I also got a red eared slider when I was 6! Hes still alive and kicking! My brother is currently taking care of him! His name Is mini-me and hes a really sweet boy who loves being around people 
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Technically my first reptile would have been a red eared slider turtle. She grew and I eventually released her. I do not remember how old I was but I was in elementary school. I always wanted a snake but didnāt know what type. I also was not allowed to have a snake in parents house. I brought a black racer into the house when I was about 12 or so, I had caught it and wanted to show my mom. Mom has a tolerance for snakes. Dad not so much. Dad was NOT happy when he walked out of the bedroom to me in the kitchen with a wild snake.
I now have ball pythons and absolutely love them.
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Haha thatās amazing
My first reptiles were a couple of green anoles from Walmart in the mid 80s and I was happy to have them, since Mom was/is positively phobic of reptilesā¦though none so terribly as the dreaded snake. When I was 16 I convinced her to let me have a snake, provided I got a job, took full responsibility for care, and moved out of the house. I moved into the garage within the hour, had a job by the end of the week, and bought āBlueā, a WC ball python, w/ my first paycheck.
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Iām sure like many folks here I started out keeping what I could catch around my house and nearby fields. At 5 years old I had a box turtle and some green anoles and probably some toads and various other wild herps. My allowance was my parents buying food to supplement what I couldnt catch. I grew up in Houston, Tx so there was no shortage of bugs. As I got older I progressed to animals bought at local shops which included Cuban night anoles, chameleons, whites tree frogs etc. The first reptile I purchased by myself was a spiny waterside skink that was labeled a āswamp lizardā. I had that fella for about 9 years and took me another 15 to figure out exactly what he was. Other animals I kept as a kid included green iguanas, a savanah monitor, a nile monitor, and numerous native Texas herps.
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I unfortunately donāt have any pictures but my 1st snake purchased was a Burmese back in 92 when I was 14 years old!
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My first snake was a Mojave ball python I hade him for 16 years I got him when I was 5 years old.
For my 6th birthday my grandpa got me a garter snake. We had been catching different snakes together out on his property for awhile and I wanted to keep every one. He was so tame and ate minnows out of a bowl, which was so cool for a little kid. He lived to be 11, so when he died I was 15 years old, I got a boa to replace him and have been keeping every species of snake I can get ever since. My Papa is still with me too, thankfully.
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When I was 14 I got a normal 2 year old leopard gecko, who is in my pfp. She came to me 90$ total for her and her setup at the time, which was a 10 gal with a hide and water bowl. Purchased from a locally owned petstore. Sheās always been a little flighty, but generally relaxes pretty well when handled. Her name is Yazi and Iām planning her a bioactive here soon!
My first snake was the second reptile I got, a 1 month old Banana Pastel ball python from the same store, when I was 15. He came to me a great eater on f/t, pretty relaxed when handled (never bit/been defensive) but he did have mites, which was a battle to remove. Still have him and heās wonderful, named Basil.
Since then, itās just spiraled! I love getting new species and hope to try breeding snakes in a few years.
First ever reptile was a bearded dragon, I named her Cutie and was so HYPED to have her. I was in high school and Iād done research and waited two whole years until my mom said yes lol.
Unfortunately I didnāt have the background knowledge I do now, I got Cutie from Petsmart, and it goes without saying that Cutie had stunted growth despite all I did. She passed on due to a ruptured ovary at 5 years.
Still miss her and her yellow/orange glow, but Iām glad she helped me learn!
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Old thread, but not much point in making a new one if thereās one already on the topic.
Iāve never really kept a reptile properly myself, but I had a neighbor who had some kind of lizard that I watched all the time, and my cousin had a Chinese water dragon and a red eared slider that I loved when I visited them. I know my stepom kept a snow corn snake that she found in a store she owned. There was a reptile store next door, and when she took it over they just told her to keep it. So snowflake was taken home until they escaped.
My first real reptile Iāll actually be keeping Iām getting this upcoming summer when I turn 18, a little albino hognose hatchling that I am very excited for!
