Walker the Teaching Snake

When my boys asked to have snakes as pets, I was hesitant only because we already have quite the zoo here at home. But I wanted to say yes, because I’ve loved snakes since my own youth. My condition for agreeing was that I wanted snakes that I could use as teaching aides, because I want to encourage people to appreciate snakes for their beauty, uniqueness, and importance to the ecosystem. Most snakes are non-venomous, but a lot of people just fear them all, leading to the harm of many innocent snakes (and remember, even venomous ones are beneficial). We need nature’s predators, else the balance of critters in the world take a turn for the worse — such as an overpopulation of rats.

We have two snakes, but I only brought Walker for this teaching outing at El Ranchito, a nature-immersion summer camp for youth of low-income families (Walker joined Paco, whom you’ll meet below). Walker is a rat snake/corn snake hybrid, complete with a checkered underbelly. He’s about 1 1/2 years old now, and almost a yard long. He’s quite comfortable with being touched, having been handled by our family and guests for so long, but he still a little guy and rightfully cautious when on a big white table under trees filled with birds.

I told the story of Walker’s spinal issues (he has a section of his body that doesn’t constrict very well), and the kids were very good about being extra gentle with him.

I was very proud of Walker, and he earned himself a nice big mouse dinner. Morse, our other family snake, didn’t go to the camp, but she appeared in some of our teaching pictures — she got a nice big mouse dinner, too.

The real star of the day was Paco, a 10-year-old Baird’s Rat Snake who lives with fellow Master Naturalist Sue A. He’s been teaching with kids a long time and really puts on a show.

Plus, at about 6 feet long and absolutely gorgeous, he knows how to impress. Baird’s Rat Snakes have a beautiful silver and salmon coloration.

The kids lined up paper towel tubes for Paco to travel through — the effect was something akin to a pasta necklace. When not in the paper rolls, Paco traveled around people’s shoulders, and even made a couple of attempts to get to the top of the canopy above us — because above that were trees and lots of birds. Rat snakes are excellent climbers.

Let me tell you a story about our other snake, Morse, who is an anerythristic motley corn snake, also about 1 1/2 years old and well over a yard long. Looking back at older posts, I realized that we once thought she was female but somewhere along the way started calling her a he. Well, we should have paid better attention, because she is, in fact, a she, and we discovered this when — surprise — we found eggs in the habitat she and Walker shared. Alas, the eggs weren’t viable, but she and Walker have their own separate rooms now (Walker’s all the time looking for her, though). Snakes will be snakes, I suppose.