It's official; my favorite retic CANNOT survive in the wild...

[retic720]

Back in Nov/Dec. of 2006, I rescued this retic from a notorious black market; I was fairly new to the reptile keeping hobby so I did not know of that market's "notoriety" and I was fairly determined to give retics a try (a step up from ratsnakes and ball pythons).

Long story short, I fed and sheltered her well. When she was still in that market, she's crammed in a 50 gal tank with roughly 50 other cage mates; they just throw in ONE mouse every 2 weeks and barely had water. When I brought her to my home, man did she make a dive for her water bowl and I could hear her "coughing" from drinking water too fast. Was surprised to see her feeding on her second night and she happily gulped down mice, rats, chicks and sparrows. She rejected adult quails tho; she'd strike at them but refused to proceed to constriction/devouring.

Fast forward to today, she has her own 50 gal tank (all for herself!), a large water bowl to bathe/drink (and sometimes...pee in...LOL!) and developed a few quirks...

1) the need to be handled constantly; when she was younger, she had the signature retic pushing problems. If only I found out sooner, I would've prevented a LOT of damage to her face. Basically, if I do not handle her enough times, she starts pushing. The more I handle her (min. of THIRTY MINUTES or she starts pushing again!), the less she pushes. Now, she is QUITE happy with everyday handling (except after a good meal, where she quiets down obviously).

2) "selective" intelligence; she could tell it's feeding time if I open a certain drawer in my room (to pull out the tongs) but man...she does qualify for the Darwin's awards occasionally. Like last monday (I sooo regret not bringing a camera ...), she tried to swallow her rat from the side; I guess she was thinking she could "fold the rat"; took her 30 - 45 minutes to figure out that she has to start from either end. Now, imagine if that rat was not prekilled.

3) "weakened" feeding response; my ball python of the same age has a more aggressive feeding response. I once was concerned that she is "too gentle" in eating her food. Maybe she got used to prekilled prey? However, there are also times that she shows the signature "retic feeding response" when food is indeed present.

4) probably related to number 1: she is very docile to other humans now, she wouldn't even mind approaching them, expecting them to handle her.

Conclusion: she is one happy retic, and me a very happy owner. Since she's definitely one of a kind, I named her "Sayuri", after being inspired by Zhang Ziyi's character in "Memoirs of a Geisha". She definitely shows the patterns of a wild phase retic...but she certainly acts like a Geisha

Her third night at her new home, circa 2006:



Last Feb, messing with the MacBook webcam.



Just a few weeks ago, messing with the same webcam...I think she's fresh from a shed.

[Wh00h0069]

Glad to hear you were able to rescue her. She most certainly would not have survived in those conditions.

[Aerial]

Glad to see it turned out for her! One gorgeous retic, thanks for sharing!

[jjmitchell]

Its always awesome when someone interveins to help an animal,
I am not the cat lover type person, but the local cat santuary was at the pet shop when i went in for feeders and had a cute cat that was just so sweet.... I brought a cat home also......