Posted on 07/21/2021 11:33:22 AM PDT by DUMBGRUNT
Monday night, drivers along Theodore Street in Joliet got a shock, when a 10-foot long ball python slithered across the road, stopping four lanes of traffic.
...The owner, who did not say how his pet got out, took the pet home without further incident.
(Excerpt) Read more at wjol.com ...
Nerves... the prey dies quickly. What you are seeing is the nervous system shutting down. At that point, the prey is well dead.
You read their body language. For instance, if the snake is relaxed and not moving quickly, it’s not hungry. If it is very attentive and tracking movement, it’s probably hungry. We tell them that it’s not feeding time with what is called tap or hook training. Using a hook, we gently touch the nose of the snake and after a short time, they learn that it means there is no food involved. When you interact with the snakes long enough, you learn to recognize their moods and what they are trying to tell you.
They enjoy being petted, too.
Some will lean their heads into it just like a dog or cat and actually let themselves be stroked to sleep.
I expect that takes a level of owner trust on par with any other pet.
It’s impossible to teach them to play fetch, though.
Suddenly have this horrible feeling that maybe that digs the live prey thing.
o.O
This makes me really miss my old boa, Ruby.
When she wanted attention, she would always cock her head sideways just like a puppy because she knew I’d see that, stop, laugh at her being so stinking cute and give her a cuddle.
:(
My uncle had a boa that was lost in his neighborhood for almost two years. He got a phone call one day out of the blue from neighbors who lived a couple of blocks away to tell him they found his pet.
Your digital feed was customized by the CIA. /humor
A guy who used to have a reptile store locally moved from his parents’ house after losing his baby boa.
Couldn’t find it anywhere and assumed that it perished in the cold weather outside, somewhere.
Nine years later, he moved back in to care for his mom and found that his boa had been living in the attic all those years, existing on the starlings and mice up there.
It was huge.
:D
I don’t have a budget for a pet, but if I did, I’d probably get a Tegu. You don’t need to feed them rodents, you can feed them ground turkey, chicken breast, leafy greens and fruit.
Awwww. :)
After all those years living the pioneer life, I really don’t think it remembered Bill or gave a rat’s rump about their “reunion”.
Boa went and done just fine on his own.
He had a much easier and more nutritious life afterwards, though.
:D
Fascinating, because I doubt you see it in the wild. I suppose two neurological systems melded together over years or decades meld together and exchange qualities.
Thanks for the info.
Actually, I have.
My beloved Bubby [RIP] loved my Boa, Pinky, and would let him slither around on him on the sofa.
Out in the backyard were some garter snakes who commonly would bask in the sun on the bench or the rocks around the tree.
Bubby would make a beeline for one particular Garter and lick its face.
That little snake would lean into that like it was the best thing in the world.
Every summer, they would enact this bizarre, forbidden love affair until Bubby suddenly died.
I didn’t see the Garter after that, as if it knew Bubby was gone.
Maybe the snake was in the yard when Bubby fell dead.
This spring, the little Garter popped up again, from under the back porch and laid there, watching Hrafi running around the yard and would hesitantly inch towards the place Hrafi passed by the porch, every lap.
He was extremely interested in that dog, as if he thought maybe Bubby was “back”, since Dobes pretty much look the same.
Hrafi doesn’t share Bubby’s love of snakes so I picked it up and placed it back away from the open yard so it would come to no harm.
It kinda broke my heart and made me miss Bubby even more.
I realize that sounds crazy as hell and if I hadn’t seen it happening, with my own eyes, I would’ve thought it impossible, too.
There are more things in heaven and earth....
Not the same bud. Cats and dogs have been domesticated since biblical times. You cannot domesticate a wild boa constrictor.
You are safer with a large constrictor than you are with dogs, cats, or any domestic livestock. Each year in the US, there are over 70 deaths by dogs, 30 by cats, and 0.43 deaths by all pet reptiles.
Misleading as there are obviously more pet cats and dogs than there are boa constrictor pets.
You honestly sound like a gun grabber with the uneducated rhetoric you are spewing. Educate yourself then we can talk, until then, your baseless opinion is meaningless.
LOL. When a gun has the capability to get up and shoot someone, let me know.
Not at all, I shoot the native species on sight because the eat my domesticated version. But having family in Florida makes me quite leary of the damage African snakes have done to the state. Because someone’s pet got away.
I kinda think the level of invasiveness should be taken into account on the species you domesticated in a particular area. And yes, I have had pet snakes, and fed them live mouse at times. Mostly insects.
Don’t hate all snakes... just like cats.
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