First snake encounter.

[kibakiba]

My uncle let me play with the garter snakes at my dads house when I was 2... Have loved them ever since! Haha.

[aquamentus_11]

I can't remember my first. We had a lot of garters, blue racers and northern water snakes. I was very close to getting a Nerodia, but they seem to dull down in color a lot as they age and get a little too big for what I wanted. The only rattlesnake we have in MI is the Massassauga and I've only ever seen one. I was probably 9 or so, at my grandparents' off in a marsh poking around in some saw grass. Never heard a rattle, but there it was all coiled up and very very tiny. I ran home after that with scratches from the saw grass and told my cousins that it struck at me but missed and only scratched my skin haha.

[GarterGuy17]

I was around that age as well maybe 10 ,11 but this rattle snake was inside the pool and we took him out. He did strike at the cleaning tool a lot , I wanted to let him go but we couldnt luckily it was my brother who found him and not me.

[BUSHSNAKE]

mine were in books, and then i would bust out the pencil and paper and draw them....i still have drawings of snakes from when i was 8 and 9. Then when i was in first grade we moved to house that had a creek at the end of the block were garter snakes lived...i spent my whole younger years along that creek searching for garter snakes

[Selkielass]

As a preschooler my dogs would 'protect' me from the ditch snakes in front ofmy house by herding me away if they could. In later years I stalkedthe snakes in that and other ditches often every summer until the roads andsidewalks 'improved' the habitats out of existence. Must have been Easterns and Butlers.

[PINJOHN]

my first experiences were with grassnakes dice and viperine [natrix] and it was staring at them through glass in Liverpool's premier pet shop unimaginatively called the aquarium, housed on two floors, mammals street level, fish amphibs and reps down stairs.
since a kid i had been smitten with frogs toads and newts mostly newts and every spring would see me ogling the shipments from main land Europe and of course along with all the Euro amphibs would be the reptiles various wall lizards green lizards slow worms sand lizards common lizards and so many more and of course the snakes, they had large ones that i don't recall the names of i assume they were ladder snakes and other large European types but my time was mostly spent swapping between the tanks containing the great crested newts and the grassnakes i could spend hours just staring watching them climb all over each other i think the staff thought i was cerebrally challenged as without doubt i had glassy eyes and a drool soaked shirt front.
while typing this in my one fingered style i have recalled something long buried about that shop, it should be remembered that this was in the days of few restrictions with the import of animals and long before the British dangerous wild animals act.
as you entered the shop they had a baby chimp for sale a real heart steal'er very young and so human like, even as a kid myself i could see the resemblance to a human baby, on a number of occasions this chimp was sold only for it to be back in the shop on my next visit it turned out that it had become so attached to the lady who looked after it it became inconsolable when sold, refusing to eat and screeching and such that each time it was brought back, i have no idea what became of the poor little thing.

[gregmonsta]

Zoos were always a favourite when I was younger. You couldn't get me away from any exhibit that had fish or reptiles in it. Most of the time it was only the carnivores I actually wanted to see.

[Stefan-A]

Used to spend my summer in a place where there were a lot of snakes. I don't remember my first snake encounter, but I'm certain it was an adder. The first live snake I held was also an adder.

[EasternGirl]

That's awesome.

[PINJOHN]

Zoos were always a favourite when I was younger. You couldn't get me away from any exhibit that had fish or reptiles in it. Most of the time it was only the carnivores I actually wanted to see.

ditto Chester zoo was my perfect day out and even as an adult i try to get there at least once a year ..and they now have kamodo dragons yeeeeees