Just really proud of my little girl right now...

Just have to post this somewhere because I'm super proud of my little girl... I'm hesitant to use the rescue term with rehomed BPs unless they're really in bad condition, but she deserves it. She came to me eating mouse fuzzies (you know, the petsmart brand super expensive arctic mice :)) and hovering around 400 grams at what the previous owner told me was at least one and a half years. She was also really defensive, with tons of hissing and even striking as she'd never had a proper hide/temp/humidity and must have been super uncomfortable.

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I took her in without anything on hand at the beginning of the current mess with the info that I was getting an underweight male with stuck shed and a possible RI. Great news is that even though her tail has some issues (no real grip strength, sort of nubby) none of it died and the RI turned out to be tons of old shed crammed into her little nose that I ended up having to pull out with tweezers because it was causing face rubbing/labored breathing, which was an extremely harrowing experience but she allowed it. We've been working up to bigger prey... she's not over 500 grams and took her first small rat!! It took her a good hour to figure out how to get it down but she did!

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I just love this little snake so much and seeing her thrive is making me so happy... I hope her growth picks up and she reaches full adult size someday. Have you guys ever had a slow grower catch up? Reach breeding size? I would love to pair her a few years down the line and see what she makes... there might be something in her or she might just be a very orange normal but there's no other way to find out :P

Heartwarming story, good on you :)

She should still be capable of reaching full size, she's probably not smaller than she would be in the wild at her age, they don't need to eat near as much as most of us feed them to be healthy. I'm sure she'll still be able to breed as well but I personally wouldn't recommend breeding a normal unless you really think she has something to prove out, there is just way too many animals needing homes so not the best to make more normals but that's up to you to decide. Just make sure you have a plan for the babies and are ok with keeping them if you can't find them good homes.

Good luck with her, sounds like you're off to a great start!

Great story. Keep us updated! With proper care she should reach adult size.

That's great to hear, thank you guys so much! On the topic of breeding out a normal, I definitely wouldn't have any trouble finding homes for her clutch with friends and would probably be keeping 2-4 of the babies myself, so even if it was a genetically bland result they'd still have plenty of choices for forever homes. I was planning to breed her to either the little male I have on hand once he's bigger, or borrowing an even more gene heavy male from a friend, though once the father gets into the five-plus gene range it might be a little hard to figure out exactly what she'd be contributing...

Still, I'll definitely take that into account, I guess it does feel pretty bad to be putting out normals when there are plenty of snakes like her floating around needing to be rehomed... hrgh, I don't think I'd be able to sell any of her normal babies to anyone I didn't know with a clear conscience. :(

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Originally Posted by Phirou

I guess it does feel pretty bad to be putting out normals when there are plenty of snakes like her floating around needing to be rehomed... hrgh, I don't think I'd be able to sell any of her normal babies to anyone I didn't know with a clear conscience. :(

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You took two snakes from bad situations and want to use them to create more snakes. How would you ensure any offspring didn't end up in the same type conditions? Most people get a snake and lose interest in a year or two or can't be bothered to provide correct care at any point. If you know that many people interested in providing excellent decades long care to normal bps, I'm sure they can find some without you adding to the population. Enjoy them as pets.

Yeah you're absolutely right about that, as much as I love normals oversaturatation is a real problem... going to any petsmart will easily prove that one. I was hoping that she had some YB or something in her (heavily suspecting it due to flame colors and the busy, broken up edges of her belly) that would mix well and end up with some morph combos I eventually want but you 100% have a point about the chances of putting out another clutch of normals not being worth the risk. Definitely going to reconsider on that front unless I can positively ID her genes...

(As a random note, male isn't a rescue/foster, picked him up as a planned pet from a breeder recently, this girl counts as my one and only foster/rehome impulse fail... she's just too precious to part with)