Raising snakes

I bet you think I'm going to tell you I'm going to start raising snakes, huh?  Nope, that'll never happen.  A snake may be found on farms but it's not a farm animal, for sure. 

A few days ago I went down to the home store at the end of our road.  They sell used furniture and all kinds of junk but they also sell nails.  I needed nails for the goat's playground so I went to get some.  The nails are in a box and you scoop out as many handfuls as you want.  The proprietor is a nice guy and always helps me get what I need.  To make a long story short, he and I were chatting as we picked through a box of nails for the ones I wanted.  He asked how many goats I had now and then went on to tell me stories about his elderly neighbor who used to have 140 goats who all had names.  One day the neighbor called and told him 2 of them were missing.  I wonder how you know 2 are missing when you have that many.  The one was pregnant and had fallen down a cliff and he needed this guy's help to get them back.  The story ended well and everyone was safe.  He said he (the store owner) had a goat once but it got killed by a neighbor's dog.   He then proceeded to tell me how another neighbor let his pit bull run loose and it kept killing another neighbor's calves just days after they were born.  First the calf owner (I'll call him CO) wrote a letter to the pit bull owner (PBO) and told him what was happening and to keep his dog at home.  The PBO called him up and gave him hell and hung up on him.  Another calf was killed shortly after.  This time the CO called the law who came out and told the PBO that if his dog killed more calves they were going to shoot the dog.  The dog was shot.  The CO called the PBO and told him his dog was dead and to come get him and bury him.  The PBO went to the CO's house with a rifle and shot up his pickup truck.  The PBO went to jail and when they went to his house they found rattlesnakes guarding his drugs.  I know, you were wondering when I was going to get to the snakes, weren't you?  So I say to the store owner, "who raises rattlesnakes in their home?  That's crazy?"  Another man standing nearby with his 3 year old son says, "I raise snakes, all kinds of vipers and venomous snakes".  No way, I thought.  I asked him why and where he got them.  I can't remember where he said he bought them but he told me he sells them to make money and he assumed many people who buy them use them to guard their drugs.  He then admitted he no longer sold, "hot snakes", meaning venomous snakes, but he had "a boa constrictor who could eat him", he said pointing at his son.  Ok, we live in a rural area but I know this can't be normal. 

Ok, I just had to share that.