A Bit of Reality About Owning Snakes and Raising a Family

[frankykeno]

I just got to thinking, with all this controversy over snakes and children, about the actual reality of it all. I figure my family is a good study group really so here goes a very off the cuff but I think interesting look at the actual day to day "dangers" of living with multiple snakes.....

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Study group:

1 male age 39
1 female age 47
1 female age 21
1 male age 17
1 female age 15
1 male age 8

Snakes (including lengths):

1 milksnake - 2.5 feet
4 boas - ranging from 4 feet to 9 feet
36 ball pythons - ranging from 18 inches to 5 feet

Time frame:

2005 to 2009

Now in this time frame all members of the family have interacted in some way with pretty much all snakes in an appropriately supervised manner based on the age of the participant and the length, temperment and activity being performed with the snake (i.e. feeding, cleaning, weighing, handling for pleasure, handling for maintenance purposes).

In this time frame the following bites have occurred:

Bites from adult snakes:

1 bite to the 39 year old male by 1 adult female ball python - unknown cause, likely fear/stress reaction

1 bite to the 39 year old male by 1 adult female boa - snake was in shed, bite was extremely minor far below the full ability of this snake to inflict bite damage

1 bite to the 47 year old female by 1 adult female ball python - a recent rescue that was highly stressed at the time

0 bites to any of the minor children

Bites from juvenile/hatchling snakes*:

5 bites to the 39 year old male

10+ bites to the 47 year old female

0 bites to any of the minor children

*of note in these stats is the fact that the highest percentage of these bites were from very recently hatched ball pythons, that all bites or bite attempts failed to break the skin of the human involved and that most if not all bites were simply the instinctive and protective reaction of a very young snake unsure of it's own safety in an unfamilar environment*

Now let's look at a slice of the reality of life in a busy family of 2 adults and 4 children.

In this same time period, by my best recollection, the following occurred ( a VERY small sampling in actuality):

At least 3 incidents where the 8 year old child was playing with his older siblings and received some sort of bruising through rough play.

A pretty good number of darned painful papercuts that did break the skin.

5 incidents where sports related activities caused either bruising or breakage of skin requiring first aid.

1 orthopedic surgery to the 21 year old female related to a major sports injury to her hand.

1 major burn to the 21 year old female resultant from an assault in a public place.

10 or more minor burns to the 47 year old female as a result of normal kitchen/food preparation activities.

20 or more skin breaking scratches from play involving minor children and family pets (both dog and cat but NOT reptiles).

4 incidents where the 47 year old female was injured due to excessive strain on her lower back due to heavy housework activities or moving/relocation of family.

3 emergency room visits for the 39 year old male due to very serious drug reactions to prescription medication.

5 incidents where members of this study group were knocked off their feet by an overly enthuisastic Labrador Retriever.

3 deaths have occurred in this time period though not directly to this study group but included due to impact on them - 1 grandfather, 2 grandmothers

Sooooo.....

By this very simplistic study one could draw the following conclusions:

My family really needs to train our dog better because she knocks us over and sometimes jumps up and scratches us.

That cats are dangerous because they have claws so maybe kids and cats are a bad mix.

That paper will cut you. Dangerous stuff that paper is!

That sports can be dangerous so we should keep our kids indoors and wrapped in cotton wool at all times.

That siblings can play rough so apparently they shouldn't be allowed to play together at all.

That the 47 year old female is at high risk of messing up her back and burning herself so all household and kitchen activities should immediately cease (wonder how that will fly with my family LOL).

Going out in public is very dangerous so we should all lock ourselves in at home and just stay safe!

Prescription drugs can be very dangerous and you can have a reaction at any time without warning that can be fatal.

Getting old is a bad thing, you can die. Try to avoid getting old at all costs.

Apparently our snakes may be the safest things in our lives LOL.

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As much as I wrote this in a rather joking way it does speak to safety concerns regarding children in the home with or without exotic pets in it. Over the past number of years many things have occurred in our family that had some risk factor or potential for harm involved but NONE of those things directly involved our decision to include snakes in our household.

I wish somebody would do a news report on that!