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After reading āTales of A Fourth Grade Nothingā in school when I was 9, I became obsessed with the idea of getting a turtle. Iāve been interested in little critters as long as I can remember and often caught bugs, frogs, and if I was really lucky, a snake, but my family only ever had cats and dogs for pets. My dad was very against keeping any pet that couldnāt be domesticated and my mom was terrified of snakes.
Anyway, after begging my parents for a turtle, my dad agreed, with the caveat that I needed to wait a specific period of time (like maybe 6 months? I canāt remember) to ensure that I really wanted it. Well I did, and however many months later, we went to the pet store. My parents consulted the pet store employee (although this story takes place after the internet existed, I guess they didnāt think to do their own research?) and we got set up with an expensive 50 gallon tank and a red eared slider. I was smitten. However, very shortly after getting him, it became apparent that he was not doing well. So my mom and I took him our regular vet (not a reptile/exotics vet). She gave him a shot of something in his thigh and it hurt or scared him so much that he leapt forward and nearly fell off the exam table. And I remember seeing him pee blood. She recommended we add a cuttlebone to his tank, which we did. I canāt remember the exact timeline, but I remember coming home from school maybe the next day and going to check on him and saw that he was finally basking. Well, he wasnāt actually. He had died while I was at school and my mom felt terrible and wasnāt sure what to do with him, so she set him up on his basking spot. Anyway, we went back to the same pet store and selected a new turtle, this one named Shelby, and he did well. He was my good little pet for years. I would buy feeder fish for him every now and then and watch him hunt them. The pet store sold us this tank cleaning hose that had to be hooked up to the sink. It was always a huge deal to clean the tank and it was never super clean after. I would take Shelby out into our dirt yard sometimes and make a big mud puddle for him and he would dig down into it and fling mud over the top of himself.
Several years later, my mom bought me a second turtle as a surprise. This was the first time that I realized that reptiles could have different personalities. Shelby was always quite cranky. He would try really hard to get away from you when you picked him up, and donāt you dare put your finger where he could reach it because he was happy to take a chomp out of you! The new turtle was really sweet and didnāt try to bite. However, the two of them did not get along. I guess my mom assumed that because a bunch of them share a tank at the pet store that you can house two of them together? As soon as we put her in the tank with him, he attacked her. I separated them as quickly as I could, but not before he bit off some of the webbing of her toes and the tip of her tail. She lived in the bathtub for a while. My parents did not want to get a second tank, so we sold Shelby.
Anyway, that ended up being a lot longer than I intended. My first reptile that I bought and researched myself was a corn snake from a local breeder.
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6th grade. Red Eared Slider
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This gal was my first snake. Bought her in 99 as a wild caught import. She was also the first snake to lay eggs for me in 2001. Man Iām getting old lol she definitely wasnāt a beginner snake but we learned on the fly. Wouldnāt encourage this type of animal as a first snake for someone getting into the hobby.
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How long did you end up keeping her? My uncle had a wild caught boa for some time around the same time as you had this one. Dont know the locality that he had but Iām assuming one of the dwarf localities.
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@nathan_e She was a short tail python. I had her a total of 8 years kept her until she died. Once upon a time all I kept was short tails I have bred and kept all 3 species of them.
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@nathan_e here is the sire of my very first clutch. My second ever snake got him 6 months after the female wc import as well.
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First reptiles I remember, horny toads, fence lizards, snake lizards in N. CA. First reptile I kept would be Spot, a Mojave desert tortoise purchased at a dime store. (I was 6 and it was legal back in the 60s) first snake was some kind of CA gopher snake my dad brought home in his lunchbox. We kept it for a week and then released. First reptile as an adult, Leopard Gecko and a bearded dragon. 1st snake I purchased and kept as an adult was Snape the Snake in 2019
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Not a reptile but when I was 6. I stole a baby newly metamorphosis frog from school. 
Put it in my pocket. Obviously they didnāt survive the journey home. I cried. 
My first reptile was a garter snake when I was 10.
It was wild caught imported into the uk, wild caught was all you could get back then.
Its temperament was fine considering.
@lumpy and @saleengrinch Yea, I see you guys started with a nice easy small snake 
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