People get sniffy about the term ‘beginner’ snake. They seem to think there is some throw away connotation to it. This is certainly not what we intend or what we mean when we use the term ‘Beginner’. We mean family friendly, hardy, personable and generally awesome!!
Snakes can live in excess of two decades and we would love to think that snakes are bought with a forever home in mind.
We have chosen from over 70 species / Sub-species of snake to bring you the top ten. These are judged on qualities that make a snake a beginner snake. Charles and Paul’s chief quality of choice is hardiness. The rest can fall into place with time, but hardiness is key.
Temperament and territoriality are chief concerns amongst beginners coming into the shop. They are not the same. Some snakes are more defensive of their space than others. Once out and about in a keepers hands this usually diminishes. Territoriality is behaviour and demeanour within the enclosure. Temperament is judging those factors outside of the enclosure.
Adult Size. There is a goldilocks size of snake for the beginner. Not too small, not too big but just right. Too small and they may want specialist prey to get them started feeding. too big and they may intimidate the novice. Usually anything between 75-140(ish) cm in length depending on build gets the perfect 10.
Appetite. Many novices are mammal keepers earlier in life. They are tuned to feeding daily. A chief source of stress for the keeper is feeding. If animals later in life (particularly males) have issues with fasting and breeding season blues this will be reflected in the scores.
We hope this is of use to new or inexperienced keepers. We hope it inspires you to look at some of the awesome options you have available. Diversity is the spice of life and only by promoting it can we safeguard it.
What are your thoughts? Some thing missing, what would you have chosen and why?
Comment below.
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Chaz and Paul.