mcwetboy | Pretzel, 25 Years On (Reply)

Over the past few years we’ve lost most of our snakes to old age. It’s slightly nuts that our oldest snake, Pretzel, is still with us. She was the first corn snake I got, 25 years ago today, and the first snake I got as an adult; and she’s managed to outlive most of the snakes we got since then, to the point where she’s also our last corn snake: we lost Trouser last year at the age of 23 or so, and LMA (aka Ella Mae or Little Miss Adorable), who was a lot younger than that, earlier this year. Despite health issues from Giardia to seizures, Pretzel has turned out to be Little Miss Indestructable; she’s what Martha Argerich would be if she were a corn snake. See the above photo, taken this afternoon: at some point she lost a bit of her tail tip (which isn’t surprising or worrying).

I’m not actually sure how old Pretzel is, because she was at least a young adult when I got her, which means she’s 27 or so at a minimum. That’s a lot for a corn snake. She’s ridiculously hale for the moment, but in our experience snakes can go downhill awfully quickly and without much warning. It’s unlikely that she’ll be around in five years’ time, but neither is it impossible; it’s at least theoretically possible that she ends up being our last snake, period. I’m not sure that would surprise me.

See the post I wrote for Pretzel’s 20th gotchaversary, most of which is still applicable; it also has a bunch more photos.

Mirrored from Jonathan Crowe.