Sigh My husband and I went to a Buffalo pet store over the weekend. They do not order-in and sell BPs, but if people consign them there, they do have them for sale. Well, there was a Huge female there. My husband popped her and sure enough, she's a she. She is literally the largest BP I have ever seen; around 5' but maybe a few inches longer. But.. girthy! Her girth exceeds the width of a beer can and then some. I swear, she looks like she has eggs in her. The only background that I have is that her former owner had her for 4 years, never bred her, and did not have any other snakes. I think that her fattiness could maybe be due to overfeeding?
She has some pretty drastic retained shed. All is fine, save for about 6 inches going from her nose down her neck. One retained eyecap. I explained how to remove those to them, but I am not confident that they'll follow through. I moved her in my hands and managed to Gently remove some of the shed on her neck (it did not go completely around her body anywhere, which is good.)
So.. the debate. I want her. I want to get her out of that place. I know that the $$ I give to them will go to the guy who consigned her there, not them; they might make $10 off of her. They are not the most stellar pet store out there but really, all of their animals were in fine condition and cages, besides this snake. It is not a case of "I will buy this snake and they'll just replace it with 100 more."
They want.. $80. I would of course Not even think of breeding her this year; 90 days' strict quarantine would definately be observed. I am thinking of purchasing her this weekend really. But I am of course a bit nervous, since I do not know the man who owned her, or her history, and of course a vet visit and deparasitization will happen if I do. Space is not an issue; $ is, but I have something that I can easily sell on ebay by then.
So.. I am mulling this one over! I feel bad for her of course, being there with the retained shed, but it is definately something that I could easily deal with. she eats fine and is eating live rats in their care. If I don't get her, I still plan on going down there and removing that skin, as that is just unacceptable. Your thoughts?