i just read(what was ur first DWA?)

[ermgravy]

ok i might of well misinterpreted that but i still find it hard to see how telling the op to go find some adders for pics or to handle as a first introduction is valuable advise?

[Owzy]

Originally Posted by ermgravy

ok i might of well misinterpreted that but i still find it hard to see how telling the op to go find some adders for pics or to handle as a first introduction is valuable advise?

Again I don't want to be pedantic but I didn't tell them to go and find them, I just recounted my experiences.

[terciopelo_dave]

To the OP. Allow me to answer your query as best I can. Please forgive me if I seem overly critical, I mean no offence. I just want to leave you in no doubt of what is ahead of you if you want to pursue this route.
As a firm advocate of mentorship, allow me to explain what I mean by it. Being mentored is having pre-existing skills honed and improved upon. You would not be taught basic handling skills.
The first thing you would need to do is gain infinately more experience than it appears you have (my apologies if I'm wrong). From what I gather you currently own 2 burmese, 2 royals, and a boa. To put it simply, that's not enough. You need masses more experience handling a huge variety of non-venomous snakes before you could even consider asking someone to show you how to work with venomous species.
I started keeping reptiles at 7, and at 13 was lucky enough to get a saturday job in a reptile shop. I was only performing the most menial tasks, but it allowed me to gain experience with a larger number of species than I could have feasably kept at home. Obviously not everyone can be as fortunate as I was, but if you want to work with what you can't keep you'll have to be pro-active. Volunteer in shops or public displays, help out friends with large collections, etc. Just do whatever you can to broaden your skill set. To show venomous keepers you are serious, these are the type of steps you will have to take. Asking to see their collection out of the blue on a forum is not a good first step, and certainly not one that will be warmly received. I for one am very touchy about who gets to see my snakes and who doesn't. In most circumstances I would have to know someone personally before I would even consider it.
A friend of mine recently visited to see my collection and posted here concerning her experiences. Together with her partner they maintain a large collection of snakes and are certainly not new to aggressive species, but even they were shocked at the gulf that exists between venomous and non-venomous species in relation to day to day husbandry.
Her post is here:
What's wrong with non-venomous "trainer snakes" .... ? Absolutely everything.

I'd suggest reading it carefully and, with all due respect, keep venomous snakes a distant pipe dream until you have done at least a little of what I suggest.
Good luck.
Dave

[paulds]

Originally Posted by terciopelo_dave

To the OP. Allow me to answer your query as best I can. Please forgive me if I seem overly critical, I mean no offence. I just want to leave you in no doubt of what is ahead of you if you want to pursue this route.
As a firm advocate of mentorship, allow me to explain what I mean by it. Being mentored is having pre-existing skills honed and improved upon. You would not be taught basic handling skills.
The first thing you would need to do is gain infinately more experience than it appears you have (my apologies if I'm wrong). From what I gather you currently own 2 burmese, 2 royals, and a boa. To put it simply, that's not enough. You need masses more experience handling a huge variety of non-venomous snakes before you could even consider asking someone to show you how to work with venomous species.
I started keeping reptiles at 7, and at 13 was lucky enough to get a saturday job in a reptile shop. I was only performing the most menial tasks, but it allowed me to gain experience with a larger number of species than I could have feasably kept at home. Obviously not everyone can be as fortunate as I was, but if you want to work with what you can't keep you'll have to be pro-active. Volunteer in shops or public displays, help out friends with large collections, etc. Just do whatever you can to broaden your skill set. To show venomous keepers you are serious, these are the type of steps you will have to take. Asking to see their collection out of the blue on a forum is not a good first step, and certainly not one that will be warmly received. I for one am very touchy about who gets to see my snakes and who doesn't. In most circumstances I would have to know someone personally before I would even consider it.
A friend of mine recently visited to see my collection and posted here concerning her experiences. Together with her partner they maintain a large collection of snakes and are certainly not new to aggressive species, but even they were shocked at the gulf that exists between venomous and non-venomous species in relation to day to day husbandry.
Her post is here:
What's wrong with non-venomous "trainer snakes" .... ? Absolutely everything.

I'd suggest reading it carefully and, with all due respect, keep venomous snakes a distant pipe dream until you have done at least a little of what I suggest.
Good luck.
Dave

I cant agree with Dave more, there is no preparation, it is like comparing shooting a spud gun to an ouzi.

People talk about red rats being the most unpredictable, maybe, but they won't leave you in intensive care. I have no desire to keep hots for the foreseeable but it seems like it is fast becoming the holy grail for any rep keeper that doesn't have room for a retic or the stregnth for an afrock.

