A single man says he is struggling to find love as potential dates are put off because he sleeps with two 8ft long pythons.
Johnny Walker has had his eight-year-old Bredli carpet pythons, Jasper and Cairo, for two years.
But the 40-year-old from Queensland, Australia says women think he’s “out of his mind” when he shows them pictures of the slippery pair cuddled up in bed with him.
Despite suffering several nasty bites in his four years of handling snakes, Johnny says his pet pythons are like family and wants to find a woman who will accept them as part of the package.
The electrical salesman said: “People are scared about coming over but I don’t know why.
“Previous girlfriends would leave me instantly when they saw them and say: ‘I’m not dealing with those’.
“Now when I show girls the pictures a lot of them think I’m out of my mind.
(Image: Mercury Press & Media Ltd.)
“They slither up onto the bed and I leave them there because they like to be under the covers and warm.
“When I go to bed usually one of them is already in there by himself so I’ll just get the other one and they usually just snuggle up together.
“I never worry about them biting me or wrapping themselves round my neck, they just stay there all night and they love it.
“They won’t have moved when I wake up in the morning.”
Snake-lover Johnny has been passionate about serpents since he was six years old.
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(Image: Mercury Press & Media Ltd.)
He visited Indonesia 12 times in the two years before the pandemic, catching and handling wild snakes.
He has suffered some nasty bites while handling over 100 snakes in his life, but maintains every one has been his own fault.
Now Johnny has a two-storey enclosure in his living room for Jasper and Cairo, who stay in there while he goes to work, but they have a free run of the house when he gets home.
He feeds the snakes a rat the size of a kitten, which keeps their appetites satisfied for ten days – but the slippery pair still make many of Johnny’s guests nervous – including his own dad who rarely comes to visit because of the free-roaming reptiles.
Johnny said: “Everybody freaks out whenever they come round.
(Image: Mercury Press & Media Ltd.)
“I take them out onto the front lawn in the sunshine and I’ve had a couple of people freak out pullover and ask me if I’m okay because I think that the snakes are attacking me.
“My own father is worried about coming over to the house.
“But the snakes would never hurt me intentionally.
“They are just like family pets and I love them like anyone else would love a pet – whatever it is.
“Just like a dog would, they come out and greet me straight away when I come home from work when I let them out of their enclosure.”