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TERRI THE MOUSE
 (and the not-so-hungry snake)

OK, I have three snakes as pets in my classroom. All three of them - Napoleon the corn snake, and Isis and Osiris, my two kingsnakes - have been prowling in their cages for several days now, indicating that they are getting hungry. Rule One of feeding snakes is that, unless you want the entire class to turn into a "Circle of Life" biology lesson, you DON'T feed the snakes when kids are in the room. I have a conference period right before lunch, so that gives me an hour and a half to complete the task with no juvenile witnesses to the demise of the Petco Feeder Mice.

Off to Petco I go, and grab three mice, getting back to the school by 11:10 (Lunch starts at 11:20). Fifty minutes for my trusty reptiles to do their work and dispose of the evidence. I even discarded the Petco rodent box in the trash can at the end of the hall. Napoleon is a voracious feeder, despite being over ten years old. His mouse was locked into a death hug within less than a minute of being dropped into the cage. Isis grabbed her prey right away, too, and began constricting it, so I sat and graded papers and gave a couple of make-up quizzes. Meanwhile Osiris is stalking his mouse all over the cage, striking repeatedly only to have the athletic rodent jump out of the way every time. Finally, he got disgusted and gave up. What I didn't realize is that after Isis hugged her mouse to death, she turned up her nose at swallowing it and left its limp body on the floor of her cage.
 So the bell rings, and my seventh graders come pouring into the room. Worst . . . possible . . . class to witness a snake feeding! Immediately all the girls are like "He's so cute!" "Save him!" and "Let's name him Terri!" One of the boys offered me $20 for the mouse on the spot if I would pull it out of the cage and let him take it home.

I was like "Calm down, reptiles have to eat, let's get to work!" and finally they did. By this time Osiris had given up on the mouse; it was washing its face and putting on a show of cuteness for the kids while my poor hungry serpent sulked in the corner. Then one of the girls noticed the dead mouse in Isis' cage, and pandemonium struck again. I gave the still-warm carcass to Napoleon, who has no problem at all eating two mice in a day. He started swallowing it right away, and I had to redirect their attention AGAIN.

After they left, I informed Osiris he was a disgrace to snake-kind, and decided to drop "Terri" into Isis' cage to see if she found him more to her taste. That was when I noticed one of the girls had made a placard and put it in front of the snake's cage that read "PRAY FOR TERRI!!!" Well, Isis ignored this mouse, and I sat down to start grading papers, figuring maybe hunger would eventually do its work. Nope. Isis was NOT interested.

Moments later, most of the seventh grade came traipsing back in, with our art teacher, Mrs. Bragg (a very nice young first year teacher) in tow. They kept pestering me to save "Terri", and I said if he remained uneaten by the end of the day, they could redeem him. Mrs. Bragg began making a cage for Terri the mouse at this point. I'm glaring at my snake thinking: "Just eat the stupid thing already!" The seventh graders kept popping back in every few minutes to see if Terri was still hanging on to life, so finally I said "FINE! Take him!"

Of course, I was the one who had to catch him. Mrs. Bragg's cage proved to be a cardboard box with Seran Wrap over the top - any self-respecting mouse would chew its way out of that in a matter of minutes - so I pulled an old snake cage with a snap-on top out of my closet, dropped the mouse in it, and sent them on their way. So the art class acquired a new mascot, and I am still stuck with two hungry snakes.
 Go figure!

Uh.. aren't the mice they sell to feed snakes usually frozen?  At my Petco they even have a sign saying, basically, "Hey, if you gonna buy these just to feed to a snake buy THESE mice instead, they're frozen and will do just fine."

Heard a similar story from my high school biology teacher once.  Said he bought a pet mouse with the intent to feed his class snake and it came in a little box with a cutesy pictures of a mouse on it with a speech balloon proclaiming, "Yay, I've got a home!"  He thought that was hilarious. 

In yet another story, he told us about the time he had a green snake out of it's cage and was showing everyone in class about it, and they (especially the girls) were starting to get over their fear when suddenly it went POW and latched right onto the thumb of his other hand.  He said it didn't hurt, but several of the girls nearby screamed and there was pandemonium for a bit and all he could think was, "Ahh, man, this lecture's shot."  Turns out earlier, he had feed a rodent to his other snake and forgotten to wash his hands before handling the second snake.  So, he theorizes that the green snake smelt rodent and thought his hand was a meal. 

BTW, you got any pics of your snakes?  Or your classroom in general?  Be neat to see. 

I have them somewhere.  I'll post em up tomorrow.

Yay for Terri!

Did Isis and Osiris ever eat?  How's Terri today?  This story leaves me with lots of questions and concerns about your class pets  :bluesad:

(http://lowres.cartoonstock.com/animals-animals-hunt-snake-mice-rodents-tton65_low.jpg)

Terri has got a nice new cage, an exercise wheel, and a cardboard tunnel to chill in.  My seventh graders are making an illustrated children's book about his rescue, and sculpting action figures to go with it!

Isis and Osiris are going to get the weekend to work up an appetite, and then on Monday I'll sneak back to PetCo.


(Don't tell my seventh graders!) :wink:

When he talked about not being able to get the snake to eat I was reminded of this

https://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=wYumJ2ruv0E (http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=wYumJ2ruv0E)

When I meet my untimely death....should be just any day now....and my uber-Mormon friend has me baptized into the LDS after I'm gone, which may make me a god with my own planet to rule someday, I am going to design my personal planet so that nothing has to eat something else to  survive. I haven't quite worked out population control yet but I will since I'll have time on my hands. Oh! And on my planet country-pop fusion won't exist.

Pictures? Please.

(Hopefully this isn't too pushy.)

That actually sounds really cute. 

I'd like to see those.

Classrooms were always an adventure when I was one of the students.

Even when I lecture, they still are.  :wink:

This week is totally insane, but I will try to get some pics next week.

You realize, of course, according to the film Little Buddha (toldya I've watched a movie before!!) you are going to have to come back and live a lifetime as a mouse for every mouse you've ever fed to a snake, right?

So...does every mouse have to come back as every piece of cheese it's ever eaten?

Yeeeeesssss, my child, thus are we each caught in the grip of Maya-Samsara, returning and  returning, progressing as slowly as a rice-spoon fills the teeming ocean, toward Nirvana, which is total extermination of the self. Yesssss, my child, atheism WILL get you to extermination of the self in one lifetime instead of thousands, but our way comes with an egg roll....