We have owned a variety of snakes, geckos, monitor lizards, water dragon and a tortoise.

I would say that the best would be either a ball python or a tortoise. If you can't stomach feeding the mice to the snake than go with the tortoise. However, tortoises are long lived and can get pretty big as time goes on. If you don't have a large area to let it roam once it gets bigger, you may want to stick with the snake. The ball python has a tendency to roll up in a ball (hence the name) when it feels threatened and, relatively speaking for pythons, it does not grow very large. You pretty much need to play with it periodically to make sure that it is acclimated to you.

I know that you aren't very interested in snakes, but all the other reptiles that we have had require more maintenance and upkeep. They also are not as fun to play with. We have had a lot of success with monitor lizards, but you really have to spend a lot of time socializing the lizard if you want to have it anywhere outside of its cage/tank.

I guess what it really comes down to is that you need to find out what will fit your lifestyle and start there.

Also, I know that you asked these questions some time ago but I just caught this one in the unanswered list.

Permalink | Report