Riverrun

[Sauzo]

Nice looking retic. You might luck out with a smaller female. Caesar is just over 5 months old and he's already almost 4' and hes a SD/D. I am kind of guilty of feeding him every 4-7 days though but I was told that's a good feeding schedule up to 1 year old or so.

[CloudtheBoa]

Nice looking retic. You might luck out with a smaller female. Caesar is just over 5 months old and he's already almost 4' and hes a SD/D. I am kind of guilty of feeding him every 4-7 days though but I was told that's a good feeding schedule up to 1 year old or so.

I'm thinking so too but I haven't been feeding her all that heavy, either. She's always been fed every 7-14 days, and judging from that SD thread that resurfaced, just feeding them 7-10 days vs 4-6 makes a big difference. Plus, she was 6 months and 3' 150 grams when I got her and in that thread a 3' retic was quoted at 300-400 grams (don't remember exactly). Give her a few more years and see where she tops out at, she may exceed our expectations but I'm expecting 10'-13'.

I would try and up her feeding but when I had her on 1 lb rabbits (almost 20% of her current weight - which had been average prey size when she was smaller), I noticed a sharp decrease in her interest in food. She still ate, but instead of snapping it up the moment she saw it it took several minutes of jumping the rabbit on her back and wiggling it around for her to finally take it. I think if I kept up with that level of feeding she'd eventually start refusing food. She doesn't have the biggest feeding response for a retic to begin with. Probably on par with my boa constrictors, she'll bite and constrict but doesn't snap at any movement unless it's rat or rabbit and no feeding response bites from her yet. She won't even strike at a rat/rabbit with the door closed, which is usually when I'm coming up to the doors with her food in tow.


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[Mangiapane85]

I love your wording. The way you talk about your snakes is just awesome lol. "With her food in tow". Badas$...... I just read this entire thread from the very first page. Great GREAT progression thread and I can't wait to see where River tops out at.


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[CloudtheBoa]

I love your wording. The way you talk about your snakes is just awesome lol. "With her food in tow". Badas$...... I just read this entire thread from the very first page. Great GREAT progression thread and I can't wait to see where River tops out at.


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lol Well, with only the tongs holding it, the rabbits are pretty heavy. I'll have to get heavy duty tongs when she starts eating bigger rabbits.

And I'm excited to see where she ends up, too! I've been around for awhile now so I'll probably still be here even if takes her a few extra years to get big.

[CloudtheBoa]

River is in shed as well, her last feeding all she got was a regular large rat because forgetful me forgot her last half pound rabbit out all day and I wasn't going to chance it. I have no more jumbos and she's not quite large enough for the 2 lb rabbits. I gave her the largest large left, though, which was maybe 20 grams short of the smallest jumbo I had.


Also, funnily enough I thought she'd outgrown her hides months ago but she's currently comfortably holed up in one. Every inch of her fits in there with room to move around, too. So she's 7'-7.5' and still fits in a medium-sized RBI hide. So much for only fitting 700 gram ball pythons. bahaha Even my ball python is nearly twice that weight and the hides are large on him.





I took her out because her bedding got a thin coat of mold over it and I wanted to clean it out. I'll have to start fluffing up fresh bedding, I forgot in the T12's they don't dry out as easily when first put in. After that, I can control how wet it is.

[Sauzo]

I like that picture.

And yeah seems the APs hold humidity really well. Mine sit at around 60ish with just the large exo terra waterbowl.

And that's why I hate Eco Earth, it does mold. Soon as my 2 bails of aspen run out, i'm going to try ReptiChips. I've heard awesome stuff about it from guys on the retic boards and boa boards. Also Jmcrook here uses it too for his retic and he loves the stuff.

As for hides, my god, how does your snakes fit in the medium RBI hides lol? I got the larges and my BP girl is about 4' and 1680g and she fills that hide up. half the time you see part of her hanging out lol. And the retic is 4' and he takes up about half the large hide although he does like to sit with his face in the door way of the hide lol. Then whenever someone walks by his cage, he instantly pops his head out like a jack in the box lol. I cant believe how much he eats. it's been 3 days since he had 2 small rats and today I opened his cage to do the sniff test for a piss and he shot out of his hide like a freakin bullet and perched on the lip of the cage looking for dinner. When nothing was in smell distance, he backpedaled into the hide and I was able to lift the hide and pick him up and find the secret pee he left and spot clean it. I'm expecting a nice present tonight or tomorrow as he has a nice sausage butt going lol.

[CloudtheBoa]

So I remeasured the hides...I got the MEDIUMS from LLLReptile, so they're slightly bigger, and I got the large hides from RBI. I guess I got confused on which was which. Lol

This is the ball python in the medium hide from LLL. The flares at the bottom sit at 12", the top is right around 10". He currently weighs 1,245 grams but is normally 1,380. Thinking of moving him to weekly from 2 weeks since he still hasn't gained all his weight back. Can't move up prey size as he begins refusing after two mediums in a row.




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[Sauzo]

Haha yeah my BP girl doesn't like to eat medium rats either. She eats a couple and then quits eating as well. I just feed her a small rat every 5-7 days, about the same schedule as Caesar. She pounds the small rats. Kind of funny your BP is the same way.

As for the hides, looks like LLL medium hide is the same size as the RBI large hides. Think the RBI large ones are 13x10x3. So that makes sense as to why mediums work still lol.

[CloudtheBoa]

Haha yeah my BP girl doesn't like to eat medium rats either. She eats a couple and then quits eating as well. I just feed her a small rat every 5-7 days, about the same schedule as Caesar. She pounds the small rats. Kind of funny your BP is the same way.

As for the hides, looks like LLL medium hide is the same size as the RBI large hides. Think the RBI large ones are 13x10x3. So that makes sense as to why mediums work still lol.

Lol it does say Vivarium Electronics on the inside so either I'm still getting it mixed up or I got a different size when I ordered. :/ Still with how much room the BP has in this I might try a medium one. Depends on how he fits when he's back up to weight.

When he's a regular weight he maintains 1,380 grams eating a small every other week without faltering a gram after defecations and urates, but this last fast was really odd. He lost 13% of his weight after only 3 months when he's gone 8-9 months and didn't lose close to that much. Then for almost a year he'd eat nothing but a single jumbo mouse or 2 if I was lucky rather than 3-4. I thought being on small rats would change that but he's been eating them a few months now and gained maybe 50 grams tops.


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[Sauzo]

Lol it does say Vivarium Electronics on the inside so either I'm still getting it mixed up or I got a different size when I ordered. :/ Still with how much room the BP has in this I might try a medium one. Depends on how he fits when he's back up to weight.

When he's a regular weight he maintains 1,380 grams eating a small every other week without faltering a gram after defecations and urates, but this last fast was really odd. He lost 13% of his weight after only 3 months when he's gone 8-9 months and didn't lose close to that much. Then for almost a year he'd eat nothing but a single jumbo mouse or 2 if I was lucky rather than 3-4. I thought being on small rats would change that but he's been eating them a few months now and gained maybe 50 grams tops.


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Hmm weird. Maybe try feeding him a small one every week. My BP girl usually fasts from the beginning of this month until around Mar/Apr but for some reason, she is going crazy and eating as often as the retic and she is curious like he is. Whenever I open her door on her cage and mess around inside, she pokes her head out and looks around too. I personally never really paid much attention to her weight as she ate when she ate but with all these people I see saying their 4' females weigh 2000g+, it makes me kind of worried. I mean she still looks good. Here are a couple pics of her fairly recently.