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BALL PYTHONS.....

Discussion in 'Lounge' started by ToddPhin, Oct 21, 2017.

  1. ToddPhin

    ToddPhin Premium Member Luxury Box Club Member

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    Just curious if there are any collectors or breeders here. I have a handful myself and figured there’s gotta be a few of you who have them as pets or are passionate about the hobby.
    These are a few of mine.

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    Last edited: Nov 1, 2017
  2. KeyFin

    KeyFin Well-Known Member

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    My first thought- why would anyone raise something that will eventually try to eat you?

    My brother had a huge python back in the 80's (maybe a boa...not sure since I was a kid). Long story short, it disappeared one day and they spent an entire week looking for it. This sucker was at least 15 feet long and almost as big around as a football...so it's not like it could just vanish in downtown Davie. Yet it did.

    Fast forward three years. My brother had moved out of that apartment and bought a house less than a quarter mile away on the same street. He hears a woman screaming and then the sound of sirens, cop car after cop car zips past his house. So he goes outside and the cops are going to his old apartment...

    He runs down the street, looks in the wide-open apartment door and there's his snake Trucker, with about 4 cops standing there with guns pointed at it. So he walks over, picks up the snake and says, "I've been looking for him," then he turns around and walks back home. The snake was up in the air vent above the apartment for three freaking years....and the new tenant had one of those yappy dogs that just won't shut up. I guess Trucker got tired of it and he plopped out of a vent above this woman's bed and ate the dog with one bite right on top of her.

    Ever since then, I've said, "Oh hell no...I don't want anything to do with snakes. Sneaky little bastards."

    One more cool story though- I live out in the country in South Carolina. When we bought our home 6-7 years ago, there was a black snake about the size of the boa I just described. It was up in the rafters above the garage and I literally thought I was going to have a heart attack when I first spotted him.....it was like the Trucker story all over again. I had a neighbor catch it and toss him out in the woods behind our house. And about four hours later, he was back in the darn garage again! I haven't seen him in years but I'm still careful....that thing scares the crap out of me. His fangs are literally 3 inches long.

    About a month ago, I was cutting the grass and I saw another behemoth- he was over 15 feet and just cruising across my yard towards the woods and the pond. He clearly saw me and heard the riding mower yet he wasn't phased....he just kept slithering along and passed me about 10 feet away. I noticed that each time he slithered in my direction after he was past me, he'd turn just a little more than he had to in order to glance my way. It was probably the most majestic thing I've ever seen in my life....I was so angry that I didn't have my phone to take a picture. His patterns looked like a corn or a rat snake but nothing online looked exactly like him...but nothing online was that big either. It was tan with dark diamond patterns but it didn't have the pointed head like rattlesnakes (the patterns weren't quite right for a rattler or copperhead either).

    There was a shovel nearby but there's no way I could have killed it, I was too in awe of something that big and beautiful in the wild.
     
  3. ToddPhin

    ToddPhin Premium Member Luxury Box Club Member

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    :lol:

    First of all, unless you’re 4 inches tall, a ball python ain’t eatin ya. They’re dwarf pythons. Males get about 3 feet.... and females 4-5. The largest thing they’re eating is a rat. Plus they’re quite timid.


    Haha at the story!

    I’d like to know which type of snake it was at that size hiding in your barn bc it doesn’t sound like anything indigenous, especially with fangs that long.
    The large diamondy one you described in the field sounds like a reticulated python that someone may have let go (or escaped). They have all types of crazy colors, but did the pattern look something like this below?
    I personally would never own a snake capable of eating an adult deer or small cow, lol. Should be illegal to sell and own them in this country. Ball pythons though, my 4 yr old granddaughter holds ‘em.

    [​IMG]
     
  4. KeyFin

    KeyFin Well-Known Member

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    The patterns did look like that but the snake's main color was grey with a tan tint...maybe a shade or two darker than what you see in the patterns within your picture. Then the diamonds were a darker grey/tan and a black center- he/she was gorgeous! Majestic is the only word I can describe it with.

    The one in my garage was a black snake...at least that's what my neighbor said. The snake bit the crap out of him the first time and locked down on his arm then started spinning/wrapping up, I swear that I almost passed out just watching it. My neighbor bled everywhere but he's the rugged outdoor type that just shrugs that kind of thing off....he said it gave him a little bit of a stomach ache but that's about it. When he pried the snake's mouth off him the fangs were curved needles about the size of a toothpick, I think I was in shock.

    I'm a big tough guy but when it comes to that....nope. Not me. I wanted to run away and scream like a little girl.
     
