So I don’t have this on my “About Me” page, but I have snakes. Six of them in fact. I really do like all of them. They’re all pretty small at the moment. Below is a summary of all of them. I’ll wind up updating this post to include pics eventually. but for now – just a few words about them.
Apollo
This was my first (well… second) snake. He’s a pastel banana ball python that I got at ReptiCon in 2018 as a hatchling. Now, being two years old he is quite the chonker. His personality is typical of ball pythons, super relaxed. He’s been growing pretty steadily since I got him. I need to weigh all of them again to keep track of where they are.
As a sidebar – my first snake was a rat snake I got when I was 18 and before I joined the navy. When I left for basic training, it wound up dying while it was being cared for by someone else.
Asclepius
This is the second snake in this collection. She was a rescue. I approximate her age to be around 13 years at this point. She’s an albino corn snake and is has the quirkiest personality. During one of the feedings, she didn’t strike the rat – instead she just opened her mouth for a few seconds, so I put it in her mouth! It was super strange.
Another interesting tidbit about Asclepius is that she used to be a “he”. Not that she had a sex change, her prior owner didn’t actually know that it was a female. Which isn’t super uncommon since breeder’s may misidentify the sex when “popping” them. After being probed by a reptile vet, we know for certain now that she is actually a she.
Finn
Finn is really just being babysat for the time being. He’s a fully grown normal adult ball python. But he came into the collection third.
Artemis & Athena
These two I bought at the same time again at ReptiCon. Artemis is a Suriname Boa constrictor constrictor (BCC). I estimate her age at around a year and a half. She’s wild-caught, so I don’t actually know how old she is.
Athena is only a few months old, she’s a Boa imperator. What’s neat about her is that her morph is IMG Anery Het Sharp – so basically her body is entirely grayscale. She’s getting bigger and bigger and I’m really excited that her fully grown size should be around 8-10 feet.
Persephone
This is the newest addition to the collection. Persephone is a Dumeril’s Boa – Acrantophis dumerili – she’s also a baby and certainly the smallest of the lot. I ordered her online and received her via FedEx or UPS. She’s kind of the meanest of the bunch too, though hopefully she will calm down over time.
Final thoughts
I really enjoy keeping snakes. They bring me joy, what else can I say? What does suck is that the majority of gay men don’t like snakes (other than trouser snakes – and that joke gets made quite a lot, let me tell you). So this little menagerie of noodles does scare away some decent prospects (though it isn’t like I’m demanding they suddenly love snakes – just that they are able to come into the house where they know there are six of them).
I’m sure at some point I’ll find a guy that appreciates snakes or at least doesn’t run away scared. Especially since I don’t think these six snakes are the last of my collection.