My first venomous!(Yay!)

Hello every, my name is Blaine and I'm new to the site and keeping venomous snakes,I'm seventeen and I recently got my first venomous snake, it's a Copperhead. I figured with it being the least deadly snake around here I'd go with it.

I've been waiting to keep a Copperhead for quite some time now, I wanted to get one that wasn't too small, and also wasn't very big. On top of that I of course wanted a very healthy and pretty looking one, it's taken last summer and up until now to find the right one, but I finally managed to find the perfect one.

My friend, who is also a fan of reptiles, woke up one morning and noticed that for some odd reason some one had snuck into his room, and put this Copperhead in with his Brooksie Kingsnake. Thankfully she ate the day before so he was okay, he put the Copperhead into a ten gallon tank, and asked me if I wanted to come look at it and see if I wanted it, knowing I had been looking for a good Copperhead, I decided I'd go look at it, thankfully I did because this is one of the best looking Copperheads I've found.

I brought him home in a pillow case, I set up a ten gallon for him with some wood chipped bedding from a certain type of wood that has a chemical in it that isn't dangerous to anything except insects, so I'm testing it out to see if it helps keep Mites away, and/or kills them, so far he's still looking great, I've had him for about four days now.

As for what type of Copperhead he is I'm a little on the stumped side, I really want to say he's a Southern, he looks more like a Southern than any other but he's also a little diverse than Southerns too.

I plan on feeding him Friday, I tried giving him a dead mouse I had but he just looked up at me like I was an idiot, so I simply gave the mouse to my Savannah Monitor, who was oh too happy to accept it.

He's very docile, which I find a bit scary being as most Copperheads I've caught tried to turn my hand into balloon with no second thought what so ever. Everyday, on several occasions I get him out and hold him. I use one hand to gently hold behind his head, and the other to support his body, he has yet to show any sign of disapproval or attempted to even strike at me.

As for a name I decided to call him "Venom", since I found it to be quite a suitable name, he's about 14 inches long I'd say and very pretty, not a single scar on him.

I've been keeping reptiles for about two years now, I've had Kingsnakes, Corn Snakes, Col. Red-tail Boa's(I still have two), a Rosy Boa, some local snakes I find occasionally, and Monitors.

I'd really appreciate any tips or suggestions on keeping venomous, I expect to get bit some where along the line, sooner than later I'd bet, I sure hope not though. If anyone knows the venom law for Oklahoma could they enlighten me? I think I read once it was 18+ for local and a license for non-local hots but I'm not 100% on that, thanks for the help!

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