My first BP!....I wasn't acutally going to buy today.....

Well, I wanted to go check out what Chicago Reptile House in terms of caging and everything since I was going to get my first BP next week at the NARBC. I had intended to get everything I wanted set up and ready to go before I went to the convention and got my first bp.

That turned out to be a horrible drive in Chicago with several interstate changes, and several tolls. Dummy me, I forgot to bring change for the tolls and briefly panicked at an no manual lane 15 cent one, since I had no change on me, but I found 15 cents in the car. 2 hours later and 1 major wrong turn, I arrived at the store.

I wandered around, looked at what they had, asked about caging and stuff (unfournately, they were sold out of the 40 gal tanks).

Then I made the mistake of asking a second time to hold one of the ball pythons....The guy left me alone for a while, and ran off to help some of the other customers walking around in the store. I fell in love with the BP I was holding, and needless to say, he/she is now installed in a 28G tank, with aspen for substrate, a hide, an undertank heater, one small branch like thing, and 1 water dish. I'm going to pick up a thermometer tomorrow, and probably make a moist hide. I doubt it's humid enough for him right now (I'm going to keep referring to it as a him until I find out). I've got a hydrometer in the tank now.

He/She is just a normal, but now I need a name. I had expected it to ball up and not move around too much when I got home or when I first startied to hold it. Especially since it is starting a shed. Also, it spent approx. 2 hours in a paper bag in the car (poor thing...traffic was bad). As soon as I got home, I cut some small slits into an old cottage cheese container, and put my bp in it with some warm water. He's in great condition, I just think it's pretty dry in my apartment, and he's starting a shed. Also I needed something to put him in while I got the tank set up anyway.

One of my friends showed up as I was putting everything in order. The bp turned to be extremely curious so far, and my friend laura was thrilled and wanted to play with my snake. She held him for a while, and the bp was extremely curious and moved around quite a bit.

Anyway, it needs a name.
So far possible names have been:

1. Zith (but he doesn't have a stripe, so that's more of a name I would want to put on a striped bp)

2. Pulsar (My cat is named nebula for color reasons. Any other astrological name could also work.)

3. Crowley (suggested by laura)

4. Monty (look, it's a monty python..har har. Seems too silly, but doable)

5. Issa. (I reread the belgarid recently, and I can't think of any other books I have read with names along those lines)

5. Any other neat mythological or book name that has something to do with snakes. No gods/goddess though please. After becoming pagan, I don't feel quite right giving one of my pets a name along those lines.

Any other suggestions are welcome. After we get a bunch together I'll pick out the ones I really like, and se a poll set up to narrow it down.

Oh yeah, other than the vet and the pet store where I got him from, is there anybody else I could go to who could possibly sex my snake for me? I forgot to ask if they would sex it for me before I left.

I'm glad the albino was sold. She pulled the cobra pose when he pulled out the box and she was goregous. I probably would have given into temptation and bought her instead. One of the guys showed me a pastel spider ball for 3500. I'm glad I didn't ask to see any of the others...morphs are so neat...but so expensive.

Anyway, I'll stop rambleing now and let me know what kind of names you come up with :) I don't have a digital camera, so I can't post pictures or anything yet either.

Congrats :). I'd go with Issa, i've never heard a snake named Issa.

Congrats on the early new arrival. :) I don't have any name suggestions, but I can say you might wanna leave him be for a week. It'll be majorly stressful on that poor snake, being in shed, and being in a new environment. Usually handling while they're in shed is frowned upon, since the shed process can be painful/uncomfortable. I heard that it feels like a bad sunburn. So handling probably isn't best. Plus he needs to settle in to his new environment.

Good luck, and raise'm up good. 8)

Yeah, I hadn't acutally planned in handling him at all tonight other than putting him into his new cage, and I finally managed to convince Laura that he needed to be left alone for a few days to settle in and shed. (She has 2 female rats and a dog. She told me that one of her first thoughts was that they could finally get a male rat and so they could name him Raphel and then give me the babies for feeders :P Laura's not exactly your average chick, but then again, neither am I.

I'm not quite sure when I should try feeding him first . The guy said weds, but I'm not sure if he ment this week or next week. I'm not going to try it until after he sheds anyway. He's been eating pk small adult mice. He's about 2 months old now.

I would definitely wait until after he sheds. Leaving him alone for the first week is always a good idea, just so that he gets used to his new home. Very cool that he is already on p/k mice :). Let us know how it all goes!

Slick
Hiss
Rage
Blaze
Mojo (moe-joe)
Freeda (free-duh)
Mosi (moe-zee)
Mogli (moe-glee)
Cupid
hoodini


I like iss

Quote:

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I heard that it feels like a bad sunburn.

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did your bp tell you that? j/k

I vote for Issa :)

Oh man, I am not naming any animal Houdini or hoodini. I ended up with a friend's hamster named houdini when she moved. They named it Houdini becuase they ran into a store for a min, and discovered the hamster had chewed its way out of the box and was loose in the car. After assuming ownership, we could not keep that animal in a cage for long periods of time. She chewed through everything and anything we tried to keep her inside the cage didn't work for long. At least every time she got out the poodle let us know where she was.

haha LOL!