Dancing with Snakes

Attention attention Salome is out to LUNCH today!!! I was merging two of Slinks posts together and accidentally turned it into a post from moi. Good grief. The message in this post is from SLINKS. I’m going to go take a nap now.

we used to have this thread up in the other forum... and with the Questions about snakes in the nose peircing thread I thought I'd move it to a thread of it's own cos it takes away the subject of the schnoz

lol

Slinky is a Diamond crossed with a carpet python and absolutly loveable !! beleive it or not, he is very cuddlely when he wants to be.... he often drapes himself over my shoulders and just rests there ... I've had the bottom half of him coiled in my hands while the top half is drapped around my neck, forcing me to walk around looking as though I'm holding something precious, which I guess I am !!.....

Thank you Amanda for saying we look great together, it was a lovely comment !!

I'll hunt around for some pictures to post.....

He is about between 7 - 8 foot long and he turned 5 this year

Best of luck Alaya!

photos

The little baby Slinks (from the thread in the last forum) just 3 months old these other two photos are from 3 years ago ...

Look how tiny and cute he is in the last photo

Slinks is male yeah? My MIL has two pythons which she received within a few months of each other. 'Trouser' her first snake, was the bigger of the two...'Monty' her second, was younger and smaller.

Monty has always been the more sociable of the two and when first sexed was said to be a male however Monty has outgrown Trouser so rapidly we think he/she must really be a female as they grow bigger and faster I am told???

I love snake mythology and the snake permeates its magick throughout my life however I must admit that I am not the most comfortable of handlers of these animals IRL. The first few months that my MIL had 'her babies' I would either be up on the kitchen bench or taking refuge in the bathroom until they were safely back in their tank. My daughter however has always been right in there with snakes and is always keen for a cuddle with them. (I should hunt out a pic or two...)

Trouser and Monty have their own distinct personalities and at times get cranky(read as bite!) when MIL wants to show off her babies to visitors when they would much rather sleep or be left alone......Does Slinks ever get stage fright or not feel in the mood for performing?

I have always been fascinated by snakes, and would've become a herpetologist instead of a botanist if only more classes had been offered where I went to college. However, I know more about rattlesnakes than I do constrictors, so this will be an interesting thread to follow. A few hours from here is a place called Reptile Gardens. I figured it would be a typical Black Hills tourist trap, but it is quite a serpentarium. I haven't been in several years, but think I will go back, maybe in September after the tourists leave and before the place closes for the winter. They have an incredible collection of snakes, though I didn't think much of the show they put on. The cobra is displayed in a clear plastic cage (don't blame them for not wanting to handle it) and when they pull away the creature's hiding place, the poor thing strikes and hits its nose on the plastic. Great way to injure a snake. I remarked on it the last time I was there, and was stuffily informed that they couldn't very well take the cobra out of the cage and endanger the handler. Well, then, I said, perhaps you'd do better to not exhibit the snake in the show at all, and let folks see it inside the herpetarium where it feels safer. Idiots. But except for that, the place is impressive.

I love snakes. I sometimes want to keep one as a pet, but I don't have the patience to take proper care of a reptile.

Where I used to live (South Eastern USA), there was a native snake that was powder blue and very pretty! I looked it up years later, apparently they are rare, but I would see them every year.

My favorite snake is the worm snake. They are small and brown, and look like worms, until you see the head. Some kids would catch dozens of them and bring them to school, but I was unlucky and never saw one in the wild.

I've never been scared of snakes, because most of them are not poisonous, just pretty. But somehow a poisonous copperhead got into my parents' house once. My father was very brave, and caught it, and released it into the woods.

Ha`lyssah Some people have rules for how they handle their snakes, except on a rare show time like an unknown visiter that might not come again, I don't bring my snakes out (2 the other is Rusty) I only bring them out when they are active and want to come out.... so they don't get cranky, Slinks is a hissy bugger being male but his hissing doesn't bother me cos I'm 90 % tone deaf lol besides he is very cuddley. Rusty is very curious, almost impossiable to dance with, so she is just an ornament that I hang around my neck...

I only dance here at home, so I don't take them to performances and stuff, when I dance with them, it's when they want to, not me but I do more than dance with them... wash the dishes, vacumm the floor, hang the washing out, lol, it's fun, they become a part of me, hubby calls me Madusa...

Shanazel, I would've paid them out too !! I love going to snake places though, they're so amazing.... and snakes are just so colourful and pretty, my favouite snake is the deadly horned viper, they are just so gorgeous and pretty.... My snakes are like the colours of the rainbow outside in the sun, they have pink, purple and red tones where the sun reflex off them My second most favourite is the Jungle green tree python, they're nippy buggers !! but so pretty.

De Sage You're lucky you don't have too many poisonous snakes around, Australia has some of the worlds most deadliest !! The most free one we have around here where I live is the King Brown ( I live bush, in the boonies lol ) every summer it's common to see at least 4 around the place...

slinks said:

De Sage You're lucky you don't have too many poisonous snakes around, Australia has some of the worlds most deadliest !! The most free one we have around here where I live is the King Brown ( I live bush, in the boonies lol ) every summer it's common to see at least 4 around the place...

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Now I live in the upper Mid-West; I can't remember the last time I saw a wild snake up here, and I don't know if there are any poisonous ones that can live here at all. At least you have wild snakes to enjoy, although it is scary when they are very poisonous.

My personal favorite is an emerald green tree boa. The rhinocerus viper is an interesting critter of browns and blues- I have been thinking of doing a bead-embellished embroidery of one. For poisonous snakes in Wyoming, we have only the prairie rattler, with a sub-species in a small area of the southwestern part of the state. I grew up in Texas, Arkansas, and California, though, and there were all sorts of fanged ones in those places. You learn to watch where you step and where you put your hands early in life under those conditions!