Snakes Are Cool! Did You Celebrate?

I was ssssssssssso busy making party hats for my ball python Necco and my daughter’s ball python Hordak that I missed World Snake Day on July 16.

World Snake Day was started as a day to raise awareness for the give-or-take 3,500 species of snakes around the world. These reptiles aid in medical research and are natural pest control in their native habitats. As a kid, my parents allowed me to take classes on snakes at the local science museum (much to the chagrin of my relatives). My love of reptiles passed on to my own kids as my daughter saved up and co-bought her pet snake as a Christmas present in 2019. My snake, Necco, came as a stay-at-home stimulus purchase.

Why does my family love snakes as pets?

• You only have to scoop the poop 1-4 times a month (less if you have a bioactive habitat).
• They are slow-moving. Honestly, they just want to curl up and be warm in our hoodies.
• They offer sensory stimulation. They are smooth, not slimy, and will lightly wrap around your wrist or torso to the same degree as a compression article clothing (at least at the size ours are now).
• You only have to feed them 1-4 times a month. Granted, they do eat rats, which are really cute, but if you get them humanely pre-dead and frozen, and your snake is trained to eat frozen-thawed meals, it makes it a little easier.
• They won’t be big when fully grown. Meaning, since we have males, they will only get to be about 5 feet long. Other species are smaller but less calm.

Our favorite family-friendly snake experts are Snake Discovery and Clint’s Reptiles. I highly recommend checking these channels on YouTube out if you have a little future herpetologist living with you—or an adult one, for that matter.

What is your favorite species of snake?