WLW has posted here on numerous occasions and he (as far as I can tell ) is as competant and as skilled a keeper then most but yet strangley he does not keep front fanged snakes, is it a case he has not reached the pinacle of his keeping experience or is it just he doesn't feel the need to jump to the front of the queue?

My advice to anyone looking to keep hots is go the mentoring route, for 99% of you being in the presence of a truly deadly snake without 5mm of safety glass protecting you will make you change your mind

[monkey26031985]

i once wanted a DWA i have kept snakes and lizards some nice some not so for 15 years had bad bites along the way i got bite from a burmese which was the biggest thing id been bite by and changed my mind i have seen people handle dwa snakes not as easy as it all sounds i have great respect for people who keep these snakes as they have 100% respect for there animals the advise you get take serious

[kerry and chris]

Originally Posted by terciopelo_dave

To the OP. Allow me to answer your query as best I can. Please forgive me if I seem overly critical, I mean no offence. I just want to leave you in no doubt of what is ahead of you if you want to pursue this route.
As a firm advocate of mentorship, allow me to explain what I mean by it. Being mentored is having pre-existing skills honed and improved upon. You would not be taught basic handling skills.
The first thing you would need to do is gain infinately more experience than it appears you have (my apologies if I'm wrong). From what I gather you currently own 2 burmese, 2 royals, and a boa. To put it simply, that's not enough. You need masses more experience handling a huge variety of non-venomous snakes before you could even consider asking someone to show you how to work with venomous species.
I started keeping reptiles at 7, and at 13 was lucky enough to get a saturday job in a reptile shop. I was only performing the most menial tasks, but it allowed me to gain experience with a larger number of species than I could have feasably kept at home. Obviously not everyone can be as fortunate as I was, but if you want to work with what you can't keep you'll have to be pro-active. Volunteer in shops or public displays, help out friends with large collections, etc. Just do whatever you can to broaden your skill set. To show venomous keepers you are serious, these are the type of steps you will have to take. Asking to see their collection out of the blue on a forum is not a good first step, and certainly not one that will be warmly received. I for one am very touchy about who gets to see my snakes and who doesn't. In most circumstances I would have to know someone personally before I would even consider it.
A friend of mine recently visited to see my collection and posted here concerning her experiences. Together with her partner they maintain a large collection of snakes and are certainly not new to aggressive species, but even they were shocked at the gulf that exists between venomous and non-venomous species in relation to day to day husbandry.
Her post is here:
What's wrong with non-venomous "trainer snakes" .... ? Absolutely everything.

I'd suggest reading it carefully and, with all due respect, keep venomous snakes a distant pipe dream until you have done at least a little of what I suggest.
Good luck.
Dave

hi dave thank you for the very well put answer. i didnt think me asking to see peoples dwa room would be something that everyone would have said "yea come round" lol as much as i wish they would. it was more just to get people to realise where i would like to get and that if i can prove myself to someone they already know what i want. im sorry i didnt write what experience i already have but just in brief . . . my partner and i are very passionate with all our animals and for a while now (i think 8or 9 months or so) have been volunteers in our local reptile shop where we have handled everything and anything that has come in. im not saying that they have had overly aggressive snakes, but im now the person that really handles most of the snakes ( the others do when there is time) i also clean, sweep, wash up so its not all great but have had experience with a few different types and still continue to go there as also during the saturday if the workers are busy and more customers come in we have learned all about the majority of the animals there and can give advise to almost any questions people have.
sorry for going on so long and before work lol we are both very into our reptiles and i would like very much to go down this road albeit slowly ( maybe start just by watching others for a while) but we cant do it on our own. even if this post never gets us anywhere at least we tried. i also understand that you would like to know someone personally and not just letting dreamers see your collections, we would be slightly worried about that and we only own a few constrictors

o yea its 2 burmese, 3 royals lol 3 more coming and a green tree python (maybe) the little boa
cheers for listening

[wildlifewarrior]

Originally Posted by paulds

WLW has posted here on numerous occasions and he (as far as I can tell ) is as competant and as skilled a keeper then most but yet strangley he does not keep front fanged snakes, is it a case he has not reached the pinacle of his keeping experience or is it just he doesn't feel the need to jump to the front of the queue?

To be fair i don't think ive ever said that once. I think terry and tom charlton will also agree.

[exoticsadmirer]

i do want to keep front fanged species at some point but to be honest the most agressive snake i own is a hatchling rat snake! so i think it'll be a long time before i'm even remotely ready to own one.

