Making sure everything is Legit

I find that animals that ship cold like that arrive much more stressed. I still think it's legit---it's still summer, so the shipper wouldn't put heat packs in yet, because too hot is more dangerous than too cold.

But you should leave her completely alone for another couple days. I've had animals arrive in February from Florida (I'm in Arizona) that were still cold even with the heat packs, and they threw the kind of fit you're describing. A complete meltdown, actually---when the black pastel started twitching her tail at me, I thought maybe she was having a seizure. But a week later she was fine.

HOWEVER, the piebald that shipped with her was not perfectly fine. I took the pied to the vet three weeks later, and she was found not have a pretty bad case of intestinal flagellates. The vet said: sometimes stress from the cold allows an undetectable, low-level case of parasites to just take over. And flagellates are really common.

So leave your new black-eyed Lucy alone for a week? But keep an eye on her. If she's still hiding all of the time and never coming out and doesn't eat two weeks in a row, it's probably worth taking her to the vet for a fecal smear.

And congratulations!

Sounds amazing, would love to see pics. Guessing you have a screen lid and that is why you felt the need to have all of those moist things going on ...


One thing ... Do DON'T need a "damp" hide and "dry" hide. Make them both dry and identical, and just have humidity up in the enclosure. I'm not really sure what you want.

Also, I wouldn't put guppies in the "pond" because they will just excrete ammonia, and your snake won't wanna drink ammonia water or even nitrite/nitrate water if the filter is established. Yucky.

I have a shipment that will be going from Michigan to Texas that requires a heat pack. Temps here are 50-55 and going to texas where lows are 68. Very rare do heat packs become required in summer but it does happen.

Keep in mind our hands are avg temp of 88-92F and a snake that arrives 60-75 will feel COLD to our hands.

Whence I get her settled down I'll take a dropping sample and her into the vet for sure. Just to make sure everything looks good with her.
I'll try to avoid guppies, but maybe I'll go with a single cool freshwater animal to put in there like a Dinosaur Palmas. Its easy for me to do plenty of water changes since I work at my Local Pet store and I bring 20G of water back home with me on a daily basis for my 65g Reef aquarium.
As for pics Ill get some up ASAP I just need to borrow a better camera than what my cellphone can offer :D

No need to take her to vet or a stool sample unless shes sick. Arriving cold will NOT make her sick.


and whats with the Fish?

Just to make sure she is clear of parasites and there is nothing to worry about.

yeah, the fish might be bad Idea after a bit more research.. They could introduce parasites..
Would be pretty tight though!

Sometimes I just get ahead of myself

Any other animal in the enclosure is a bad idea. It would LOOK neat, but its a bad idea. Where are your pics?

Tomorrow. I promise!
Even if I havta resort to my 5mp camera on my phone I'll get some of her and her enclosure.

I'm def. going to get some high quality ones of her soon. It'd be sek-C to get one of her coiling around my assault rifle.
I'm even going to get custom made decals and patches of her. She's going to be like my own personal mascot! :rolleyes:

I love it. And I wanna see some low Q pics :D

Low Quality pics dont do her justice though.
She is the most beautiful animal I have ever seen!

I used to be turned off by snakes because Ive been nailed a few times by Red Tail Boas at my work. But then after selling a Black King snake to a customer, I sold myself on the snake as well. So I bought the Black King snake.

After watching some youtube vids of my snake I eventually ran into a Leucistic Ball python vid and fell in love.
I had to have one. Money was no object. Thanks to student loans!