General Questions
  1. Can I ask a question about reptile care or breeding?
  2. I need to find a home for my animal. Can you help?
  3. My snake got out of its cage. How can I find it?
  4. I found a snake in my backyard. How do I take care of it?
  5. I’ve got snakes in my yard or my house. How do I get rid of them?
  6. What kind of snake is this?
  7. Is this snake dangerous?
    8. Our Collection
  8. Can I arrange a tour of your facilities?
  9. How many snakes do you have?
    10. Reptile Sales
  10. Do you have any animals left?
  11. Do you have any other animals for sale?
  12. Do you sell cages or other supplies?
  13. Do you sell mice?
  14. Do you ship?
  15. I’m looking for a species you don’t have. Can you help?
  16. I’m trying to sell an animal. Would you be interested?
  17. Would you be interested in a trade?

General Questions

Can I ask a question about reptile care or breeding?

I try to be as helpful as I can, but I’m really not able to offer detailed reptile care advice to anyone who asks — I’m simply too swamped with work, illness and life to be able to do that. So I can’t promise to answer your e-mail. Sorry about that.

And, to be honest, I’ve gotten a little tired of having to answer the same, basic questions over and over when they’re answered in a dozen books and a hundred web sites — especially when they’re answered on one of my web sites. I wrote all those web pages so I wouldn’t have to answer questions!

So before you e-mail me to ask me a question, take the following steps:

  1. If your question is about garter snakes, visit Gartersnake.info, my web site about garter snakes.
  2. Read my web sites very carefully.
  3. Search the Web. Google is your friend.
  4. If you’re in the Ottawa area, sign up for the ottawaherps mailing list and join the Ottawa Amphibian and Reptile Association.
  5. Melissa Kaplan’s web site on reptile (especially iguana) care has a lot of good material. Read it.

In other words, if you’re coming to me with a question, don’t make me do all the work: you’ll get better results, and a better answer, if you ask a specific question than a very general “how do I take care of my snake” kind of question.

I need to find a home for my animal. Can you help?

I can’t help you myself; we’re all full up.

Unless the reptile you’re trying to find a home for is a green iguana, red-eared slider or a very large python, you should have comparatively little trouble finding a home for it: post an ad on one of the popular reptile communities such as Reptiles Canada and see what happens. You might even be able to sell it.

But if you’re trying to get rid of a green iguana, red-eared slider or very large python, unfortunately you’re not alone: you’ll find it very hard to give it away, much less sell it; and reptile rescues are up to their armpits in sliders and iguanas (hundreds of them, in some cases). Which is not to say that it’s not impossible, but you’ll have to find out who it is in your locality that does such things. (I don’t keep a list.)

My snake got out of its cage. How can I find it?

Please see Melissa Kaplan’s page on finding escaped snakes.

I found a snake in my yard. How do I take care of it?

First, you should immediately find out what the laws regarding wildlife are in your jurisdiction: in many places, it’s illegal to catch virtually any wild animal.

Second, you should find out what species it is. For one thing, you may have a species that is endangered, threatened or otherwise protected by your state, provincial or national government. For another, how you take care of the animal depends on which animal it is. Once you know what it is, you can search the web for care information.

If you have a protected species on your hands, you should release it immediately, exactly where you found it — wildlife conservation laws can be pretty severe.

If, however, it is legal to collect and possess this species, you may still want to release it where you found it. Wild snakes do not adjust as well to captivity and do not make as good pets as captive-bred snakes: they aren’t as tame, and they frequently come infested with parasites. And there are so many captive-bred snakes available that there really is no excuse for taking snakes from the wild.

It’s also possible that the species you have is not a good candidate for captivity. If you catch a garter snake, rat snake or bullsnake, you’re lucky: they’re reasonably plentiful and reasonably good captives. But if you have a red-bellied snake, a scarlet snake or a hooknose snake, you’ve got something complicated on your hands, and you’re almost certainly going to kill it. I probably would if I tried, and I’ve done my homework!

I’ve got snakes in my yard or my house. How do I get rid of them?

If they’re in your yard or house, it’s because something there is attracting them to it. That something may be a food source, such as mice or slugs, in which case you do want them around. Or you may simply, and inadvertently, be offering good snake habitat — apart from a source of food, that could mean a warm spot to bask or a good place to hibernate over the winter. Snakes usually turn up in people’s basements or living rooms because they’re looking for a place to spend the winter.

Seal up the cracks in the house to prevent snakes from getting in; as for your yard, if you have snakes coming to visit, it’s probably a good sign that you have a healthy yard and a healthy neighbourhood, with enough habitat to sustain not only snakes, but their prey as well.

What kind of snake is this?

