SCs and Snakes

[TheSnakeLady]

So I attended another reptile show this fall, hoping to sell off my remaining hatchling snakes for the year... The amnesia has finally worn off, so here are some tales of customer suckiness from this round:


I want to breed snakes and make money!

Secretly, I laugh at these people. Not that there's anything wrong with breeding snakes or wanting to make a buck or two, but nobody ever got rich breeding cornsnakes. I've been doing it for 5+ years and I'm finally breaking even. The people who can live off of breeding cornsnakes have been in the business 30+ years, are well-recognized and produce the latest color/pattern morphs, and have no mortgage payment.

So normally when someone says this, I just nod and smile. The person in question this time was a kid, maybe in 4th grade? (I'm horrible at judging a kid's age, so that's my best guess.) His mom had dumped him and his friend at the reptile show to hang out all day, and had gone off to do... whatever. The boy (we'll call him Bobby and his friend Jack) came over to look at my table. He started looking at all the snakes (mostly the price tags I think) and mentioned that he wanted to breed snakes so he could make extra money.

Well, far be it for me to turn away a future reptile enthusiast, so I tried to answer his questions as best I could, tried to recommend a course to ease him into the hobby if he really did want to get into snake keeping and breeding... and boy did he have a lot of questions. After answering for what seemed like forever, he mentioned he didn't have any money, but he would ask his mom for some. (Okay, fine. I wasn't gonna sell him snakes without getting a parental okay in the first place, so no problem there.) It was at this point that I found out his mom was not at the show. Goodie. Well, I told the kid to come back with his mom when she got here, and I'd help him pick out a good pair of hatchlings to raise up and use as breeders. So he says okay, and wanders off...

Ten minutes later, he's back again with his friend, trying to convince his friend to go halvsies on a pair of cornsnakes. Jack doesn't share Bobby's dreams of being a snakebreeder (at least as far as I could tell), but shrugged. Bobby then goes off on how Jack can keep one of the snakes, and then Bobby will breed them when he's old enough and sell all the hatchlings. (A bit selfish, aren't we?) It's all a moot point, as neither has any money, and neither knows where Bobby's mom is or when she'll be picking them up. So they wander off again...

Another short while later, Bobby is back again. Why he's chosen to hang around my table, I cannot fathom, other than I was kind enough to answer all his questions about snakes, breeding, and what you get when you cross this morph to another morph. Yet another round of questions, this time about some of the adults I had up for sale:

B: "How much is this one?"
TSL: *reading the price tag for him* "$XX"
B: "Why is she only $XX?"
TSL: "Because she won't breed, so she's just a pet."
B: "Oh. Well how about this one?"
TSL: "That one is only matched up with this male, and the pair is $XXX."
B: "But how much is just the female?"
TSL: "They aren't for sale separately. They're sold as a pair for $XXX."
B: "But if you were to sell them separately, how much would you sell her for?"
TSL: *repeats previous statement*
B: *repeats previous statement*
TSL: *sighs and pulls a number out of thin air* "$YYY and the male would be $ZZZ (where YYY+ZZZ > XXX)
B: "Oooh, well that's a good deal."
Random customer walks by the booth.
B: (to random customer) "You should get these two snakes. It's a really good deal and they're really nice snakes."
Random customer looks annoyed at the kid and hurries off to the next booth.
TSL: ...
B: (to passers-by) "She has some good snakes! This pair right here is a really good deal!"
Passers-by skirt my booth and the obnoxious kid.
TSL: ...
B: *now blocking the booth* "Can I hold one of these snakes?"

At this point I was getting seriously annoyed and suggested the kid go find his friend and/or mother. He came back at least half a dozen more times, each time trying to play Jr. Salesman with my booth. I finally snapped and told him I didn't need his assistance, and didn't see him again.


She'll Take Twenty

SC comes up to my booth with his daughter. SC's daughter wanted a pet snake, and spends about 5-10 minutes deciding on one. The one she picks out is marked $25. SC starts reaching into his wallet talking to SCD as if I'm not there.

SC: "She'll take twenty for it... I bet she'll take twenty..."

Annoyed the crap out of me... I'm right here. You can ask me. You don't have to pretend like I don't exist! Bleah. Why do people do this?


Will you hold this?

SC looks over my booth, finds the cheapest snake I have on the table.

SC: "Will you hold this one for twenty minutes?"
TSL: "Sure. Do you need to find an ATM?" (Since I'm not a store, I don't take credit cards or checks... only cash. This is quite common for smaller breeders and hobbyists...)
SC: "No, I just want to walk around and see if I find one I like better."

I politely informed him that I would not hold a snake without payment, but if he wanted to pay for the snake now I would be glad to hold it at my booth until he was ready to exit the show. Needless to say, he didn't bite.

[blas]

I've always wanted like a 20 foot Boa to eat people I don't like.

SCs are everywhere, even at reptile shows.

