Meet Zick, The Baby FLORIDA Kingsnake

Meet Zick, my new baby FLORIDA Kingsnake. She arrived yesterday via UPS and is the first snake I have ever paid money for, even though I have had a dozen or more pet snakes since I was a boy.

Every other snake was a yard capture or hand me down, all wild, all ratsnakes except for a few garter snakes when I was about 10 years old.

They were all temporary visitors in the FC household, but Zick is different.
She's captive bred and a long term commitment, just like any long-lived pet. Even though she's a native Floridian (duh, what else would you expect here at Pure Florida?), she won't be released at any time.

She's here to stay.

I named her after Julie Zickefoose, poet,musician, writer, and artist extraordinaire. The real Zick is just one of many amazing people I have met through the blogosphere, and she just charmed the scales off me when I met her and her two great kids at the Space Coast Bird thingie last January.


Zick the kingsnake is about 3 weeks old and about 12 inches long. She came from  Reptmart, a supplier that I found online by a random search in Google. I found other suppliers also, but I was impressed by Reptmart's facility as shown on their website and their concern for the safety and health of their animals.

Zick will be my classroom snake so, I cleared the idea of a snake arriving at the front desk with our receptionists and made the order.

 An hour after I clicked to complete the purchase, I received a call from a Reptmart employee.
She had looked on the map and noted Cedar Key's end of the road, middle of nowhere position on the shipping maps. The distance from any UPS air hub had her worried about the snake spending too much time on a hot UPS truck. Her research showed that deliveries to Cedar Key School were often late afternoon deliveries and she asked for a location closer to Gainesville.

Immediately I thought of my daughter Emma who now teaches at my old school, just 20 minutes from Gainesville.  The Reptmart lady researched time of delivery for that school and found that most deliveries there were by noon.
Perfect!

So we had the snake delivered to my daughter, much to the chagrin of the snakeyphobic office ladies there ...(who are great sports by the way!)

I tell you all these shipping details as evidence for the concern Reptmart has for the welfare of the animals they sell.

Zick arrived bright-eyed, active, and perky yesterday.
I could not wait to get home and meet her, so I zipped home as soon as I could.

She's beautifully marked, sweetly slithery, and very docile. Zick will spend this weekend at PFHQ getting acclimated to us, and then next week she will move into her new digs in my classroom.

You can expect frequent Zick updates as she gets busy growing and showing my students that snakes are not something to fear or loathe.

It's a big job, but I think she's up to it.

FRIENDLY REMINDER:
TOMORROW IS COASTAL CLEANUP DAY ACROSS FLORIDA!
CHIP IN IF YOU CAN!

THE COASTAL CLEANUP AT CEDAR KEY IS 8 AM TO 12:00 NOON. MEET AT THE BOAT BASIN DOWNTOWN.

JUST GOOGLE COASTAL CLEANUP AND YOUR COMMUNITY TO FIND OUT WHAT S GOING ON LOCALLY.