No, I'm not talking about travelling back in time to the Mesozoic era. I know, bait and switch title.
Disclaimer: Noob here. I have no snakes yet.
On regular care sheets/forum info/wiki articles and whatnot, I often see lifespans of 25+ years. In your experience and in general, do they really tend to live that long? I see a lot of posts (not just here, but many of the facebook groups) of people with new snakes, almost always young hatchlings. I have been stalking craigslist and animal shelter postings for months now, watching for snake rehomings, but I've actually found those to be incredibly rare.
It seems to me, that the lifespans can't be averaging 25+ if there are so many young snakes being sold and so few advanced age snakes trading hands. I would expect to see more instances of buyer's remorse or 'my kid went off to college and couldn't take their snake' or whatever excuses people like to toss around, but I'm just not seeing it. Do snake people just tend to hang on to their animals more so than those who buy dogs, rabbits, etc?
Am I looking in the wrong place?
I've yet to settle on a snake, but I've thought I might prefer to take over the care of an older animal as I've read they tend to mellow out a bit with age.
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