    Last edited: Oct 24, 2017
  5. ToddPhin

    ToddPhin Premium Member Luxury Box Club Member

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    Da fuq?! That big, that aggressive, teeth that long, that much bleeding, and no poison?? I’d really like to know what that was bc it doesn’t sound like a regular black rat snake. Those things are usually smaller, skinnier, and timid enough that you could walk right up to one, pick it up, and wrap it around your pecker without fear of biting it off, not that I would recommend testing it or anything. Maybe it was a really dark Burmese python?

    Last try for me, was the other one like this then?

    [​IMG]


    How ‘bout the emoji ball python? You like this one?
    [​IMG]
     
  6. Boik14

    Boik14 Season Ticket Holder Club Member

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    I don't like snakes. Either on the ground or human form. Luckily the ones on the ground are not seen often on Long Island...more towards the east end of Long Island where it's more wooded and secluded.
     
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  7. ToddPhin

    ToddPhin Premium Member Luxury Box Club Member

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    Awww, are you afraid that holding them will ruin your freshly done nails Sally? :tongue:

    My granddaughter says hello. :p
    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited: Nov 1, 2017
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  8. Boik14

    Boik14 Season Ticket Holder Club Member

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    Bro...somethings just flip the switch for you. Snakes make me want to grab a bat or a rock and bludgeon them. Im not afraid, so much as id like to just banish them from the planet...or just send them all to north korea.
     
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  9. KeyFin

    KeyFin Well-Known Member

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    Both snakes were bigger around than your big guy up there...the coloring is close to the one strolling through my backyard but the head was a different shape. Again, it's hard to tell because it was so darn big. He looked very close to this (which was labeled as a texas rat). See how his head doesn't flare out though like your python's? Both snakes had a head like that. The pattern is similar to copperheads around here but the head told me it wasn't one...plus I don't think they can get that enormous anyway.

    [​IMG]

    For the one in the garage, it doesn't look exactly like the black snake photos I'm seeing...most of the ones in this area have a little white under their heads and this one didn't. Plus the size itself didn't add up. Could it have been a small anaconda someone had as a pet?

    [​IMG]
     
  10. ToddPhin

    ToddPhin Premium Member Luxury Box Club Member

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    So you'd prefer to rid the world of the creatures that help keep the disease ridden rats and mice in check? :tongue2:

    Spiders kinda do it for me, but mostly because walking into a web creeps me out, and I don't particularly like the thought of tiny potentially poisonous things hiding in, under, or behind something that I'm about to stick my hand or foot in. I have a large orb weaver in the corner of my porch though who I don't have any problems with b/c she builds and rebuilds her web in the same exact place every evening and never ventures away from that spot.

    Kinda marvelous what she does and how she creates her web. Takes her hours to make this glorious thing each evening, then come sunlight she eats the entire web to recycle the raw material. She repeats the entire process every day. Probably one of the most amazing things I've seen. I figured- you gotta respect something that's harmless and works that hard and that diligently to do its thing. Explained her to my granddaughter and now she's fascinated by her. Now she warns everyone who comes over to not hurt her or tear down her web and then excitedly describes her whole process to them, lol.
    [​IMG]
     
  11. Rocky Raccoon

    Rocky Raccoon Greasepaint Ghost Staff Member

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    [​IMG]
     
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  12. ToddPhin

    ToddPhin Premium Member Luxury Box Club Member

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    That one in the top pick is pretty. I only get the regular black rat snakes (with the white undersides) in my yard. I think they live in old mole tunnels. One of these days I’m gonna catch one of these moles- I frustratedly feel like Bill Murray in Caddyshack.

    When we were doing some work on the house (fixing some water damage in the laundry room), one of the inside walls of our back room adjacent to the laundry room was compromised at the floor.... so mice were migrating under the house and coming up into that room, making nests and getting into bird seed. Rather than closing off the little hole and diverting the mice elsewhere, I wanted ‘em gone period so I left the hole there and set some traps. A few days later I go in to investigate, and as soon as I open the door and look left toward the hole, I see a black rat snake’s head peaking out. So I do the only appropriate thing a man can do when confronted with this predicament— I call my unsuspecting wife into the room. :lol: Of course she flips out and screams bloody murder, like Bam Margera’s mom from Jackass when she sees the alligator in her house, lol. She’s frantically shouting “KILL IT KILL IT, GET RID OF THAT DAMN THING!!”. So I’m like- “Leave him alone, he’ll leave when his food source is gone. Right now he’s my helper.” Sure enough, a week later the mice were no more, and mr snakey moved back out to the yard somewhere.

    For your snakes to be as thick around as you described and with larger needle-like teeth, they sound like perhaps a Burmese python, and those have a bit narrower heads, like anacondas. Could all the snakes have been the same species, as in- maybe there’s a pair nearby that had babies? Some of them can have darker patterns, not sure about all black though.

