New to the forum but not to snake keeping

TheLastBaron · 06-13-15, 02:11 PM

I have loved and kept snakes for most of my life, I'm 37 years old. I haven't been really active in the hobby for a few years now, but I am getting back into it. I have a ball python who is 22 years old this year, and I recently rescued a Texas Rat from a friends garage where it was scaring people and living inside an old stereo receiver. Their names are Cleo (the ball) and Eve (the Tex Rat). Eve is about 4 foot 3 inches and has a remarkably calm disposition for a Texas Rat (I have caught many and they are usually quite prickly). In the process of transforming my kitchen into the snake room right now. I'm looking to get maybe one or two more snakes and I also keep a couple of aquatic turtles (a painted turtle and a yellow bellied slider).

Since I was 6-8 years old I have been capturing snakes wild and keeping them for awhile and then releasing them, I have mostly kept native snakes to this area since if they don't take well to handling or captivity in general, I tend to release them. If I catch one that's injured I'll usually rehab it and then release it when it's good to go. I recently captured a yellow bellied racer that had been run over, just the tip of it's tail. After 3-4 months the damaged end of the tail fell off and it all healed nicely into a stub tail and now that little beauty is good to go and has been released.

I am known to a circle of people in the area as 'the guy to call' when you have a snake problem. I live in southeast texas so plenty of cottonmouths, rattlesnakes, and copperheads, along with a huge variety of other snakes such as racers, garters, rat snakes, and king snakes. I am fairly well read and studied, and also have hands on experience with most snakes native to the area. I am always open to questions, or available to help people out with snake removal and rehoming in the Galveston area. I release most of the snakes I relocate on an abandoned golf coarse in the area where I also do quite abit of snake catching. It's sort of my own personal snake reserve.