My Snake (with photographs!)

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I've got a milk snake called Perseus and two corn snaked called Zeus and Leto. Zeus is an anarystic (sp?) and Leto is a snow.


Heres a video of Perseus when I first got him, he now strikes the food pretty hard:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAwbnzg2ogs[/youtube]

Now I'm green with snake envy!! I always wanted one, or several, but they've always been way outside of my financial capability

Snakes are close to the cheapest of pets. The actual snake may cost between twenty and whatever you want to spend,the enclosure will depend on the snake, probably around forty or fifty dollars to setup a small one. You can setup a nice enclosure for a four foot ball python or corn snake for less than one hundred dollars. Frozen mice or rats are cheap as well, one to four dollars per week per snake.

Silentchaos can I come and live with you lol? Over here it seems everything is like 5x the price! Snakes range from about £40 to about £500, and vivariums start at about £200. I don't know about food and bedding for the vivarium. It's obscene . Parrots are worse though. You're looking at 1-2k and that's just a startup! One day, when I win the lottery lol!

In my experience, the set-up costs at least $300. Reptile sites usually say to expect to spend 5 to 10 times the cost of the animal on the set-up. My legless lizard's set-up cost a total of at least $400 for:

30 gallon aquarium
screen lid
clamps to keep the screen in place
under tank heater
light fixture
UVA/UVB light bulb
ceramic heat lamp
heat lamp bulb
coconut fiber substrate
sand substrate
2 plastic hides
water bowl
thermometer for the cool end
thermohygometer for the warm end
batteries for the thermohygometer
rheostat to control the under tank heater (allow you to turn it up and down)
tongs (to use for feeding)
something to climb on (a piece of drift wood)
transport/feeding container (Rubbermaid box with holes drilled in the sides)
spray bottle to provide extra humidity when needed
a book with basic information about the species

A basic snake set-up includes all of the above except for the UV light. Also, a lot of snakes can be kept on aspen substrate. Therefore, the cost could be around $350 or maybe even $300.

For the lizard, I also had to get:
food bowl
Cricket Keeper
cricket food
calcium powder
crickets
super worms
baby mice
canned cat food

For the snake, I also had to get materials for a "humidity hide" to provide extra humidity during ecdysis. I use a plastic container and sheet moss. This helps the snake to have a good shed.

Both of my reptiles came with parasites that cost about $200 to treat each time. My lizard is currently being treated for his second infection stemming from being wild-caught.

Now that they are established, the kingsnake is very cheap to maintain. He only needs to eat one mouse per week. One mouse costs $.50 - $1.00, depending on whether I buy them individually or in bulk.

The legless lizard is more expensive because he eats more. His food costs about $10/week, the same as what my dog's food costs.

I find it helpful to keep rubber gloves, paper towels, and Simple Green on hand for everything from cleaning up poop to cleaning the whole enclosure.

We have a candy corn snake called Zak. I have pictures, but can't be bothered to find them at the moment.

I also have two pet rats (Bebop and Rocksteady). I once held Zak after handling them and forgot to wash my hands/arms and he tried to eat me! His mouth couldn't fit around my arm, though.

The cats (Oscar and Cleo) used to like watching him but now seem to have grown bored. They find the rats more interesting.

We have timber rattlesnakes, not far from where I live. I might catch 1 or 2 for pets this summer.

Awesome snake! I don't have any, though I hope when my son gets older he will want a snake or a lizard, something cool that I can enjoy too

Today, when I was at a park with my dog, I saw a beautiful red, black, and yellow garter snake (not sure what species), a big fat Pacific gopher snake, and a coastal range fence lizard!

I was able to get close enough to all three to take pictures, but they didn't turn out well because I was using a camera phone.

I bet you find all types of cool stuff in cali, huh? Post some pics somewhere of some of the stuff over there.

The prices i listed were assuming you didn't buy from pet stores and did some work yourself, i should have elaborated.

