Spiders and snakes as pets

[chickpea1982]

My DC (aged 8 and 6) desperately want a snake and a spider as pets. DC1 (aged 8) has done some research and suggested a corn snake. DC2 has his heart set on a red kneed tarantula (!).

Obviously I would rather not have either of these in my home, particularly if I end up having to look after them (on top of 3 kids, a dog, a garden and a job). However, I'm trying to keep an open mind, and want to make my kids happy

Does anyone have any experience of keeping a snake or a spider as a pet? Is it a good idea or will I just regret it?!

People may not want to come to your house, and it may be difficult to get pet sitters when you go on holiday.

My mum has both, fairly low maintenance but definitely research first 🙂

If my friend ever got a snake, I would never set foot in their house again!! How about some stick insects instead? 😂

Ds got a corn snake for his second birthday.. Older ds had snakes already. Once you get the vivarium conditions right pretty easy to keep. You do need a space for frozen mice on the freezer though..

Corn snakes are good pets for those with a genuine interest. I wouldn't say appropriate for a pre teenage child. You need to get the viv conditions correct.
Tarantulas are a very very boring pet. They do nothing at all, but at least they need minimal looking after 😂Mind you, they are quite fragile. The 6 year old probably shouldn't handle one.

We have 2 snakes... Very low maintenance. However both (seperate tanks) have escaped. The first one disappeared for 3 months and we were mid house renovation so could have been in the walls etc. Just appeared in the living room one morning. She had pushed the rear vent on her tank.

2nd one, found poo a week later in same room. Went away for 4 days and came back to him in his tank waiting to be fed. I had opened both sides of the tank because he was striking when I was trying to feed him. Forgot to lock one side 🫣🤷🏼‍♀️

We have a giant bird eating spider ( yuk) its dds who is 15 and can look after it herself. It eats locusts at the moment.
We started with millipedes which are great pets. They eat salad stuff and you can handle them. We have 4.

Both are so easy to look after but given the ages of the kids, are you willing/able to handle the snake? And remove it from its tank to feed it?

Feeding isn't for the feint hearted either. I had mice/rats/chicks in the bottom drawer of my freezer. Had to defrost these weekly, remove the snake from tank to tub then use tongs to handle the food. It didn't bother me but occasionally the food would pop. 🤢

But yeah, cornsnakes are the best type of snake for kids.

Ds thought ours would like a tractor. Fed via plate in the tank also...

Giant millipedes are a good idea. More interesting than a spider & really easy to look after.

DD1 has a Royal python and a hog noses viper,plus various tarantulas. I don't mind any of them and they are less bothered than the horses,cats and dogs.
I did once get a text at 5 to midnight,from DD,saying that her python had gone inside a lampshade and she couldn't get her out. So I had to go into her room and help her extract a 5ft python from one of those IKEA deathstar lampshades,that was waiting to be put up. She'd gone into it and wasn't keen on coming out again.
Oh and there was a time when DD had ordered some tarantulas in the post. After she'd put one into it's enclosure,she couldn't see it and told me that we may or may not have a tarantula loose in the house. We have a whole house ventilation system with vents in each room,and apparently the spider could live for 6 months without food. This was a few weeks before we hosted my family fof Christmas. I was very relieved that said spider turned up hiding in it's enclosure all along.

I have both.

Not great pets for their ages TBH.
You would barley see the spider and snakes don't do much and both ate iffy on handling, especially at such young ages.

At 8 and 6 I'd be encouraging them to play with the dog more, rather than adding new pets. They're at the age where the novelty will wear off quickly.

I have had a pet corn snake, also for my 8yo son (now 14) I'll give you my thoughts based on the experience...

Ds loved snakes and someone we knew locally had one to re-home as she had owned it for 8 years from a baby snake and now she was a young adult and was going travelling so needed a new home for the snake.
I was content that we would give it a good home and preferred the idea of that because a) not encouraging breeding for pet trade b) snake needed a home and we are good responsible carers c) corn snakes live to about 18 so figured as it was same age as son that would be good timing.

