First Snake!

[slickshadowrunner]

Hi everyone,

So after 30+ years of thinking about it and owning just about everything else, I finally got my first snake. She's a two year old normal BP. I am considering her purchase (private sale) to be kind of a rescue, as her previous owner (and it appears the one prior to that too) did not know the first thing about BPs. When I got her (she came in a 30 gallon tank), her aspen substrate was full of feces and urine clumps, her water bowl was empty and had mold growing in it, and she had a 4 watt under-tank heater plugged in with a 100 watt overhead incandescent lamp shining right on her cave. Oh, and he had been feeding her small rats once every three weeks!! She had just had a bad shed (surprise!! ... the humidity level is non-existent) and I was told that she was really head-shy and would only eat frozen/thawed white rats. Got her home, cleaned the tank (including scraping off the pound or so of congealed candle wax on the glass - inside and out), put down fresh paper towels, filled the water bowl, and got her a medium grey live rat, which she promptly inhaled. Fed her another (larger) live rat a week later, and she's now fully in opaque mode prepping to shed. I'll post a pic as soon as she's done and her colours are bright. She's gaining weight now too. She's not head-shy at all. She loves being handled. I have four young kids whom she really likes, and I only feed her live. My wife named her Lucy, as she figures it's one letter away from Lucky, and she figures that Lucy's lucky to have finally found an owner whom will actually take care of her properly. Already told the wife that I'm going to get others. Maybe other rescues. I swear to God, some people should just not own animals. Like ever. Sigh.

Anyway, just having moved into the neighbourhood, Hi!!

---
No Legs

0.1 Normal BP (Lucy)
1.0 Super Delta Steel Blue Siamese Fighting Fish (Hero the Freak)

Two Legs

0.1 Wife
3.1 Children

Wings

1.0 Canary (Jesus)

Four Legs

0.1 Cat (Midow)
0.2 Guinea Pigs (currently unnamed)

[dr del]

to the site.

Feel free to share pics of all your critters.

[MrLang]

Welcome and congrats!

[Tigerhawk]

Welcome to the forum

[Mr. Misha]

Welcome to the forum and congratulations on your first snake!

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk

[NH93]

Welcome to the addiction, as they say

As for future rescues... you will come across a lot of them that need proper care, if you look (even if you don't, actually). Don't feel obligated to save them all, it just can't be done unfortunately.
If you do intend to have rescues though, from what I have read on this forum and heard from others, I'd stay away from actually paying for them. If they are really in need of rescuing, take them off someone's hands for free if you can. It's a sad situation to see when someone is selling a snake and "accessories" on, say, Craig's List, and they want like $200... when the snake looks near dead or what have you. But, personally, I'd walk away.
There's just so many out there that you have to be smart about it, or it'll break your heart - and wallet.
That's just my two cents though... sorry, I know you didn't exactly ask for it!

But I'm super glad you've got your little gal clean and safe and eating properly.
Do you also have a thermostat for her? You didn't mention it but just thought I'd throw that out there in case you don't. One of those necessary items for the UTH so she doesn't get burnt.

All the best!!