You can buy rheostats,thermometers,hygrometers,thermostats,lights,fixtures,even uv bulbs at lowes or home depot. You can also use heat tape or heating pads designed for humans(if you test to see how well they hold up under constant usage) as the heat sources, both work just as well or even better than most of the UTHs marketed in the reptile industry. Incandescent bulbs are cheap and so are their fixtures. If you really want to save money you can build your own enclosure, you can go with wood,many types of plastics, acrylic, whatever. You just have to avoid oily wood and make sure it will not mold, ease of cleaning is also nice. Substrate is cheap,water bowls and hides are also cheap or free. Tools like feeding tongs are cheap, handling hooks or tongs are harder to buy cheap or make but you can do it, you shouldn't need those for a first snake anyways.

Beginners should aim for simplicity, the more stuff you have to worry about the higher the risk of making mistakes. In my opinion the best setup for most juvenile snakes being kept by a beginner is a small aquarium or even better a small sterilite or rubbermaid tub. Newspaper,paper towels,aspen,coconut husk,anything easy to clean and simple for substrate, it would vary by species but ideally you would have a low humidity species. One or two hides, a water bowl, an undertank heating pad/heat tape. Only what the snake needs to start with and then move on to accessories that it may or may not enjoy, and will mostly be for the owner. As long as you can keep the temperature and humidity correct while providing plenty of security the snake will be more than content. You also need a temperature gradient so it can regulate so you may actually need two heating elements, it would depend on the enclosure,species, and room temp.

That was slightly longer than i intended.

Edit: Vet bills will be very high with reptiles, aim for captive bred animals to avoid parasites. Even with a captive bred you may end up with something though.

That's good advice, silentchaos. It is best to be well-prepared before you get a new snake, and this would give one time to shop around for supplies and maybe build an enclosure.

Personally, I think it's important to have two hides, one on the warm end and one on the cool end so the snake doesn't have to choose between security and the temperature it needs. However, this depends on the species and the substrate.

My Cal king doesn't use his hides much - he burrows under the substrate. However, he does use his driftwood "tree" and he even climbs on his fake plant. Another reason I'm glad I made his viv attractive is that because he's a kingsnake, I don't see him much unless it's feeding time. So the tank really doubles as a decoration.

Once I can afford a digital camera, I will definitely go out herping and post the more interesting pictures. I bet it will be the first field herping thread on wp. Also, I studied my pic of the garter snake more carefully and decided that it was a coast garter - Thamnophis elegans terrestris.

I agree with needing adequate hide spaces. The more the better( except when you have to clean the cage or find the snake). I really should add another hide for some of my snakes, currently only my anaconda and prairie king snake have two hides.

Three cheers for field herping threads! Do you find many rattle snakes? We only have timbers here and they are few and far between. There are pygmies a few hours south but those are even fewer and farther between, not to mention they are not even crotalus.

You probably see all types of western diamondbacks and mojaves. Well i guess it depends on where in cali you live, but i would hope as a reptile enthusiast you have chosen to live in the most remote,brushy,rocky and all around unbearable corner of the mojave desert.

That's funny because I actually thought about settling in the Mojave desert. On the drive here, I stopped there for gas, decided I liked it, and thought about staying. However, I already had plans to move to the Bay Area so here I am.

I've only been here for a few weeks and I haven't even intentionally gone herping once (still busy with moving-related stuff). I saw those three herps while I was at an urban park taking my dog for a run! Very encouraging to say the least.

There's only one venomous species here - the Northern Pacific rattlesnake. I'm actually more excited about the prospect of finding rubber boas. Those are some interesting snakes. They're tiny, they like cold weather, and they live to be very old.

Who wouldn't like the mojave desert? I'm pretty sure that I would like it. Rubber boas are nifty little snakes. I actually read an article about the one that is suspected to be at least fifty years old yesterday, before that i had no idea they could live so long.

I'm sure you will be in herp heaven once you start looking around, there are so many field herping threads from cali on KS. A northern pacific would be a great find as well.

I wish I hada snake now but trouble is, it will scare the cat in house