Snakes first owner played guitar and snake used to enjoy the vibrations, curling round her arm while she played, it enjoyed sunbathing in her lovely airy bedroom, was used to being handled and had had a good life for a captive non domesticated animal.

Snake came to live with us.
You can't give them live mice as mice sometimes try to defend themselves causing injuries (and horrible for the mouse obvs). So you buy mice frozen and the snake eats and poos once a week (the poo is nasty). The snake used to take his mouse in a rather bored fashion. Sometimes taking a while to bother eating it at all.

We took the view that the vivarium our snake lived in was hardly a stimulating environment though as large as we could fit and if we were a zoo we would be looking at what enrichment programme we could offer.

Where we live is rural so we took to giving the snake regular outings, where he moved through the field until he found the trace of a rodent, whereupon he would become alert and interested and would follow the scent to the burrow, at which point we would pick him up before he went down it (corn snakes aren't fast) and then we would give him his mouse. He then grabbed the mouse, threw his coils round it and swallowed it with gusto.

We were pleased we had enlivened his instincts and improved his quality of life.
He was taken outside regularly for several years and would even track rodents by swimming down our local stream! We never let him take wild food though, cos of risk of injury and infection.

Visitors loved the snake and children delighted in handling him (supervised), and he was fine with it himself (being used to it)... But he didn't actively want it - snakes are not social creatures, they don't need interaction and don't get much from it, apart from a change of scene.

Anyone not keen, didn't need to go near him as he was in a tank in son's bedroom.

The kids loved when he shed his skin and would take it to school (primary) where it's growth was measured and compared to the height of the children, biology lessons used it... Massive hit, even took the snake in once for show and tell.

Snake has since passed away, he died in the night after a few years and we don't know why.

My conclusion is that we'll never get a similar pet again, because novel and interesting as he was, fun to share with visitors, and we gave him the best life we could... There was no relationship there.

Snakes and spiders have zero need for social contact and so the deal is very one-sided.

His behaviour on his outings confirmed my strong sense that he would really really really prefer to be a wild snake...
Unlike pet cats etc where even if they had the option (if they have a nice home) they would choose to be a pet... That is not true of snakes and spiders.

We were basically holding this animal against its will... so though we had fun with it, and I'm glad he came to live with us, given the many other possible people who could have taken him on, there is no doubt that it is entirely selfishly motivated of humans to have pets like this.
Obviously if you care for them well then you are responsible and aren't abusing them as such, but I prefer my pets to be happy to be pets.

So we have a dog who loves us and chooses our company and chickens who are the same and aren't in any enclosure, roam the fields but choose to stay with us... And I think that is what an animal relationship should give - both parties what they want in life.

If you don't share my sensibilities of the animals pov and just want the fun of owning this interesting animal (a common wish, not judging you), I would encourage you to find a rehome as that way you are at least getting a creature whose demise will time well with child getting old and leaving home, and, you aren't encouraging breeding for the pet trade.

Hope that helps.

It is illegal to feed live food....

Who said it wasn't?

We've had those too... Interesting but they breed asexually, you get babies even if you only gave one... so you have to keep freezing the eggs to humanely kill them, or keep finding homes, or have hundreds of the buggers. 🤣

I have both snakes and tarantulas and would highly recommend them as pets, but with caveats around the age of the ‘owner’. Personally, I’d go with a royal python as a pet snake. They’re very easy to keep, they’re generally pretty placid, and they’re robust so not too fragile when handling. Care is quite simply. Mine has a ceramic heat emitter set to 30 degrees. He has hides on the warm and cold end of his vivarium. Water. A rat once a fortnight. And with that he’s content.
I do also have a hognose snake but I wouldn’t recommend them for younger kids as they’re often huffy and hissy (mostly bluff but can be off putting) and they are smaller and more fragile, especially when young.

