What are the best snake types for beginners?

Snakes are among the most popular exotic pets these days with more and more pet lovers opening up to the exciting idea of having a pet snake at home. However, not all snakes make good pets due to their nature, habits and demands that cannot be fulfilled in a domestic environment. Some of them are not social towards humans and many are venomous so all poisonous snakes and reticulated pythons and anacondas should never be kept as pets.

Corn snakes

This species is extremely popular due to their ease of care, gentle and social attitude towards humans and low maintenance level. The cost is basically comprised off the housing expenses and equipment required to keep your pet corn snake comfortable. They are notorious escape artists so you must make sure that it is not given any opportunities to escape from its enclosure. Corn snakes are quite easy to keep because they do not grow to be very long or heavy when they are mature as an adult corn snake can grow from 3 to 5 feet in length. They live from 15-20 years in captivity if good care is taken. Feeding a corn snake is not very difficult either because its diet consists mainly of mice which are readily available in frozen form in reptile supplies sections of pet supermarkets and online US pet stores like www.lovemypets.com.

King snakes and milk snakes

Both milk snakes and king snakes belong to the same family and have similar traits. Some of the species of milk and king snakes fool predators into thinking that they are venomous snakes because of the closeness of the markings and colors of their scales. They are known to be wary of newcomers at first but settle down and become gentle pets once they get familiar with their new environment and owners. They are not very small in size and adults can grow up to 7 feet in length. They feed on a variety of rodents, birds, reptiles, amphibians and other snakes so it is unwise to house them with other edible snakes.

Ball pythons

Ball pythons are quite gentle creatures that grow from 3 to 5 feet in length and live from 20-30 years in captivity depending on the level of care they receive. They are constricting snakes and feed by crushing their prey between their coils and swallowing it whole. Some ball pythons prefer rats over mice or vice versa so you may feed it whatever it prefers. They make good pets for beginners because of their relatively smaller size and docile nature.

Snakes unsuitable for beginners

Boa constrictors may be difficult to manage for pet owners who are not so familiar with the behavior of these snakes. They are also quite large so they may prove to be more than you can handle. Burmese pythons are gentle towards humans but they have special needs and grow to be huge so they need proper housing and are not very suitable for beginners. Tree boas or pythons, water snakes and green snakes are similarly not good pets for untrained people who do not know how to properly care for such special snakes.