[Saydrah]

Just curious, coming from about the exact OPPOSITE world of hobby animal breeding- how comfortable does a person really feel selling animals in an expo environment? Do you feel like you are able to adequately assess a person's ability to care for the snake properly on the spot? Or do people who are lousy owners just not bother to find expos? I know in my particular hobby selling without pre-screening the adopter and asking lots of questions is seriously frowned upon, but I've noticed herp breeders don't have the same hangups about meeting someone and letting them take a critter home the same day. Do you use adoption applications? How do you make sure they will take care of your scalekids?

Just curious how the 'other side' does things

[TheSnakeLady]

Well... there's not a whole lot of pre-screening that gets done. If you sound like you know what you're doing or at least look like you know what you're doing, then you get a snake if you give me the money for it. If you act like you don't know what you're doing, I offer you a free caresheet in the hopes that you read it and follow the relatively simple instructions towards caring for the critter properly.

On the other hand, if you wander by the table repeatedly, make comments that you can't afford the prices, and sound like you have no idea how to care for the critter but think it's so adorable, then I'm highly unlikely to sell to you. Cornsnakes are not hard to care for... IF you have the right setup. On a shoestring budget, you can setup a container for a hatchling for under $20. Or you can go all out and do a nice terrarium for your cornsnake and spend quite a bit. But if you can't even afford the purchase price of a snake, then you can't afford to care for it.

People who make comments about how their previous snake/iguana/whatever died also get closer scrutiny. (It's not always a lack of care, but you never know.) People that want to house multiple snakes in the same enclosure also get told no, if I can't talk them out of the idea.


Other than that, there's not a whole lot of screening that goes on. When breeding 8 females gives you 100 hatchlings, trying to find "the best home" would take an eternity. That having been said, I will offer special deals/first picks to other herper friends I know, since I know that any snakes going to them will be in good hands. I'm also a bit more picky about who winds up with adults.

[TheSnakeLady]

Ahh... one more story I forgot:

How much do lavenders cost?

So there I was, manning the booth, when SC and SC2 walk up....

SC: "How much do lavenders cost?"
TSL: "Er... I don't have any lavenders left. I sold the last one this morning."
SC: "But how much do they usually cost?"
TSL: "Well, that depends on coloration and pattern and..."
SC2: "Lavenders are so expensive. What's the cheapest you've seen a lavender for?"

At this point, I think I know where they're heading with this... a friend of mine, with a lot more snakes than I have, has lavender cornsnakes at his booth. I know he's not cheap. I also know he's got good quality stock and that his snakes are worth every penny. These two SCs just don't care and want a cheap snake, even if it's likely to croak on them.

TSL: "Well... I think the cheapest I've seen a lavender for is $XX. But they usually run from $YY to $ZZZ. If you're looking for a lavender, I recommend checking out *buddy's booth*, as he's got some really nice snakes."

SC: "But why are they so expensiiiiiive?"

TSL: "Lavenders are still a relatively rare morph. The more rare a morph is, the more expensive it is, usually. You're not going to find a Lavender for $15, sorry. Anyway, if you want a good lavender cornsnake, you'll want to buy from *buddy's booth*.

Needless to say, they didn't.

[Saydrah]

Ah the 100 hatchlings factor Thank goodness I don't get 100 ratlings per litter!

A fellow rat fancier and friend of mine has quite a few corn snakes- they are really gorgeous- but I prefer to admire from a distance- however, when I worked for Red Dog Blue Cat Store back in the Dark Ages of last spring, I placed a lot of cornies with good families who loved them. Nice pets and not too time consuming for families with kids. If I ever had kids, I might get them a snake- doesn't need daily feeding, handling, and cleaning the way my preferred pets do. However, live food is OUT for obvious reasons.

How do you choose 'keepers' with snake hatchlings? Is it all about the color, or is there a conformation aspect to snake breeding also?

[TheSnakeLady]

How do you choose 'keepers' with snake hatchlings? Is it all about the color, or is there a conformation aspect to snake breeding also?

Well... the biggest factors for me are as follows:

1. Does it readily eat frozen/thawed post-first-shed? (non-feeders or slow-to-start feeders are not acceptable future breeding stock -- non-feeders are euthanized)
2. Is it physically normal? (snakes with any deformities such as kinking are euthanized)
3. Does it have a decent personality? (mean snakes can be sold to experienced herpers, but are not kept as breeding stock since I don't want to promote this in future generations)
4. Does it have a pleasing color/pattern/set of genetics? If there were a bunch of siblings with the same morph/genetics, is this snake the best male/female example in the clutch?

If the genetics are rare enough, I might grant the snake a pass on points 1 or 3 as far as keeping it back for breeding stock, and then resell/replace it when I have a better specimin available, but I do not budge on point #2 for anything I keep or resell. (You get much happier customers if their pet snakey is a healthy thriving individual... and they tend to tell their friends.)


Incidentally... one more screening method used is price. The SCs who are unlikely to care for their snake very well are also the ones that generally buy the bargin basement $5 non-feeders and then crow about what a good deal they got vs. your $20 guaranteed-to-be-feeding-on-frozen/thawed hatchling.


