aggressive colubrids

Originally Posted by pitbulllady

Handling non-venomous snakes WILL NOT prepare you to deal with a venomous snake! That IS the point, and I don't even know why anyone would question that. For anyone to claim that keeping an "aggressive"(meaning: scared, stressed-out and defensive)Colubrid will prepare you to deal with a highly-venomous viper or Elapid is analogous to claiming that peddling around the driveway on a Big Wheel is preparation enough for driving a Formula One race car. It's not even close to being in the same league! It's pretty much a moot issue, anyway, since the OP lives in a state where private ownership of venomous snakes of any kind is banned, so unless he moves to a state where it's allowed, he can't keep "hot" snakes. I've kept venomous snakes, and I've had my share of defensive Colubrids and Boids, and there is no way that a bitey Racer, or Rat Snake, or even a Boa is going to get you ready to deal with a snake that has the ability to change your life with one bite, if not kill you. Your mental state when dealing with "hot" snakes must never be anything like what it is when you're dealing with a non-venomous snake, even one that bites at every given opportunity, because even with the biters, you get complacent and even joke about the snake biting, an attitude that will cost you dearly if you get into that mindset around a "hot" snake.

So he needs to train with a venomous snake so when he makes a mistake it will be a life ending one? My mentor started me out on a 5 ft wild coach whip before he even put me in the room with a hot. Which goes back to my original point YOU MOST CERTAINLY NEED TO START WITH A NONVENOMOUS SNAKE BEFORE YOU GO TO A VENOMOUS SNAKE! Can you hold a colubrid with out life ending results? Yes. But how is he supposed to understand how to use our tools with out some sort of practice on something. Refusing to help people and talking down on them when we have different opinion on certain subjects is what is tearing this community apart and why nothing can work in our favor

Warning: This is not a discussion forum. The classifieds are not the place to debate the merits of "training" for venomous with other snakes. I suspect a lot of the posts in this thread are deserving of infractions; so I suggest that people not give me reason to look at them again

I've been around Mambas belonging to other keepers, and I've had more Black Racers than most of you will ever see in a lifetime. NO. Black Racers are NOT like Mambas, joking nicknames aside. They never attain the size of a Mamba, they DO calm down, and you NEVER can get it out of your mind that it's a harmless snake. No amount of pretending or imagination or role-play or whatever is going to convince you it's a venomous snake, so you are going to take chances which, if taken with a venomous snake, will kill you. As for such an incident being a "black eye" on the hobby, DrummingT, no one mentioned "ratting" out anyone. No one would HAVE to. Bites from captive venomous snakes make headline news around the nation, if not the world, and you should know that already. Every time that happens, especially with a private owner as opposed to a zoo, it provided fuel to the fire to ban keeping venomous and indeed ALL reptiles everywhere, and a person who has "prepared" themselves for handling a venomous snake by dealing with a harmless snake that they always know can't hurt them IS a headline waiting to happen.

Originally Posted by serpentsofdistinction

Since God is your glove maybe you can open your own church. Then you don't have to worry about laws. Just say it's religious beliefs. They may even give school kids a holiday off from school if someone gets killed while free handling.

+1 to this.

Anyone owning venomous animals who just "have" to handle them in an unprofessional manner deserves to go to the hospital. I just hope they're not reproducing.

Those are also the people who want to have them just to have them to show off to friends, which in turn ends up screwing things up for the rest of us when they or someone else in their house gets tagged and then brings the spotlight down on the whole community.

Okay - let's tally this up...
Since my last post, three people have decided to chime in - all three have received infractions. Guess that means it's time to up the ante.
This is a classified ad. It was placed because the OP wants to make a purchase. Ongoing discussion is not welcome. If you are offering him an aggressive colubrid (or a quantity of them), you are welcome to post in this thread. If you just want to chat, send him PM. If you want to discuss/debate, post a thread in one of our discussion forums (or add to an existing thread).
HERE'S THE IMPORTANT PART:
The next three people that submit off-topic posts to this ad will be banned for a minimum of three days