Re: OT/Snake Becomes Buddies With 'Dinner'


"just a mom" <joustamom@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:11t1774afc3vaf3@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Hi Tiny!
>
> >"Gohan" the hamster was supposed to be dinner.
>
> >But now he and a rat snake are best buddies.
>
> Years and years ago, my then-husband told me that if I brought home
> anymore animals, he would divorce me. I made it 6 months before the
> cutest little baby red (albino) cornsnake in history showed up at
> the shelter where I worked. I brought her home and named her
> Relapse. She lived to be 15 years old and just a couple inches shy
> of 6 feet. He didn't divorce me that year, and when he finally did,
> his excuse was that I'd gotten fat (I was pregnant) and his reason
> was the really gorgeous (and sweet) 18-year-old girl who'd fallen
> for his charms. But all that aside...
>
> If I gave Relapse a critter when she was not hungry, she wouldn't
> eat it. Relapse and the critter would live happily together for as
> long as I left it in her tank. If she was hungry later and I hadn't
> taken the critter out, she'd eat any new one I put in with her, and
> leave the old one healthy and hale. The only way to get her to eat
> a critter she'd lived with for a while was to pull it out for a
> couple of weeks and then reintroduce it when she was hungry again.
> My conclusion was that while she considered someone she "knew" as a
> friend and therefor inedible, her little tiny snake-brain couldn't
> retain "friend" memories for more than a couple of weeks of
> separation.
>
> I once introduced two finches to her when she was not hungry, and
> they lived together for well over a year. The finches would fly
> around in her tank (they had more space in the tank than they'd
> had in their cage) and poo on her and drop seed-husks on her and
> she seemed quite happy about it. The finches eventually died of
> natural causes. She didn't eat their little corpses.
>
> And yes, Relapse ate birds as well as rodents. She simply wasn't
> hungry when I placed those two finches into her tank, so she made
> friends with them and loved them as best a snake can love. Which
> was primarily by letting them live.
>
> Dani K.

Hi Dani,

I'm just amazed by your tales. Never would have thought a snake would get
*chummy* with other creatures like that. Learn something new every day. I
know I could never own one though. I just can't get around the 'feeding'
part of it. Good thing dogs eat that dry food, or I'd be up *** creek. ;)

best,

td
>


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