[leecb0]

Dave has some very good advice and i agree with what he says.
The problem is, and Dave will back me up on this, we here this question a all the time, and the reality is very very few actually move into venomous for many reasons.
In many hobbys and persuits people dream of getting to what they perseave to be the pinicle. For instance i was in the army and wanted to join the SAS........or when i raced cars i wanted to go faster.......and when i was into match fishing i wanted to fish for England......all goals and i may or may not have achieved them, but the point is a lot of people who keep snakes would like to keep venomous...
But to reach this you need to make serious sacrifices and put a lot of time and effort and indeed cash in.
Also i believe its one of those things you can either can or cant do...i have seen very good snake handlers who have no problem handling nast retics and the like freeze and if there honest st thereselves when it actually came down to dealing with the real deal. Its not something you can learn its something you have in you if you get my drift. for instance i always wanted to scuba dive and i learned in a swimming pool. i went into the sea off the African coast got into the water and saw all the big fish in the water and pood my pants and got out sharpish...mentally i dont have it in me...thats life.
The other thing people dont think of when saying "i want to get venomous" is IF something goes wrong and im lucky and end up in hospital for a while, who will pay the mortgage and bills etc also who will look after your snakes? And IF the worst happens what about your family?? These are some of the questions i ask people more than experience etc...its a big wake up call...do you really want them that bad??
But im going off topic a little...As for finding a mentor this can be a little difficult if you are looking at it right now, as you dont know anyone with a DWAL. But once you have been around the hobby a while and make friends with people and get to know people you will proberbly find somebody that keeps venomous and thats proberbly your best way in.
I live in the midlands and i have mentored in the past. I myself was lucky and mentored/trained by The best guy in the country but i fell into keeping them and never had any real urge to keep venomous but after becoming friends with the guy who mentored me i then realised this is what i wanted to do.
I hope you get to meet somebody to help you as doing it the right way is the only way.
Lee

[kerry and chris]

Originally Posted by leecb0

Dave has some very good advice and i agree with what he says.
The problem is, and Dave will back me up on this, we here this question a all the time, and the reality is very very few actually move into venomous for many reasons.
In many hobbys and persuits people dream of getting to what they perseave to be the pinicle. For instance i was in the army and wanted to join the SAS........or when i raced cars i wanted to go faster.......and when i was into match fishing i wanted to fish for England......all goals and i may or may not have achieved them, but the point is a lot of people who keep snakes would like to keep venomous...
But to reach this you need to make serious sacrifices and put a lot of time and effort and indeed cash in.
Also i believe its one of those things you can either can or cant do...i have seen very good snake handlers who have no problem handling nast retics and the like freeze and if there honest st thereselves when it actually came down to dealing with the real deal. Its not something you can learn its something you have in you if you get my drift. for instance i always wanted to scuba dive and i learned in a swimming pool. i went into the sea off the African coast got into the water and saw all the big fish in the water and pood my pants and got out sharpish...mentally i dont have it in me...thats life.
The other thing people dont think of when saying "i want to get venomous" is IF something goes wrong and im lucky and end up in hospital for a while, who will pay the mortgage and bills etc also who will look after your snakes? And IF the worst happens what about your family?? These are some of the questions i ask people more than experience etc...its a big wake up call...do you really want them that bad??
But im going off topic a little...As for finding a mentor this can be a little difficult if you are looking at it right now, as you dont know anyone with a DWAL. But once you have been around the hobby a while and make friends with people and get to know people you will proberbly find somebody that keeps venomous and thats proberbly your best way in.
I live in the midlands and i have mentored in the past. I myself was lucky and mentored/trained by The best guy in the country but i fell into keeping them and never had any real urge to keep venomous but after becoming friends with the guy who mentored me i then realised this is what i wanted to do.
I hope you get to meet somebody to help you as doing it the right way is the only way.
Lee

i agree with you about everything you said and i can imagine lots of people cant do it and cant keep them. i dont actually see myself owning any of the dwa listed snakes but what i was trying to get to was i would love the chance to work / handle one i never expected to write this post and someone say "come over have a go" or tell me what snake is a good one to start with as there is no such thing and i respect that. this was more my first step on the ladder with the hope as many as you of finding/meeting someone that will get me on the second step which in turn will leed me to the third and so on and so forth. this post was really to give me ideas of how other people got into or got to handle their first which got you to start keeping them. im really into my snakes and so is my partner i dont think she wants to do this but its something i would like to one day maybe find out if i can do. thank you for your comments