Load Earlier Messages
aviva · 5 years ago
@Xvarnah Ok. “How to sex a snake“ can be really misunderstood lol. So you basically mean you don‘t want Snake babies?
xvarnah · 5 years ago
Haha I suppose it could at that. And tbh snake babies are pretty adorable. But you can't house snakes together anyway. They're solitary and need their own space. I was referring more to them being able to smell each other. The females go into a kind of ovulation period, which can be heightened by knowing a male is nearby, and the male will respond by fasting and some people have reported becoming VERY active and trying to escape and such. Basically not horrendous behaviours (unlike, say, a male Iguana), but I actually find it stressful anytime the snakes fast because I have to make sure it's not something wrong with their husbandry etc. A lot of people are fine with it, but some people have to house their snakes in different rooms altogether, and it's just a situation Id prefer to avoid.
funkmasterrex · 5 years ago
Sexing a snake is pretty hard. I only learned Patches was a female when I took her to the vet for the first time. I has suspicions due to the way the tail tapered off, but I wasn't going to put her through me finding out 100%.... plus I didn't have anything to compare anal spurs with.
xvarnah · 5 years ago
^ indeed. I was lucky, again, the guy I bought mine from had sexed her ahead of time. Otherwise I could only hazard a guess based on her size and the anal spurs-- which I somehow forgot they have once and saw one of hers sticking out against her mat.. Nearly had a heart attack, thought she had a hook stuck in her ripping her scales off somehow <_<
funkmasterrex · 5 years ago
ooohh yeah that'd make me freak as well. I mean, a rat, while dying once bit my Patches and drew a single drop of blood... which caused me (about 13 at the time) to sprint out of my neighborhood, down the street, and into a Target shouting for my mom to come help. (This is also the first time Patches went to the vet). I'm betting if parsed, I was running a sub-4 minute mile. Zoooooooooooooooooooooom
xvarnah · 5 years ago
Well I mean that's not entirely unreasonable. Rat bites can turn very severe very quickly. The worst "injury' I think my girl ever had was when early on I had her and she had a small piece of shed stuck to her and when I was attempting to pick her up to help she tried to scoot away and it caught. There was the minutest bit of blood on the shed piece after and none on her, but I was panicking and completely freaked out and checking her all over for injuries... I've been fortunate that she'd never had to go to a vet for anything medical so far but I can only imagine how fast I'd be going if I thought she needed to haha
aviva · 5 years ago
@Xvarnah Understood. Do they attack each other if they stay together? My brother had a dog who was excessively desperate when it came to mating. Once, a female dog we had was on heat and we had to separate them because we didn‘t want puppies. My brother did not want to get it neutered too. My brother‘s dog squeezed itself through an opening to get to the female dog. A nail left a deep wound on it‘s head(just missing it‘s eyes). The male dog did not seem to care. At the end of the day, he still did not succeed.
xvarnah · 5 years ago
@aviva males will attack each other. Males and females will breed. Females may tolerate each other, but it's generally very stressful for the snakes, and it makes it very hard to feed them
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No offence but that was incredibly selfish and negligent on your brother's part. Heat and such are incredibly hard on animals, as are the instincts that drive them during this time. Not to mention the fallout of unwanted puppies. I hope to God he's either learned his lesson, or else not able to handle a dog in the future until such time as he does learn.
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There's a horse show called Cavalia. They have I think over a hundred horses, but because they require stallions for some of the performances (stallions are male horses that have not been neutered) they don't use any female horses in the show at all. Every horse is either a stallion or a gelding (a male horse that has been neutered). This is for the benefit and safety of all the horses and their handlers
xvarnah · 5 years ago
Horses aren't dogs, but the instinct to reproduce is incredibly strong both species, and I'm not surprised the male dog underwent such damage over it
jade · 5 years ago
I’m joining late, but, first off... if FS were a real life community/town or something... there’d be a lot of robots walking around.
xvarnah · 5 years ago
So we'd be Detroit
xvarnah · 5 years ago
As a side note I wouldn't recommend keeping a robot as a pet as it draws entirely too many ethics into question and then inevitably a committee gets formed and it's just a mess altogether. Not to mention some of them become a bit obsessed with obtaining succulent meat
lolcats121 · 5 years ago
idk but i think everyone would hate me
aviva · 5 years ago
@xvarnah You make snakes sound friendly(not saying they aren‘t). I live around a lot of people who feel snakes aren‘t meant to be pets.
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He has learned his lesson.
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Is that where the “men are dogs“ saying comes from?
xvarnah · 5 years ago
That depends on the species, but overall they aren't friendly. Snakes are predators whose entire defence system tends to involve launching their face at something at high speeds. Aside from putting them in a hugely vulnerable position, it also runs the risk of their fangs getting stuck and ripping out or breaking off.
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Most snakes, especially tiny ones, are just thinking "if I can't eat you, you can probably eat me, so please just leave me alone." Even hand-reared ball pythons raised from birth have to have a lot of time spent usually (or at least from what I've heard) before they become comfortable with people and being handled. Most come out of their eggs ready to bite.
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They're not social and socializing isn't natural to them (the part of the brain dedicated to social interaction is very small in snakes) so, no, overall snakes aren't "friendly."
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xvarnah · 5 years ago
As to whether you should keep them as pets.. Again, depends on the person and the pet. There's a lot of species that probably shouldn't be kept, and others that should only be kept by a very experience, knowledgeable, and prepared adult. And when I say adult I mean with no children on the residence, either. It may be overkill, but better overkill than actual death.
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When it comes to the other species, however, particularly the more popular ones... I don't see how it's any different than choosing to own a bird, a cat, a dog, a fox, a bearded dragon, a turtle, a horse, a fish.
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If you know what you're doing, are prepared for the responsibility, and can give the animal a humane life than I've seen no logical argument against doing so. Honestly owning pets like spiders and snakes I think is very important because it gives people an opportunity to teach people-- especially kids-- that they're not just evil, bloodthirsty, creepy-crawly monsters
xvarnah · 5 years ago
Haha I guess that could be part of it
aviva · 5 years ago
@xvarnah Woah. Thank you for the information. Do your cats or other pets bother your snake?
xvarnah · 5 years ago
All my other pets have passed away except for a hermit crab. I only had my female cat when I got my snake and she was old and deaf and arthritic and didn't have any interest in the tank that was suddenly there.
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She did stop and watch her occasionally when the snake was out at night and stretching to the top of the tank, but otherwise she didn't have much interest