I've owned two black rat snakes, "Rufus" and "Devo".

Black rats are closely related to corn snakes, and also make good pets, not just because they thrive in captivity and easily get used to being handled, but because (like corn snakes) they are so common you don't have to feel guilty about removing them from the wild.

I used to have to go buy mice at the pet shop to feed them, and my wife used to freak out because they came in a little cottage-shaped carton that was marked "At last, I've found a home." But one day, I caught a wild mouse in our basement, and unlike the inbred domestic ones from the pet store, he was determined to go down swinging. The rodent immediately realized he was in danger and undertook frantic maneuvers to avoid getting caught. Devo could not catch him, and I had to eventually remove him so he would not nibble on the snake once it got tired of hunting him. There's a lesson to gleaned from this.

I had an interesting experience with Rufus when on one nice sunny day I took him for his walk. The snake started to climb a tree, which he did very expertly, using turns on his body to wedge into cracks in the bark to get traction. Out of nowhere, a squadron of mockingbirds attacked the snake, determined not to let him go any higher. I had my hands full fighting them off, since they could easily have injured the reptile, but the birds pressed on, ignoring me and going straight for Rufus. They just weren't defending their nest, because more than one pair of birds were there, they were coming from all over the neighborhood. This was species conflict!

In Florida, woodpeckers nest on the sunny side of pine trees so the dripping sap from their holes will melt down the trunk and discourage corn snakes from climbing up and raiding their nests.

Snakes are good pets for kids. It teaches them that even though mice are cute, snakes have got to eat too. In nature, everyone is hungry, and one way or the other, we're all on the menu.