Introducing Neptune (BEL) Progression Thread

[hilabeans]

After painfully and unexpectedly losing our first snake, the family quickly agreed that we wanted to try again. We couldn't fill the snake-shaped hole in our hearts with any other creature.

Enter Neptune, our beautiful, bouncing, baby boy Blue Eyed Leucistic! Kiddo named him after the blue planet in honor of his pretty blue eyes.

A BEL beep is what my daughter originally wanted before I steered her to a Russian Rat, so this time we went back to Plan A. Neptune came to us from a small hobby breeder in Colorado, Reptiles with Altitude, via MorphMarket. His breeder was so proud of him and gushed endlessly about his wonderful personality (very true) and fantastic feeding response (very, very true). After looking at many others and inundating his breeder with 1000s of patiently answered questions, we knew he was “the one”.

We’ve had Neptune now for a few weeks. We let him rest and acclimate for 1 week before offering food. We’ve offered multiple times since his rest period, every 5-7 days, and he’s eaten immediately, with no hesitation. I couldn’t get rat fuzzies for his first few feedings, so had to offer mice. I was terrified this would throw him off but once my rats came in (thank you Big Cheese), he made the switch back seamlessly. What a relief, so far so good!

We are just starting short handling sessions now that he’s acclimated and has had several meals. Totally leaving him alone for the first few weeks was SO HARD, but I wanted to ensure he had time to settle and was eating well.

The deets:

•BEL: Mojave/Lesser (dad was a Pastave, mom was a Lesserbee)
•Hatch Date: July 25, 2017
•Current weight @ 7 months: 115 grams
•Eating f/t fuzzy rats every 5 days

Current set-up & temps:

•15 qt sterilite tub
•Reptile Prime substrate on order - paper towels at the moment
•2 RBI hides - size Small
•Hot side hide 87º-90º
•Cool side hide 77º-80º
•Humidity 50%-55% on avg. (raised to 65%-70% during shed, 1st week we had him)
•Ultratherm 6X11 UTH (on Jumpstart)
•60 watt CHE (on another Jumpstart) for ambient temps - had to fashion a holding mechanism for the CHE out of an Exo Terra lamp stand and a square glass vase of river rocks for weight, since the sterilite tub wasn’t heavy enough to mount the lamp stand to. Figured I’d make it pretty by turning the vase of rocks into a planter for live bamboo. I melted holes in the top of the tub, on his cold side, so the heat could penetrate.

NOW PICS!!













He’s a little on the small side (right?), but to me he looks healthy, well proportioned, and eats like a champion. Y’all tell me if you think otherwise, because so many others his age or even younger seem to be heavier/bigger. Also, steer me straight on my husbandry if you see anything amiss. I wanted to give as much detail as possible, so you could tell me if I’m on the wrong track.

After losing Bonsai I’m SUPER paranoid and over-protective about this little guy. Neptune is so beautiful, incredibly sweet, downright friendly even, and we really, really love him and hope he lives forever.