    Here’s the Burmese python.... Or was the head on the one in your yard still narrower than this?
    [​IMG]

    Here’s a really dark Burmese in someone’s yard in Columbia SC.... although it might be a reticulated, I can’t really tell. Looks like it’s at least 15 feet.
    [​IMG]

    Large adult python teeth:
    [​IMG]

    Boas have many more teeth than that, and they’re smaller, like a slew of short skinny insulin needles, so it doesn’t sound like a boa. Doesn’t hurt as much or bleed as much when they snap at you. It’s annoying though bc they’re teeth curve backward, so when they do bite you and wrap up, you have to pry their jaws off.


    One I forgot about is the Eastern Indigo snake, but they’re usually not found beyond southern South Carolina. They’re thicker than black rats, have a crop of tiny needle-like teeth, and don’t have white bellies.
    [​IMG]

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    [​IMG]

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    That’s one ugly nasty looking snake man. Not sure why anyone would wanna own one of those things. Be crazy if you actually have 2 different types of huge snakes inhabiting your nearby surroundings. At least they’re non venomous.
     
    Last edited: Nov 1, 2017
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  13. KeyFin

    KeyFin Well-Known Member

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    This one looks almost identical...the head is a little longer than I remember but the patterns are almost dead on. I saw mine in direct sunlight so the colors were a little more vibrant (a little more grey than the brown pictured), but that could be the same snake. The side view of the head makes it a little tougher though...it could be right. Columbia is 100 miles from here so it's not the same snake, but it could be a second cousin! That's definitely closer in color/size than what I posted.

    I was also thinking about it and my grass was real high that day...it had rained like mad for almost two weeks here (it was right after Hurricane Irma). I have about a 3 acre field in my back yard that leads down to a big pond and some woods, so that might be why the big fella was out exploring. Now that the grass is short for the seasonal changes, he may not come back out in the open.

    On the black one in the garage, all I saw were the front fangs as he pulled it off him. They look about right though, curved and wicked.


    That could be the snake...I saw Eastern Indigo online but I didn't realize they lived around here. I'm about as NW as you can get in SC though, I'm basically at the foot of all the mountains. The head looks right, the size looks right, and I'm not positive about the teeth. I only saw the teeth for a fraction of a second though and all that was visible was the front curved fangs....and you'd better believe that I was backing up as well. It's been six years now but I have a feeling that I will see this big fella again.

    Here's the other thing- my neighbor who removed the black snake the 2nd time was also there for round one (a different neighbor caught round one while we watched)...he thought the 1st one was bigger and it could be two different snakes. So it's possible that we have a mating pair somewhere around here and I don't want to even think about that.
     
    Last edited: Oct 26, 2017
  14. RGF

    RGF THE FINSTER Club Member

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    Why...WHY , did I stumble upon this thread ? I openly admit I'm 10x worse than any woman or child when it comes to those bastardly creatures. Spiders, bugs, large insects, nope doesnt bother me in the least. BUT SNAKES ....I have a hateful fear of like no other. In fact , if I lived in an area where they are plentiful I would only leave the house with axe in hand. Never, no how, no way would I ever touch one, regardless of how "tame" Im told it is. NEVER.

    And here I am, reading stories about snakes eating dogs and suggestions of putting one of these horrific monsters square upon the johnson. Holy Good Lord. My day is ruined..ruined I tell ya.
     
  15. ToddPhin

    ToddPhin Premium Member Luxury Box Club Member

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    Hey you wanna come over for Thanksgiving? Already have the guest room made up. Just don't look in the closet.
     
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  16. RGF

    RGF THE FINSTER Club Member

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    Depends. Can I bring a chain saw along with me ? Cause, you know, cant be TOO careful these days. Something may appear out of nowhere that may require a good hackin' .

    Thanks for the invite .
     
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  17. ToddPhin

    ToddPhin Premium Member Luxury Box Club Member

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    No thanks Lorena Bobbitt.
     
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  18. RGF

    RGF THE FINSTER Club Member

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    Hahahaha...good one.
     
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  19. danmarino

    danmarino Tua is H1M! Club Member

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    I love ya Key, but I think your fear of snakes is causing you to exaggerate. lol....
     
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  20. KeyFin

    KeyFin Well-Known Member

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    It KILLS me that I didn't get photos- I was too scared on the first one and too far away from my phone on the 2nd one. If there's any nutjobs in the Western Carolinas that want to come over to go monster hunting with me though, I'll gladly stand 20 feet behind you and film the whole darn thing. If it bites you and I see big fangs...sorry, I can't help ya.

    I'd still love to know for sure what the 2nd one was and I guarantee you that it lives in the woods on the back of my property right next to a 2-acre pond. It was AT LEAST 15 feet though...I was absolutely in awe.
     
