Lots of people buy a snake without fully understanding what snakes are all about.   Snakes aren’t like dogs or cats, they are not going to show any love or affection towards their owner.   They aren’t going to take themselves outside to do their business or even tell you when their hungry.  So what should you expect before you buy your first snake?

You’re probably going to be bitten.

Yup, you’re going to get bitten.  If you’re not okay with being bitten by a non-venomous snake then don’t buy one!   That doesn’t mean that as soon as you put your hand in front of your snake he’s going to rip your hand off.  It turns out most snake bites are caused by owner error during feeding.   Snakes don’t have the best eye site.  They sense heat and have an incredible sense of smell.  If your hand smells like a mouse and your snake senses the heat in your hand he’s coming to eat dinner.  It’s instinct, not personal.    With that said, there are many things you can do to nearly eliminate the risk of being bitten, even so you should expect to be bitten during your ownership of any snake.

Snakes live for a long long time.

Many first time snake owners don’t realize that snakes can live up to 30 years.  That’s a long time to own a pet snake.  That means feeding it every week while it’s growing and every couple of weeks after its full grown for 30 years.  That means cleaning its snake cage once a month and picking up digested mouse carcasses for 30 years.  With any pet its a commitment.  Know these things now, and not next year when you’re ready to get rid of him.

You can’t just release your snake into the wild.

Releasing a captive bred snake into the wild is a bad idea for a couple reasons.  The first and most important is its probably illegal.  Know the laws of owning on exotic reptile before you buy.  Second, releasing a non-native snake into your local surroundings is it can disrupt the local ecosystem.  Right now in the Florida everglades there are several full grown Burmese pythons reproducing like mad, which has the entire community and government in an uproar.   Be responsible with your pets if you’re not able to take care of them.  There are several website like ours, where you can pretty easily post your snakes for sale.