shed

Right on! Congrats man! I attempted to feed Icculus today and before I put him back in his home I let him crawl through my hands a bit and it was awesome, he has never hissed or struck... at anything unfortunately. I appreciate his gentle nature but sure wish he would freakin' eat! I'm happy for you though and how good you are getting along with your BP. I sure hope I will be in the same place you are some day soon.

Rex...shedding-time is a very vulnerable time for a snake. Besides the fact that their eyes cloud over for a day or two...just try to imagine how that would feel to have your skin starting to completely detach and separate from your body! While we can't know exactly what they're feeling, I imagine it to be a very itchy process at the least, and perhaps even tender or painful. Handling during sheds should be kept to a minimum for this reason. (It could be why he was in such a bad mood when you tried to check him out.)

Eddie...if you promised you'd never take your snake out of her hide, you may never get to take her out! LOL That's certainly the way it is with Caesar. (a gopher snake we have) We never, ever see him out of his hides, so if we want to play with him (which he seems to enjoy as much as any snake can) we have to take him out from his hide. This is why I've made sure that all his hides can be lifted straight off of him. Having to reach INTO something and drag him out seemed a lot more invasive and stressful to me. ....just my rambling thoughts on snakes and hides. :)

Judy, I am starting to realize that! I actually sat around watchin Hissy's tank for hours (while watchin TV as well) just waitin for her to come out of her hide so i could play with her. She never did. She stayed in the damn thing ALL DAY LONG!! LOL!! The hides that i have can be lifted off of her, the only problem is that when she feels a presence over her hide, she puffs up & sometimes this causes her body to expand out to the inner walls of the hide. So, when i picked the hide up to clean up her spill, she was still stuck inside of it! LOL! It was SO cute! But alas, she did not hiss & that is the important thing! :)

And don't worry Jonah, it may take some work but I am more than certain that you & Icculus will have a wonderful relationship. It is more than obvious that you care very much for him & that makes all the difference in the world!

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So, when i picked the hide up to clean up her spill, she was still stuck inside of it! LOL!

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Yeah...One of Caesar's hides is REALLY snug around him that way. He's not puffing up or anything, he's just crammed into it. So when I pick it up, I have to jiggle it to dump him out of it. I'd worry about the stress of it but he never seems to mind...just looks at me like "NOW what do you want???"

I have seen Jojo go into this small hide and he is hiding under it but its lifted off the ground by like 1/2" its pretty funny. Now i dig a little indention in the substrate so he can fit but they find the funniest ways to hide.

We got to wath Benny shed yesterday.

i came home and saw the requisite mega-p00 near his warm hide and sure enough there was a partial shed in there. Popped him in plastic with a little water to swim around in to ease what he had left on him and put him back in his cage. He shimmied around his hide and worked himself across the bark (substrate) a bit then slid into the hide letting his shed catch on the side of the entry hole and the bark and slid out of it. I've been lucky to've caught a few of them in mid shed (even got to watch Neph's first shed all the way through from the noserub on out) and watch it happen - it's mesmerizing.

Freak occurence or not - in the past 10 days or so pretty much every single snake in the house went for a shed - now I am wonderig if the radical shifts in weather here lately (from 75 degrees to snow back and forth a few times) contributed.