“People think what I do is pretty glamorous when they think about the money that can be made. He said that baby Gila monsters will sell for $350 a pair when he receives permission from the state Department of Fish and Game to transport them out of California. Others, such as the Applegate albino San Diego gopher snake, the hybrid product of his own breeding program, go for $225 each. He sells most baby snakes for $75 to $100 apiece. He considers it a second full-time job.Īpplegate makes a good living as a firefighter, but he makes more money from his snake breeding-up to $45,000 a year, he said. “When they have guests come in from out of town, I’m the first thing they want to see,” he said.Īfter working a four-day shift as fire chief on San Clemente Island, he hurries home to spend almost every spare minute with his snakes. People who prefer the company of dogs and cats may consider Applegate eccentric, but his hobby has made his house the first stop on his friends’ itinerary. “If she gets one of my price lists, it’s almost a foregone conclusion that she likes snakes,” he said. The tanned, muscular firefighter said he gets quite a few responses from female snake lovers. Applegate said that, when he mails his annual price list, he always includes a personal ad about his quest for the perfect woman. He calls the era his “macho” snake phase.ĭo his dates squirm when they meet his house mates? Not often. He quipped that his wife disappeared one day about the same time he started keeping 12-foot pythons and boa constrictors. The smaller snakes live in plastic shoe or sweater boxes, while larger mating pairs reside in wooden cages with a “downstairs” drawer accessible through a hole in the upper-level floor. The breeding snakes live in a posh system of “condo cages” stacked one atop the other inside Applegate’s house in suburban El Cajon. “Now, being typical females, I don’t think they’d go for that,” he said, smiling. Taking a scientific tack, he explains that, because a male snake has two sex organs, it could mate with two females at the same time. He said he will pop open a can of fake snakes to shock unsuspecting visitors, or “forget” to explain that the lovely cactus garden in his back yard is, in fact, a snake pit. Despite his seriousness about herpetology, Applegate hasn’t completely outgrown his relish for practical jokes. He breeds at least 600 mice a month to defray feeding costs. By early August, the breeder will have 700 new mouths to feed. They hatch 60 to 75 days later, struggling as long as five days to break the soft shell. Females usually lay one or two clutches a year, though Applegate said he can sometimes coax them into laying a third.Īfter the snake deposits its eggs, Applegate places them in an incubator. Most snakes lay their “clutch” of about 15 eggs in late spring, after the 40- to 50-day period in which they are gravid (egg-bearing). This month, the annual snake-hatching season is in full swing. He estimates that he has brought 4,000 snakes into the world since he began breeding them in 1977. Most zoos don’t place a priority on reptile breeding, despite the animals’ demise, either because they lack the interest or the money, he said. He breeds 20 species, specializing in exotic, rare snakes from North and Central America.Īpplegate is one of only six herpetologists in the world to have bred the Gila monster and beaded lizard, two reptiles whose numbers are rapidly dwindling. Now 43, he spends more time teaching people to respect reptiles. “From then on,” he said, “snakes just grew into a hobby.” He spent his boyhood crawling around ditches, looking for snakes and frogs to wave in friends’ faces.
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