My son’s snake has just laid 19 eggs. She did this last spring as well. These ones seemed to be all in one clutch though - last year it took her a week to get them all out.
We don’t expect baby snakes, since we don’t have a male stud snake about.
And no, we’re not planning on making long, thin omelets either.
I don’t even know what snake eggs look like. Are they long and thin?
You know the rule… pictures please
Would it kill you to get a male snake and then start your own line of a snake kingdom?
I was not wise enough to take pictures - but here is a link:
Fertile eggs on the left, infertile on the right. They’re about 2 cm long.
Yes, it probably would. My wife would kill me, that is.
It was hard enough to convince her to get one snake. Direct quote when we returned from “just looking” with a snake in the back seat:
“I can’t believe we just bought a snake. What was I thinking?”
What kind of snake is it?
A friendly corn snake. Corn snakes come in many color morphs - ours is a normal color, sometimes called okeetee.
She looksa lot like this
She’s about 4 feet long, and loves to hang out around my neck, or crawl into pockets of hoodies.
if it’s going to be a long winding thread, snakes would be appropriate.
Just how friendly is a friendly corn snake?
I mean, do they like to have a belly rub? Can you play frisbee with them, or teach them any clever tricks? Do they lick your face? Will they fetch or play tug-of-war? Are they good with children?
Snakes don’t need to be fertilized every time they lay. Once mated, the female can store sperm for multiple reproductive cycles. I once had a western garter snake (a live bearing species) that presented me with half a dozen snakelets after a year alone in her cage.
Enough is enough! I have had it with these mother-attempting snakes…
Sort of. She like to have her head gently stroked.
Errr. Not so much. I said friendly, not clever.
Actually yes. In sort of a flickery way.
You should never play tug-of-war with your snake, as this may damage their spine.
Very. Corn snakes like to coil and wrap around arms and crawl into pockets. Most kids seem to really enjoy them.
“Is that a corn snake in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?” she hissed.
Aww, now I want a pet snake.
Is it common for snakes to become friendly, if you interact with them? Or do you just have to get lucky?
Damnit, missed the edit.
That last question actually isn’t a clumsy joke riffing off the post before mine. Just clumsy wording.
Are they really called snakelets? Because that’s freaking adorable.
Nah, frisbee is out.
If you’re small enough, however, jump rope is always an option.
Update: I took the eggs away and she’s sleeping it off in her warm hide. She looks a bit frazzled, and may be getting ready to shed. She has not eaten for a month either. (which is typical for her in the spring for some reason.
Snakes can be kind of friendly, in that they aren’t trying to bite you or hide from you, but you have to handle them regularly so they’re used to being picked up. I have two milksnakes, and if I keep up contact, they will hang out wrapped around a wrist or arm while I putter around the house. If I forget to do this for a couple of weeks, they’ll freak out when I try to pick them up. I suspect that’s true of most snakes.
What is ‘freaking out’ for a snake? It depends a lot on the snake. I’m told different breeds innately have different levels of aggression. Supposedly milksnakes make good pets because they have mellow dispositions. When I was getting my first snake Nibbler used to me, his defense mechanism when I picked him up was to poop himself. This is actually pretty effective, because it makes him really slippery and hard to hold onto. The only time he’s ever bitten me was because he’d crapped himself, and started to squirm away, and I tightened my hand and squeezed him too hard- then chomp. I never held it against him; I was probably hurting him.
I’m sure your local snakeologist (or snakeonomist) can point you at the mellower breeds if you’re interested in having one that you plan to interact with. Lots of people just have snakes for show, and they never interact with them except to feed and breed 'em.
Snakes aren’t smart, but in some ways this makes them easier to have as pets; they don’t demand affection and they don’t get bored (a bored parrot is bad news). My friend’s Jack Russell-dachshund mix is probably as smart as I am and is a big needy pain in the ass sometimes. As far as training- not really possible, aside from just bare-bones conditioning. For instance, I never drop food in the cage where he lives, or else he’ll associate a hand coming in the cage with food and bite at it, so I put the food in a shoebox, then drop the snake in the shoebox. It’s his own little restaurant.
