pythonaddict

January 6, 2006 my husband fell in love. While most women would be angry at this, I found it amusing at the time. Around a foot long, skinny as a pencil, this testy little Jungle Carpet x Diamond Python broke his resolve of not buying anything and became a part of our family. Our first jump away from Ball Pythons. We christened him Samson.

We cared for him, treated his worms and mites (thanks caring salesmen at the Repticon Show in Columbia, SC). We watched him thrive. Foot and foot, Samson grew until he was over 7 feet long, and still just as testy as the day he came home. He was your typical carpet python, he was territorial of his enclosure, so my husband grew accustomed to his bite. I wasn't a big fan of Samson (I'm such a weenie, I didn't feel like being bit lol), but he was my husband's buddy. While I made sure he had food to eat, helped monitor his enclosure temperatures, etc, my husband bonded with this particular legless creature. I enjoyed the show.

About two months ago, I posted signs for our baby ball pythons that are for sale in the local pet shop. Each time I buy rodents, I check the sign to see if any of my phone number tags are missing. There are many missing, but no one has called. Saturday, the owner calls me and asks if we still have any left. Heck yes! And as much as I like watching them, they have to go (hubby has a line on an Apalachicola Kingsnake and we need the space, lol).

Of course we're wondering if this is an experienced keeper or a newbie to the hobby. When he calls me, he asks a few questions and I quickly realize he's never owned a snake in his life, and doesn't know anything about them. So while he's there and along with help from the shop owner, we tell him of the basic things he'll need to start.

This year has been horrible for us, not just on a reptile level. Between my husband quitting his job of almost ten years and spending a month unemployed to sick critters, we haven't had a good year.

Right now, our jungle carpet x diamond python is suffering from a respiratory infection. We're treating him with antibiotics, and he's improving. Still has some of the rasp but strength and activity has returned greatly. That's a plus.

This was our first actual attempt at breeding snakes. And now the time has come to let my young slither the coop. They are two and a half months old, and most breeders would have already sold them buy now. I've been advertising them at the local pet shop, but only for about a week. I wanted to make sure they were good, established eaters before sending them to what I hope will be their forever home.

Forever home. That's what bothers me. I worry that their new owner will be a moron. It's harsh, I know, but I worry the snake will not receive the proper care. That they won't provide for their needs, and that they will die. My husband lives by 'out of sight, out of mind.' I don't live that way.

I've always been a strange bird, and I like it that way. I like being the one that makes people look at me strange, and thing, wth? I also have a very curious nature, which is one of my fatal flaws. I'm the person that asks all the silly questions that normal people wouldn't even think about.

I know hardly anyone does maternal incubation. But when we bred our ball python, the lovely Wilson, this year, we opted for maternal. We wanted to watch the process. And exciting it was, I can not deny. And a success. She laid a total of five, four were viable. Three hatched, the last died during the hatching process, it was on the bottom and we don't think he was able to get out in time. It was definitely a learning experience.

Until the past two summers, in eight years of living where we do now, we've only seen two snakes. But that changed the summer before last. We have free range chickens, which should have brought the snakes in years ago, but it didn't. Then the summer of 2009, we started getting visitors. It started with a corn snake, which I don't think I've ever seen in the wild, even though they are of this area. Then it was your traditional black rat snakes. The corn snake was in the back of our field, so we observed him for a bit and let him go on his way. But the rat snakes were more bold.

At least three times a week, I hear, "You keep snakes?!" Yes, we do. And we aren't ashamed of it. Sometimes, I'm met with animosity, sometimes I get loads of questions. I'm far from an expert, and I answer what I can. It's one topic I never get tired of discussing. I could sit all day and answer the most ridiculous questions. Why? Because I'm educating someone. I'm giving someone knowledge they didn't have before. Am I making a snake fan? Probably not. But will they be more likely to hesitate to kill the next one they find in their yard? Maybe, and it could be just enough time for the little guy to escape.

Most people are taught at a young age that snakes are something to be feared. I was. I remember as a child, watching my parents lift rat snakes (chicken snakes down here) out of our duck's nest and kill them. At the time, I thought it was safer that way. Now I know different. My dad, the biggest anti-snake person you will ever meet, has finally realized that non-venomous snakes don't have to be eliminated, and he'll let them go. The venomous ones are another story, and I won't argue his point. He called me over the summer and said, "Well, you'd be proud, I fished a Coach Whip out of the pool and I didn't kill him. He better not come back though..."

We decided to try our hand at breeding this year. Years ago, two of our snakes bred (they were both females, ha, ha, joke was on us!) and in our inexperience, we let the eggs die. So after lots of research, we decided to try again.

I'd known Wilson for almost four years, and I didn't like her but I tolerated her. And my husband didn't have much interest in her either to my relief. Then out of the blue one day, he wanted to play with her. Wilson, a four year old (at the time) ball python, was owned by my friend Gina. She'd bought the snake from the flea market when it was a neonate. By this time, the snake was about four and a half feet long. My husband asked if he could hold the snake, and sat there for an hour, letting her crawl all over him. She rubbed her face against his goatee, through his hair. He fell in love that day.

A few months later, Gina calls me and says she's moving and can't have the snake and wants to know if I know of anyone that would like to buy it. She was ours that Friday.