For tarantulas, keep in mind that no tarantula should really be handled. They are a ‘looking at’ pet only. A species like the red knee are often little sods for kicking hairs and these hairs are itchy on your skin. It’s their first defence mechanism! Tarantulas are also extremely fragile so handling is a huge risk to them. I have held a few of mine when rehousing them, but only ones that I know are very calm. I would never take one out just to hold. But they are awesome little creatures. I’d recommend the YouTube channel ‘Dave’s Little Beasties’ for kids into spiders. He does great videos about keeping tarantulas and about being calm and kind to them. Basically a tarantula wants a box of dirt, a water bowl, a feeder (locust,cricket, roach, etc) every now and then, and to be left alone. If you’re lucky they will sit out on display. I have some that are always out. If you’re less lucky, they will dig a burrow and hide all the time! Terrestrial species are a good starting point. I’d avoid arboreal (ones that live up trees) or fossorial (ones which live predominantly underground). Arboreal are faster generally, and fossorials mean you see little of them! It is also worth knowing that tarantulas are generally split into ‘old world’ and ‘new world’ species. New world species - from the Americas - are a good starting place. They have less potent venom - their bite is assumed to be much like a bee sting. But they do have urticating (itchy) hairs that they kick off their abdomen if they feel threatened. Some do it at the slightest hint of a threat, others don’t do it much at all. Some urticating hairs are mildly itchy, some are extremely itchy…depends on the species! Old world species (from Asia, Africa, Australia, etc) are not good for beginners. They do not have urticating hairs at all…but they make up for that with more potent venom and a bigger attitude! I have an absolutely beautiful old world tarantula called a Poecilotheria metallica. She’s epic. She’s huge. She’s blue. But her venom is potentially medically significant so absolutely not a beginner species. But people can be wowed by the gorgeous ones and not consider the potential risks! With all that said, I’d still recommend a pet tarantula. I’d recommend a curly hair (Tliltocatl albopilosus) as a first tarantula. Or a Brazilian black (Grammostola pulchra). Or a red knee (Brachypelma hamorii) with the caveat that they can be a bit hair kicky.

A final point I’d make is that both can live a long time! Snakes like the royal python can live anything up to and potentially exceeding 20 years, and a female tarantula can also live this long. Male tarantulas live shorter lives - maybe around 8 years - cause they mature to adulthood, look for a lady friend, then die. Once they’re mature, you are lucky to get a year of life left in them, although I’ve got a mature male curly hair tarantula who’s been mature for probably 18 months now. He’s get some spark in him!

Mentioned up thread feeding live mice can get snakes bitten. .... Not a possibility when the mice are frozen....

Id love a corn snake one day but not a chance in hell of having a spider;I enjoy looking at my friends trantula's;they are beautiful but I politely decline to hold them/stroke them.

It literally says you CANT feed them live, you have to buy frozen 🤣

I see where you're coming from, the implication potentially being that if it weren't for the bite risk you could consider live food...
But
There are multiple reasons why you wouldn't feed live food to a snake, the law, bite risk and humane-ness being a non-exhaustive list.

😱😱😱😱😱

I owned a corn snake for twenty years.

He was called Kellogg.

Honestly they are very boring pets.
He lived in a large tank in the spare room. Getting food was fine - frozen mice. There was a pet shop local to me that specialised in reptiles.

We handled him a fair bit when he was younger but they don't really like it and tend to go straight for the nearest dark small space.

I used to have scorpions. I didn't handle them though, so they were kind like decorations to be honest. They were very cool and i loved them, but they weren't interactive at all.

I think your kids are way too young for those kind of pets though, and yes of course it will be you looking after them!

We have a corn snake, he’s nearly 5 years old now, we got him when oldest ds was 11. We got the biggest vivarium we could find and he has room to slither about and climb up his branches when he wants to (often early morning!). We handle him most days unless he’s digesting and feed him once per week. A local vet does boarding near us and he goes there if we’re away for more than a few days. He’s pretty low maintenance but also quite relaxing to watch when he’s climbing around and when we handle him.