Awesome. Everyone should set boundaries that work for them. I personally don’t think snakes should be handled on a daily basis but we do make sure that all the animals have regular environmental enrichment. I have a couple of different outdoor ‘playgrounds’ on my property designed just for the snakes to feel secure but be able to interact with a semi natural environment on a regular basis, on their own terms. You can check it out here.
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I think handling certainly varies by species. I can only speak for what I presently keep (Angolan pythons). Of course I don’t handle after feeding or during shed. I like the playground concept and that’s something I have planned (indoor) to build out in the future.
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Company dinner! The employees bring a a whole lot of light to our life. We make sure we take the time time appreciate their efforts.
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That’s awesome!! Way to go!!
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I agree with this. I don’t hold my colubrids nearly as often as my retics and burm because they show signs of stress after only a few mins.
20 mins is pushing it with my colubrids.
Where as my retics are more or less “excited” to be out and if they had the choice would stay out 24/7.They fight me because they’d rather explore new scents and knock crap over than to go find a hide or be put into their enclosures.
My retics could just be abnormally confident though, because they don’t even try to hide under anything while being out.
When they get done when I take them outside in the yard, they associated me with transportation (this took over 2 summers for Meph, and Zarathos came around right at the end of summer to learn. A little under half a summer for her) and will come back and “find me” and try to climb up my legs. But they spend allot of time outside during the summer and most people with a day job can’t dedicate that much time sitting in the back yard for several hours a day to get them to associate a weird human creature with transportation.
Especially when you are only taking 1 at a time like you preferably should to minimize stress.
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@ballornothing , thanks for posting. Hiring one or two young people (I’m resisting the urge to say “kids”) to help out with a collection a few hours a week seems like a wonderful win-win. My collection isn’t big enough to warrant that yet, but if/when it gets that big, that’s what I intend to do.
When I was in high school and college, I would have killed for an opportunity to tend a larger collection, and getting paid at all would have been amazing. I know there are other things to consider when bringing employees into a business, but from a purely hobbyist and community perspective, bringing on a couple young people to help out is great for everyone, including the animals, and the more experience that young keepers get around animals and with established keepers, the better the community will be! I wish this were a more common practice.
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It’s been a very positive experience, once I arrived at good help that is lol. They love it and it makes them great ambassadors to the snake hobby. They’re always happy to try to educate someone about snakes and their energy is infectious. I remember having that much energy 
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