triggered my interest, i cant get enough of them now =D

-Payson

My mother gave me my first snake for my 6th birthday. A bit before WWII :D

My family have always been huge animal people. And to be honest i cant really explain it. Snakes just fascinate me. They are truly amazing creatures and are amazing products of evolution. I had always wanted one but my mom wasn't having it. I eventually convinced her to let me get a ball python, then it started. :D After less than a year i now have an albino bci, bco, jcp, mp, pair of leos and a top notch peruvian showing up at my house on Friday.

Its just hard to explain, but i love snakes. I am now going to college in the fall and enrolling in the pre-vet program then after graduate school i hope to enter a residency to then specialize in exotic pets. :banana:

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Originally Posted by Reptis

My mother gave me my first snake for my 6th birthday. A bit before WWII :D

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You mean more like a bit after WWI right? :rolleyes:

Because 1928 is not what I call a bit before WWII