Over the years, earlier in life, I kept a variety of rattlesnakes (and copperheads and a water moccasin). They are really exquisite animals, among the most highly evolved of all snakes given the elaborate construction of their venom delivery system. And actually, they were very docile captives having come from, and subsequently returned to the wild. Among my favorites were Canebrake rattlers and pygmy rattlers for their distinctive and beautiful coloration. Whatever you may think about keeping captive 3 foot rattlers in locked cages in a secluded room, it pales in comparison to the setup of a fellow herpetologist friend, who kept a pair of 12+/foot (4m) King Cobras in a custom built vivarium in his Florida livingroom, fully 1/2 of the room... (licensed and legally sanctioned). It was fascinating to him to watch the pair court, construct a nest of leaves and hay, and incubate and guard their hatchlings, which they did over several years. Considering most snakes can lift uprighr 30% of the length of their bodies, these snakes can look you in the eye at 5 feet. Off the ground! Now that's a bit out of the box to have in your livingroom... LOL Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android On Sun, Mar 29, 2020 at 7:00 PM, Mark Mazer<markemazer@gmail.com> wrote: Growing up in Queens, NY in the early 1960',s as a less than teenager, the neighbor kept rattlesnakes, and other exotics in his garage. He became a well known vet in Berkeley CA, and an Alaskan Malamute breeder. One of our officers knows this fantastic person, Charlie B. We sometimes saw Timber Rattlesnakes in CT's Northwest corner while hiking the rocky ridges above the Housatonic River valley. Mark Mazer Hertford, NC On Sat, Mar 28, 2020 at 7:44 PM Jim McKenney via pbs < pbs@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net> wrote: > I kept some when I was in my teens. Some were delivered (by railway > express) when my elderly maternal grandmother was visiting. When the > railway express man handed her the little wooden box, he asked her "Lady, > do you know what's in this box?"Maybe she thought he was teasing. > In today's pervasively paternalistic state, it's hard to imagine kids (or > grandmothers) having that sort of experience. Jim McKenney > > > _______________________________________________ > pbs mailing list > pbs@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net > http://lists.pacificbulbsociety.net/cgi-bin/… > _______________________________________________ pbs mailing list pbs@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net http://lists.pacificbulbsociety.net/cgi-bin/… _______________________________________________ pbs mailing list pbs@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net http://lists.pacificbulbsociety.net/cgi-bin/…