Not sure what a conformation factor is... most varieties are the result of simple genetics, though there are also some selectively bred morphs which are supposed to fit a certain description (like Okeetee -- solid colors, large red saddles, bold orange-to-yellow background, and thick black borders).... and finally there's the locality corns which must have either been caught in a specific area in the wild or be entirely from stock that came from that area in the wild, but can look like just about anything. And then there's the hybrid varieties, where the only requirement is that one of the snake's ancestors was not a cornsnake.

[Saydrah]

Ah, okay, that's interesting- I didn't know you could breed snakes for temperament the way you can with mammals! It makes sense now that I think about it, but it's kind of strange being a mammal person to imagine 100 snake hatchlings inheriting either a predisposition to be friendly or to be nasty and ill tempered. I can imagine that difficult feeders would be a real pain, too, especially with 100 to feed

Conformation is an important consideration with most mammals- it is basically a well put together animal. Like, say, the difference between a stray cat with flat haunches, huge jowls, kinda looks like he got his parts from different catalogs, versus a purebred Snowshoe, described as 'a symphony of circles' in the breed standard.

Funny Anecdote:

When I showed my rats last year at a show in Illinois, the fairgrounds people booked a reptile show RIGHT- two hours- after the rat show ended. Many near fistfights ensued when the herpers started setting up as we were clearing out and a couple smartass examples of that hobby tried to buy rats by the dozen off the people from the rat show. There was no bloodshed, which disappointed, as I was hoping to see the special ed teacher/club president/cute happy lady shove the biker dude's head up his rectal cavity.

[TheSnakeLady]

LOL... well true. My sister always gives me a guilt trip whenever the subject of my mice in my freezer comes up. "It's murder. All those hundreds of tiny lives." I dunno... I think it would be murder if I let my snakes starve... >.> Still... it is rather rude to go to a rat fancier or rabbit fancier show and try to buy someone's pets for feeders.

There are all kinds, though I have noticed the reptile hobby seems to attract more of the piercings/tattoo/leather crowd, at least as far as the casual herpers are concerned. Most of the breeders I know, however, are just regular average everyday people... you certainly wouldn't pick them out of a crowd as being snake keepers, let alone having hundreds of critters in their basements.

[Saydrah]

As long as they're humanely euth'd and you feed frozen/thawed I have exactly 0 problem with snake keeping. Not my thing at this point in time, but they're neat animals. However, the near-fistfight was pretty funny.

My friend with both rats and corns is super normal.

Rat people tend to be hot. That's the one trend I've noticed in the rat community. When I meet a big group of rat people I'm usually surprised at what a large percentage are very attractive.

[Rubystars]

I love snakes. I'm hoping to get a corn snake in the future. I went to one reptile show here in Houston and I had a lot of fun. They even had some tanks with local venomous snakes in them so people could see what they looked like. One of them was a cottonmouth which had a GOLDEN belly. It was so beautiful!

[Amethyst Hunter]

I think snakes are neat, but I don't know that I could keep one as a pet - depending on what it ate, I probably wouldn't have the stomach for feeding it certain things. I'm just oddly sensitive like that.

I kind of would like a tarantula though. But that'll never happen unless I ever move out on my own. My parents HATE critters of the creepy-crawly persuasion (My dad at least has an excuse; he despises snakes because he saw so many freaky things in Vietnam).

I got to see a $14,000 snake once at Red Dog Blue Cat Store. I forget the exact name of it, but this guy (an experienced herp-keeper) called it a reticulated type of python. It was really cool, had this purplish sheen to its scales.

[Seshat]

Not sure what a conformation factor is

I was reading a pitbull breeder's site once, and she explained conformation in great detail. The summary of it is: does the animal have a healthy bone/muscle structure for their breed.

If the ribcage is too long, the animal will suffer in X way. If the haunches are too high, the animal suffers in Y way. If the muzzle is too short, the animal suffers in Z way, and so on, and so on.

Breed colour restrictions are for the same sort of reason: essentially, if a colour has so far always been associated with a health fault, the colour is banned from the breed. Presumably if the colour appears without being associated with the health fault, the colour will become permitted.

[TheSnakeLady]

Rubystars, if you're looking for a cornsnake in Texas, I recommend you check out South Mountain Reptiles. Don's a great guy and has some awesome cornsnakes.

Amethyst Hunter - If you can't stomach defrosting a mouse and offering it to a snake, then do not get a snake. There are no vegetarian snakes, and I'm only aware of 2 types of snakes that are insectivores -- neither of which are common in the pet trade. Be careful of what kind of tarantula you get. Some of the larger ones may require similar feeding. A good place to get tarantulas from is Botar by 8's.

Seshat - Thanks for the explaination. There's not really a conformation factor in cornsnakes then... well, beyond making sure the snake is not deformed overall. Cornsnake morphs are more analagous to the different colors that dogs can have. There aren't really different "breeds". (There is a cornsnake registry though.)

[Captain Kidd]

Hmm, this is actually making me consider ... maybe when the Midshipman (son) is a bit older. At least an Ensign if not First Lt.