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  21. Big Phin

    Big Phin Active Member

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    My son had a ball python but the thing would never eat. We tried everything. I finally found a breeder that tried to help us but it was too late. that snake actually was pretty cool and helped me get over my irrational fear of snakes. Now it's just fear. :cool:

    Then, he gets a bearded dragon. Since they won't let him have it in college, now I have a bearded dragon. *sigh* :blink:
     
  22. McLovin

    McLovin Resident Pats fan.

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    This thread has the most thought out responses I have ever seen Todd post.

    Ever.
     
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  23. danmarino

    danmarino Tua is H1M! Club Member

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    lol...You should see his posts in the Club. It's almost as if he's two different people!
     
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  24. cuchulainn

    cuchulainn Táin Bó Cúailnge Club Member

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    The bigger the snake the easier they are to spot... around here we get lots of water mocs/cotton mouths, copper heads, and what we call black runners that are fast as hell but harmless.

    We live 30 yards from a small private lake that is about 4 acres large so we see snakes from time to time.

    The copperheads are the most dangerous and aggressive. I killed one that was on my back patio last summer. Little bastid was the same color as the fiber door mat. I went out the door in a pair of shorts and flip flops and stepped over him. Didn't see him until our dotty went nuts as she was in the house and saw him thru the windows of the french doors. I tried to pick him up with some sticks to move him but he wasn't having it and was lurching himself at me trying to strike. Said fk it and chopped his head off with a hoe.

    When I was a kid we used to walk the rivers and creeks fishing. Me and a buddy were fishing once and I had 3 fish on a stringer tied to a belt loop. Felt the stringer getting tugged and thought it was tangled or snagged. Looked back and a damn copperhead had swam up behind me and bitten all 3 fish. I was in thigh deep water and he was like 3' from me. I pulled out a little 22 caliber pistol and shot him in his mouth as he was baring his fangs at me.

    Not a fan of slithery things with hypodermic needles for teeth who are ambush predators.
     
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  25. aesop

    aesop Well-Known Member

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    I have a 4 limb rule for pets.
     
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  26. ToddPhin

    ToddPhin Premium Member Luxury Box Club Member

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    Ball pythons can easily climb 4 limbs.
     
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  27. KeyFin

    KeyFin Well-Known Member

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    One of my more vivid memories as a young teen was walking along a road next to a canal and spotting a healthy 4 1/2 foot snake down in the water. There were three of us and another kid ran to a nearby friend's house, "borrowed" a pool/leaf net, and then scooped this thing out of the water. We're like a 1/4 mile from home and we're spinning this snake around in the net, throwing it at each other, etc.

    We're passing my house and the neighbor across the street sees us, runs out to the road, and then tells us that we're freaking idiots...that's a water moccasin. We didn't believe him at first because he seemed pretty docile, but the neighbor made us drop the net in the grass and he lit it up with his pistol.

    There were a lot of non-poisonous snakes down in Ft. Lauderdale though, lots of milk snakes, black racers, rat snakes, etc. I had a black racer I used to play with on my back deck- he's stick his head up through one of the boards, I'd run towards him and then he'd disappear....only to pop back up 20 feet away. I probably chased him around for a month and never did catch him.....they are lightning fast and pretty darn smart.
     
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  28. cuchulainn

    cuchulainn Táin Bó Cúailnge Club Member

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    My son spent a couple years in Zambia. We went over and visited with him this year and we all came back in Sep. He has always liked snakes and the locals over there where he was deployed are deathly scared of them as they have several of the deadliest on earth including cobras, and green and black mambas.

    Anyway they learned that the big white boy liked snakes and would remove them from their homes if they asked him. He sent me this pic last year - it's a green mamba he ended up killing as he couldn't safely catch it and couldn't get it to leave a family's room shack. Was just too deadly to leave around their home with little kids being around. He cut it's head off with a machete. The family was really grateful...



    [​IMG]
     
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  29. aesop

    aesop Well-Known Member

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    the proper way to view a snake.
     
  30. cuchulainn

    cuchulainn Táin Bó Cúailnge Club Member

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    Yeah, he later skinned it, cooked it over a fire and at it. Said "it wasn't that good". lol...
     
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  31. ToddPhin

    ToddPhin Premium Member Luxury Box Club Member

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    Cuch's favorite way to view a snake: "unzip"
     
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  32. McLovin

    McLovin Resident Pats fan.

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    wait, Todd has a grandchild?
     
  33. ToddPhin

    ToddPhin Premium Member Luxury Box Club Member

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    yeah, but I skipped the part where I have my own kid first though.
     
  34. aesop

    aesop Well-Known Member

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    The milkman had your back?
     
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  35. ToddPhin

    ToddPhin Premium Member Luxury Box Club Member

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    I wish. Probably wouldn't get nagged as often if he did.
     
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  36. McLovin

    McLovin Resident Pats fan.

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    [​IMG]
     
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