Kids and snakes

[Terranaut]

First off before I tell this little story you must know 2 things. My kids arr very snake savy and I do not fear they will ever do anything dumb enough to get injured by even our larger snakes. Also know that in the end all is fine with everyone involved.

So my 11 yr old son us a very family orientated person. When he sees something wrong with a family member he tries to fix it. Big hearts can sometimes cause people to push there envelopes a bit. In this case I have gutted out main bathroom and am almost done a huge reno. My son sees me going to work every morning then coming home and working until bed. It has been brutal. So he wants to help right? Well he can feed our smaller snakes but the big strikes from my boas are a bit much for him so he doesn't feed them ever. (Yes he is 100% supervised when he feeds my smaller snakes) But Wenesday he came home frim school and thought he would help dad out and feed all of the snakes for me. In the morning I put my rats into a bucket of water and went to work. He knows that when I get home I dump the water ,refill it with hot then feed them to the snakes. So he does this. What he didn't realize was the reason you seperate mating pairs for feeding. He figured my boas were at oposite sides of their viv so why not feed them together. So I get hone from work to "DAD DAD I am so sorry but fix it now and give me heck later" I had no idea what he meant. He takes me out to the snake room and both my adult boas are wrapped up like a pretzel trying to eat the same rat with the other sitting in the corner. Well I paniced a bit then thought ok now what.I quick suited up with an old leather jacket and gloves. I had my 3 kids all do similar and we are going to seperate these 2 before they hurt each other. We went back in and my female had backed off and was checking out the other rat. So we waited to see what would happen, ready to intervine if needed. They seperated and my female struck the other rat and coiled it. Ok so far so good. Well my male eats his rat before my female even releases hers. My male slides over and grabs hers. So here we are back to square one. So I pop open their viv and she lets the rat go. My male pulls it 1/2 way across the viv and while she just sniffs around ,he eats that one too. Unreal. 2 huge xxxl jumbos and he ate 2. Tonight I tried to pull Eva out to feed her but she is in strike mode and hitting the glass when I get close. Gonna try again tomorrow.
When I said to the kids "all good I guess" my youngest broke into tears. I am sorry dad ect. I explained everything he did wrong and let him know I understand why he did it but he is still on turd duty for the rest of the month.
Anyway although this could have been horrible ,it wasn't.
Thank god!!!!

[stephanbakir]

Glad your kids are fine.

Might want to lock cages just to be safe, although I bet they have learned the lesson.

Might want to get a spray bottle and fill it with vinegar and leave it in the snake room at all times. If you ever wAnt your snake to release something(ie an arm, or rat or whatever) you sprits them in the face and they instantly let go.

[Revenant]

Yikes. Glad the snakes seem ok. Harsh way to learn a lesson, but I bet he won't make that mistake again. Glad you were able to not let your temper get in the way. It's good he wants to help, and we all have made mistakes.

[Terranaut]

Originally Posted by stephanbakir

Glad your kids are fine.

Might want to lock cages just to be safe, although I bet they have learned the lesson.

Might want to get a spray bottle and fill it with vinegar and leave it in the snake room at all times. If you ever wAnt your snake to release something(ie an arm, or rat or whatever) you sprits them in the face and they instantly let go.

No need to lock them. This was my youngest. I teach them how to take care of the snakes and this was the one time he just didn't get it. My other boys know better. Feeding did nit meet the rules we have. He meant well and did the actual feeding right. He just didn't realize what could happen.

Originally Posted by Revenant

Yikes. Glad the snakes seem ok. Harsh way to learn a lesson, but I bet he won't make that mistake again. Glad you were able to not let your temper get in the way. It's good he wants to help, and we all have made mistakes.

Yup. Gotta love him for his intentions.

[Jules1618]

Glad it worked out, good learning just hard lesson

[marvelfreak]

Glad to here it all worked out without anyone or snakes getting hurt.

[TheSuppishOne]

Did your female end up eating eventually?

[Terranaut]

Yup. But man she was fun to get out of her viv