Photos: Checkout dad who lets his young children play with snakes including a 19ft python

Eric LeBlanc is a reptile enthusiast who owns hundreds of lizards and snakes and recently had to move dozens of the apex predators into his home when a fire at his reptile store killed some of his animals and injured many more.

Despite the danger the animals could pose he has no problem allowing his three children Erica, three, Larry, four, and Katie, seven, to handle them.

“The worst bite my daughter got was from a bearded dragon,” said Eric. “My son got bit in the forehead one time by a ball python when he was around two-years-old.

“He opened one of the tubs after me and basically startled it – the python jumped up and bit him on the nose.”

Eric, 43, is in the process of repairing his decimated reptile store and is trying to raise his three children to have no fear of reptiles – particularly while many of them are living with him.

He added: “They make great pets. They don’t have fleas and are low maintenance so you don’t have to take them to a vet regularly like a dog or a cat.

“I have Shelby a seven-year-old albino lavender reticulated python – these are some of the biggest snakes in the world.

“Obviously the bigger the snake the bigger the teeth, so it’s dangerous – but Shelby is very placid. She is over 19ft long and believe me I know what she is capable of.

“When you hold her you can feel her moving you – she is like one big muscle.

“When she is playing with the kids she really pulls them.

“They can really feel the strength of her – you’ve got to have total respect for these animals and that’s what I have.”

Despite having a laidback attitude to his children being around the animals he insists they are completely safe and would never leave them unsupervised.