Volunteers are brilliant for snake encounters – below are some photos of volunteers who come to help care for the snakes in the sanctuary and also helping at large events where there are often 6/8 volunteers and 20/30 snakes.
One of the reasons we take so many snakes is that over time I found that some snakes, in particular Corn snakes and other types of rat-snake can get over handled and hot so we give them turns and change them around, they can usually manage up to an hour; larger snakes such as Boas and Pythons can usually cope with longer times 2 to 3hrs, because they are larger their whole bodies are not being handled and they will usually happily sit on someones shoulders for quite some time. In the past we have sometimes charged people a fee to hold a snake to raise funds for the sanctuary but this is a rather stressful way for the snakes and myself to create funding, much better if we are paid a fee for our appearance whereupon people will be able to handle the snakes with no restrictions, if our appearance is advertised well people will come along to the event to see them because they are fascinating and a big draw to any event. The sanctuary just could not run without our passionate volunteers.
7 volunteers hold Ra a Burmese Python
Stacey started to help when she was 12 and I first began taking the snakes out to schools etc.