Snakes

Red Corn Snake

Living in Florida there were always snakes around and I had a few at various times as pets. The first one I can remember was, I think, a yellow rat snake. I kept in a small five-gallon aquarium on the bookcase in the family room. I raised mice to feed it which kept in a box I built for them in my bedroom. Inside the mouse box was small Christmas light that hung from a cord to keep them warm. On the bottom of the box I put sawdust. One day the mice either to get closer to the light or to cover it up pilled sawdust up against the light and it started smoking and almost caught on fire. Fortunately Mom was home and put it out in time but the smoke killed all the mice.

Garter Snake

After I moved out of the house in 1971 and was living with Bill Lassister I once again had snakes for pets, 13 of them. Several friends and I, Bill, Bobby and some others would get in a car and go out to a small country road that went along the edge of Praines Prairie just after it got dark. The snakes would come up on the road because it was warm and we would sit on the hood of the car and drive real slow and when we saw a snake would jump off and catch it.

Ring Neck Snake

We had all different kinds: red corn snake, yellow rat, garter, mud snake, ring neck, black snake and others. One night Bill was coming home from someplace and he saw a rattlesnake on the road and he got out, found a box and caught it. It was not big, a little over a foot long. All the snakes we had in various aquariums in the house. One day the guy next door (we lived in a duplex) said that black snakes were immune to rattlesnakes and a big black snake would eat rattlesnakes. So we had to test this theory. We got out both the black snake and the rattlesnake and put them on the ground together and using a stick kept pushing them together until the rattlesnake finally struck the black snake. Well the theory is wrong. Within five minutes or so it was dead. A year or so later I ended up letting all the snakes go.