Where did you get your first snake?

[ZoologyGirl]

My first snake came from Carol Huddleston. One of my favorite snakes to this day.

 

[SquamishSerpents]

yes as many others, i got my first one in a pet store "before i knew," like so many others. i think the results of this poll are skewed because i am going to assume that MOST people who chose "other" chose it because they got their first snake from a pet store.

 

[Jdog3131]

I got both from the same breeder at the same expo.

 

[Ares2010]

My first corn, Ares, I got from a friend of my daughter's. My daughter already had a corn and didn't want to have two so she offered her friends corn to me because her friend couldn't keep it anymore. So I took him on.

 

[Karoni]

My snakes are all rescues from a local reptile rescue organization.

 

[Irish Eyes (Mrs.Z)]

Mine came from a local Petco, when I was 17. I had been wanting a Corn Snake for a little while, and one day before work I had begged my mom if I could bring one home, once I was able to save up enough for one... she seemed fine with the idea. That night, while I was working at the (then) local video store, my mom had surprised me with my 1st snake (Corn Snake). She had put the container that he was in into an empty movie case, and when I opened the case to enter it as a return and felt how light the case was, I opened it up to find him in there... One of my best memories!

I would imagine that pet-stores are a pretty popular option for 1st time owners. I was lucky that mine was so healthy, and to this day he's my best behaved snake (though I think that had more to do with the excessive amount of time I spent handling him. Him being my 1st and only snake and all...).

You have an AWESOME Mom!

 

[TheJadeReptile]

Sunshine came from a local Petco in Little Rock, AR. I knew this petco personally. I always go there. But the one closer to me, greets me and my mother always. lol

 

[crotalis40741]

My first one actually was a pair came from a friend of mine locally. Back in 85' he and his mom owned a petstore locally and they bred corns at home.

 

[4riscorn]

We got our first one from a petstore. We went to the store for a bearded dragon. It was not my idea at all to even get anything. I was hoping once our son saw the BD that he would change his mind..which he did but then hubby saw this little corn snake. To make a long story short..we brought him home with us. This blew my mind because Mike was a snake hater. I had always wanted one but not him. So when he bought it, I was floored. Then we got the whole story on care from the store that was total opposite from on here. I am so glad I came home and researched corn snakes and found this site. I was told to use a heat lamp, keep it at 85-90 (if I remember correctly), etc. Of course we all know that is totally wrong. He also told me to keep a lamp on in the room all day next to the viv. The next day we saw that he had only one eye. We took it back because we thought he may have shed on it or something. The guy was like "We'll take care of it if you want to get another one." We had a feeling what "take care of" meant so we brought him back home. So now little one eyed Willie has been with us for 17 months. We bought our second one from a more reputable local petstore...ended up finding out last week the male was actually a female. z(We now have a probe kit but didn't even dawn on us to probe him..umm her..) We also got another from them that ended up having stuck shed when we got him and he was too far gone for us to save and ended up dying a couple of weeks later. We got one more from the same store last summer (the owner goes to a breeder in FL to hand pick his...the one with the stuck shed was a one and only local buy for him which turned out bad for him...they all died) and we still have her. She is probably the prettiest snake we have. We also rescued (I say rescued because these 2 snakes were in poor conditions at the store) 2 from the first petstore we went to and we had to put one down because she had an apperant stuck egg after one year (at least the store told us she had been bred the year before) and the vet kept saying she would be fine just to keep feeding her and it would dislodge..it never did. She ended up getting really bad...the lump got hard as a rock and you could tell she was in pain, so Mike put her down with a gas tank he made at work in case this came up. The other one has been refusing food for quite a while now. He did the same thing last year, but this year, he has lost a little more weight than we expected so we aren't sure if he will make it or not. All the rest we have gotten either at reptile shows, breeders on here and have rescued some from Craigslist as well. And one we produced ourselves last year! I have seen some good stories about petstores but mostly not. My experience was pretty much not so good, but one wasn't too bad.

 

[4riscorn]

Willie

Eve our lucky find

 

[Allalaskan]

I got my First Snake from Petzoo in Wasilla.

 

[Michael823]

Aw, that's a cute story... your mom sounds pretty cool! Good thing you checked the video box, and didn't just throw it on the return cart.

Haha... yeah, she is pretty cool! And definitely a good thing that he didn't accidentally get rented out, lol. Depending on the person, it could have been anywhere from a nature video, to a horror.

I think that snakes are a great 1st time pet for people. I've always loved finding, and sometimes temporarily keeping, local snakes, frogs and salamanders, but never really thought about (or was aware of) keeping long-term, captive bred snakes, until I had first gone into Petco and seen the snakes there... I had kept Anoles as a really little kid, but I was too young to really take care of them for myself, or to understand how expansive the culture really was.

And when my mom got re-married when I was 10-11, I almost completely abandoned my interest in reptiles (mostly because my step-father wanted nothing to do with them in the house).
But getting my Corn Snake at 17, as well as my mother separating from my step-father a few months later, I was really able to re-kindle all of the interests that made me, me. I thank my mother a lot for being supportive of that, because allowing me the freedom to pursue an interest that meant so much to me, and one that gave me such a rewarding responsibility, really changed (or allowed me to be) who I am.

 

[3CardKnight]

My first

In late 2007, an ex-roommate bought a cornsnake solely for the reason that it was pink. He kept it in a Petco box under his bed for weeks, completely neglected it, and never fed it or made sure it had water. I secretly removed the snake, put it in a viv, and made sure it was taken care of. After two weeks, he finally realized it was gone. He was about to move out at the time and owed me money that I was sure he'd never pay back so I took the snake as trade. My first snake, a beautiful Amel Motley, completely free (sort of)! Since then, I've gotten two more, a Classic and an Okeetee from a locally owned pet store.

 

[Michael823]

You have an AWESOME Mom!

I do! I guess I didn't realize how rare it is to have a mom that's so supportive until I'd read and heard how contrary other people's experiences with keeping snakes can be.

I remember quite a few years ago (shortly after I got my Corn Snake) going to Zoo Creatures (pretty big pet store in NH) looking for a new pet snake, and having my mom come with me. I never really thought of it as being different to have a mom who encouraged my interest, but the guys who worked there seemed totally shocked that my mom helped me get one. They thought that I had the best mom, and for the most part, I do !

 

[Daenerys]

My first snake was a corn that I got from a breeder. It was just 2 years ago, I was in a dorm my first semester of college and really really missed having pets, and I knew from people I had met there that snakes were easy to hide in a dorm, so I was researching them but didn't think I'd actually get one until I got an email through a club on campus about this lady who had baby corns she was looking to sell for $15 each, so I bought one

 

[wretchedprocess]

I went to a rescue! Because that's What I Do. Of course, then I ended up volunteering for the rescue, taking two more snakes home from it, and then ordering a couple from people on this site, and then when I moved out here I got a couple of carpet pythons from members of the local herp society, and I have a couple of foster black ratsnakes I'm taking care of for them as well...

I had known I wanted a snake (hah-- *a* snake) for long enough that I could think of looking for a rescue. I got my cats from a shelter, after all. And thus I fell down the Reptile-Person Hole and never intend to climb out.