I might be able to identify it if you upload a picture of the snake to a photo sharing site (like Flickr or Picasa Web Albums) and send me the link. Be sure to mention where you found the snake: locality information makes a big difference in making a positive ID. I’m pretty good at North American snakes, less good on snakes from elsewhere. Without a photo, though, I’m no good at all: I usually won’t be able to identify a snake based on a verbal description.

Is this snake dangerous?

More than 80 per cent of the world’s snake species are harmless to human beings, but some people are convinced that every snake they encounter is dangerous. If you encounter snakes on a regular basis and are concerned about this, you owe it to yourself to find out whether there are any venomous snakes in your area. (Six out of ten Canadian provinces have no venomous snakes, for example.) If there are no venomous snakes in your area, you have very little, outside of an escaped pet cobra, to worry about. But if there are, you should learn how to identify them. (In the United States and Canada, for example, venomous snakes are easy to distinguish from harmless ones.)

If I’m able to identify the snake in question, I will be able to tell you whether the snake is dangerous or not. But I may not be able to identify it if it’s a species I’m unfamiliar with or if you can’t give me enough information about it.

Our Collection

Can I arrange a tour of your facilities?

Not really, because there are no facilities to tour. We don’t have a store, and we don’t keep regular business hours; everything’s kept at home. While keeping and breeding reptiles is important to us, it’s something we do on the side. We’re usually too busy to offer full tours of our reptile collection, which can easily eat up an hour or two that we generally can’t spare. And I’m sure you can appreciate that we’re not comfortable inviting complete strangers into our home.

How many snakes do you have?

Forty. See what I wrote about this question on The McWetlog in 2005.

Sales

Do you have any animals left?

All the reptiles we have for sale will be listed on the price list page. This page will be updated frequently and will be reasonably accurate and complete. Rely on it. If you’re curious about our breeding projects that might come to fruition in a couple of years, see the projects page.

Do you have any other animals for sale?

If we want to sell something, we’ll offer it for sale here. We do not make a point of hiding animals we have for sale from the public: we want these hungry monsters out of the house as soon as possible!

Do you sell cages or other supplies?

No. Your best bet is a pet store. Other places you can buy supplies include feed and seed stores for substrate and incubators, drugstores for heating pads, and hardware stores for miscellaneous supplies.

Do you sell mice?

No, we don’t — we buy frozen rodents in bulk. Pet store prices may seem high, but their wholesale prices (i.e., the ones they have to pay) are higher than you might think, mostly because they’re not buying their frozen mice in bulk quantities. The best prices come from buying in bulk (i.e., lots of 50 of more). There are usually several rodent suppliers at reptile shows (such as the Ontario Reptile Expo); buy a lot to get the best price.

If you’re in the Ottawa area, we recommend Le Salon du Chien in Gatineau or Little Ray’s Reptile Zoo south of Ottawa: their prices are much better than they would be elsewhere, especially, as I said, if you buy in bulk.

Do you ship?

Under certain circumstances, possibly, but it’s probably not worth your while. Shipping is expensive, and the buyer always pays for it. Also, the only legal means of shipping is by air freight: shipping short distances by ground freight (i.e. bus) isn’t possible. American buyers must also deal with inspections: the total cost can be more than $125. Which means that it’s in your best interest to find what you’re looking for locally before trying to buy it from us: it’ll be cheaper and less complicated. And it’s not like we’re breeding profoundly rare stuff.

But if you can’t find a local source of the captive-bred reptile you’re looking for, and we’ve got it in stock and you can get to a major airport, we might be able to do business. We’ll probably insist on a minimum purchase to make shipping worthwhile (there’s no point in shipping a single $40 corn snake when it costs two or three times as much to ship it).

I’m looking for a species you don’t have. Can you help?

Probably not. While we know many breeders in the Ottawa area, some in southern Ontario, and a few across Canada, we don’t really have our fingers on the hobby’s pulse enough to know who’s breeding what at any given time. If you’re having trouble finding a specific species, your best bet is to visit a reptile show such as the Ontario Reptile Expo, which takes place five times a year. You could also browse the ads in the ReptilesCanada.com classifieds, or post an ad there yourself.

I’m trying to sell an animal. Would you be interested?

Probably not. Like most hobbyists, we’re pretty full up, so we’re very selective about adding another reptile to the collection. You can always ask, but I may ignore your message. To save you the trouble, I can definitively say that we’re not interested in green iguanas, red-eared sliders or other large aquatic turtles, large boas or pythons, or crocodilians — which is what most people are trying to get rid of. Captive-bred garter snakes, however, get my immediate attention.

Would you be interested in a trade?

Not unless you’re offering an animal we’re interested in, which is unlikely. Again, we’re pretty full up. If the animal you’re offering is substantially less valuable than the animal you’re interested in — which happens a lot when someone wants to make a trade like this — then we’re definitely not interested.

Last updated: March 17, 2008.