Have you considered getting a snake as a pet? Excellent choice! I would recommend Corn snake, Milk snake and Garter snake. They are the most common smaller pet snakes and are easy to care for and they're not too expensive to buy. They are also fairly small and won't get much bigger than 1.5 meters. Sounds like much, but it's not considered that they aren't very thick. A king python doesn't get much longer, but is much more than double the weight! The corn snake is very calm and becomes very tame if you handle it often. Here I will have to contradict what many people writes about snakes in general. I have read time and time again that snakes does not become tame and that handling them will only be stressful to the animal and this should be done as little as possible. Wrong, I say. Of course the snake will be stressed when you handle it if you do it as little as possible. It will not know you or be used to your handling. But a snake that is regularly handled (with care) will become very tame, it will feel safe and be relaxed when you touch it and hold it. My corn snake (13 years) is very tame indeed. I handle it often and have always done so. When I do as I should, I take him out of the terrarium every day. He trusts me, knows me and is not afraid. He also really enjoys the freedom of movement that he can get on the floor or during summer outdoors. Just think for a minute. If you have a dog, a cat, a horse, a bird... does it like to stand/lie still indoors all day and never exercise? No? Didn't think so. Animals, all animals, have a need to get out and move about. A snake that does not get let out and handled will get fat, slow and sleep all day and night. A snake that gets let out often though, they will move around in the terrarium and be interesting to watch, they will be healthy and strong as well as having a good appetite. So please, if you get yourself a snake. Take it out, handle it, don't let it lie, rotting away in the terrarium for 10-20 years in boredom!
Milk snakes now, they have quicker movements and when they get scared, they flee. The corn snake tries to hide and lies still. This makes the milk snake a little more tricky to handle before it's tame, so be very careful. However they become just as tame and sweet once they are tame. Always let a new snake be undisturbed the first 1-2 weeks in it's new home to give it time to get accustomed to the new surroundings.
Garter snakes are very easy to care for because they do, in the wild, eat dead animals. They are easier to get to eat and can eat fish and meat balls (not cooked meat balls!! Never cook the food to your snakes!) But I haven't myself ever had one so I don't know how they really are. However it's said they are real escape artists, so take great care to close the terrarium and don't let it out of your sight. They too can become very tame and nice I've heard, but I was warned in the pet shop that they are prone to bite. Milk snakes and corn snakes are very nice in that regard. My milk snake has never bitten me, and my corn snake has only done so when I was new to keeping snakes and failed a bit when feeding him. They are very nice and never bite when frightened and they never get angry. This of course could be a positive effect of handling them often, they are not afraid/angry because they know they are safe.
Make sure when you buy a snake that you also get a terrarium that is big enough for the snake to stretch and move around in. There are rules as to how small a container you may have for them. Also, it's very important that you have a heating plate (sorry if that's not a correct English word) that should be placed under the glass to avoid that the snake gets burned! It must not cover more than half of the terrarium bottom, the snake must be able to choose if it want to be on the warm or cold side. My snakes prefer to be on the cold side apart from after they have eaten.
Also, here I get to one of the points where I will contradict what many other sites write about snake care. They nee fresh new water available every day! In most sites I have read that snakes drink water irregularly and need only have new water every other day. 3-4 days a week. This is wrong, of course. Especially if the animal drinks water irregularly, it's important that when it does drink, it will get fresh water and not water that is two or three days old standing in 30'C warmth. Water become bad very quickly in terrariums. Why? Well, it's still standing water in a very warm enclosed space. Would you like to drink it? All animals need fresh and clean water to be healthy. So make sure you give your snake clean water every day. Just like with any other animal.
Most important of all when getting a snake (or any animal) is of course to read literature about it beforehand so you know something about it. A healthy baby snake should have whole shiny scales, bright eyes, it's tongue should be playing and it should be active. A snake with damaged scales or small black specks between scales (parasites etc), snakes that are very slow to move or react when handled should not be considered. Make sure you know how your specific snake should be and look like before you buy one.
Feeding you snake. Do you have a snake and it won't eat? Maybe I can give suggestions that'll help. My first snake, the corn, has never refused to eat except for when he got pneumonia once. My milk snake however, which is very easily scared for everything, sometimes refused to eat for up to two months in the beginning. And then it took me 3 years to get him to eat grown mice. Something that he should have done by one year of age already. Baby snakes eat pinkys (baby mice without fur), later they get fuzzies (baby mice with fur, slightly bigger than pinkys) and finally grown mice. My milk never ate anything but pinkys which is bad. A snake that doesn't start to eat grown mice will eventually get malnutrition and can get sick. But I figured out how to do eventually. I should have earlier since I did this with my other snake already, but I didn't think of it. Never knock on the glass... a taboo that I break every time I feed my snakes now. Since my corn was 4 months old I run with my fingers across the glass, tapping it gently (not knocking it hard!) whenever it's feeding time. This way my snake know when he'll get food and also when he won't get any. This will prepare your snake for the food, and make the risk of it biting after your hands at other times less. If you never knock on the glass when you're not feeding it of course.
When I got my milk snake, I thought that I shouldn't do this, because he was so easily scared of everything. Almost every time I gave him a little mouse he got totally surprised somehow and scared of it. He even hissed at the dead mouse and backed away from it. Time and again. I was so frustrated. I had tried many other things too. But then I finally though, why not try it? I started tapping on the glass lightly, running my fingers across it, like a little living mouse maybe. After perhaps three times my milk snake knew that the tapping meant food. He hasn't failed to eat since. Because now he doesn't get surprised by the food... he knows beforehand that it will come.
He didn't get malnutrition though because I put vitamins in his water. If you don't have a florescent lamp to your snake, you also need to give them vitamins. They need sunlight to be able to produce some vitamins, but if they can't make it themselves you'll have to provide it for them. You can buy it in pet shops. The best way is to get the right kind of lamp for them though. And make sure it doesn't burn the snake and that it doesn't shine through glass. The glass will remove the ultraviolet rays and these are the ones that the snake need to produce vitamins. It can shine through a net or be put inside the terrarium but if placed on the inside, make sure it's protected so the snake won't get burned if it tries climbing on it.
Warming the food. NEVER put a mouse in the micro wave oven. The mouse can explode and it'll be very messy. Furthermore the micro will cook the mouse and the nutrients will be destroyed. Let the mouse thaw in room temperature and then heat it up to 37-38 degrees Celsius by putting the mouse in a plastic bag in warm water. Then I'd recommend to pic the mouse up and give to the snake with some type of pliers or wooden sticks. Less risk the snake will bite you by mistake, and the mouse won't smell like you either that way. I use two thin wooden "sticks" and then "jumps about" with the mouse a little to imitate that it lives. My snakes then bites it and I let go of it and closes the terrarium. With my milk snake I stop moving the mouse once he's sneaking on it. He gets scared if I continue to move it too much. But you'll get to learn how your snakes prefers things once you've had it for a while.
Hope that was in any way helpful to anyone. If anyone reads it at all of course. *lol* At least I can say that I have started writing my blog now. :)
