Freshly shed Caesar ready for dinner

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Originally Posted by Gio

Still love the AP cages too.

The shipping cost kills me on the one I want from them. Yours look great!

I'll give Matthew Martin a try this go round.

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Yeah the shipping is a killer for me too lol. My only other choice if I want to save on shipping would be to get a cage from Constrictors NW as Ed lives about a 3 hour drive from me but I really like the AP cages. So sturdy and I love the sliding doors are removable so I can just take them out when I do cage cleanings.

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Originally Posted by Sauzo

Yeah the shipping is a killer for me too lol. My only other choice if I want to save on shipping would be to get a cage from Constrictors NW as Ed lives about a 3 hour drive from me but I really like the AP cages. So sturdy and I love the sliding doors are removable so I can just take them out when I do cage cleanings.

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I'll bet Ed can make a custom double cage for you and you can save on shipping.

With the bigger cages, unfortunately shipping is an issue which is probably why, CW Northwest and AP are off the table for now.

When I add shipping, heat panel and decorative background cost into the mix I'm closing in on a grand for the final product.

I'm lucky to have a spare Vivarium Electronic thermostat in the mix here or I'd really be spending some cash for the final product.

Luckily we have some time before these boys get big, and by big I'm still hoping for 9 feet or under.

Keep you updates coming.

For sure. Kris told me my boy could easily spend his entire life in a AP T10 with a shelf. Depending how big he gets, we'll see. I mostly will need the bigger cages for when Vicky gets big and probably Rosey. And yeah with shipping, shelf, LED lighting, lock and flexwatt, i'm looking at about $800 out the door for a T25. As for T-stat, I think in a month or 2, i'm going to just bite the bullet and order a Herpstat 6 and then just either locally sell a couple Herpstats I got now and keep a couple as backups or just keep them all lol. I really need to get Dottie her T10 as I can tell she misses her shelf lol. She cruises around at night in the Constrictor NW cage but she always goes in the back and stands up like she is looking for the missing shelf lol. Then I need to get Luna one for sure too as she climbs a ton at night. She is always up in her vines cruising around. The only one who seems pretty content in a non AP cage is the JCP. She happy as long as the mice keep flowing. She eats once a week like clockwork.

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Originally Posted by Sauzo

Lol yeah the camera is fun. As for size, mines maybe a little bigger. I think he had a growth spurt. I swear he was about 3' when I got him and now he seems to 4' from just eyeballing him crawling back into his cage. No way he put on 12" in a week but I swear it seems like it when I held him today lol. Also your guy I think was born after mine. Caesar was born 5-18-16.

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At one point River grew 1.5' in a matter of 2-3 weeks. That was when she was eating two medium rats since I didn't have any larges on hand, and one or two meals later she was on jumbos. Grew faster on two mediums than she did on rabbits twice the size she's getting now.

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Originally Posted by Gio

I concur. I just had Wallace chill with me for over 30 minutes.

Once a retic settles in and you know their habits, they are very predictable snakes. My fella ALMOST seems to enjoy the interaction. I'm certain he is just tolerating it, but I feel the lack of defensiveness and ability to totally chill is a sign of a relaxed snake in my case.

If you look at tongue flicks and watch their sides for heavy breathing you can see if there is stress. Obviously posture plays a role as well. But if Sauzo and I are experiencing very similar signs from our animals, I'd venture to guess these guys from Vital Exotics settle in fairly quickly.

A very experienced friend of mine told me that a retic will give PLENTY of indication if it is going to bite.

They do have some teeth though LOL.

Same with scrubs and other semi arboreal and arboreal snakes.

The bottom line is I don't want to take from any adult snake.

If you want to see a brutal bite, I'll post some pictures of a bite I took from a dog during a protection training exercise that lasted a fraction of a second.

I had more trauma inflicted from that quarter second bite than any bite I ever taken from a snake. Had this dog actually wanted to bite me and was serious, I would have been in real trouble.

I'll save those pictures for another thread.

I want to focus on Sauzo's beautiful retic here, and recommend them to other EXPERIENCED keepers.

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Yep they settle in quickly, and the few times River has gotten defensive with me, she's flattened her head out like a ratsnake and tensed up. Obviously her head is a bit meatier than a ratsnake's, so it just looks like a flattened marshmallow. haha The worst reaction was lifting the front half of her body and moving sideways with her head in the air, head flattened, and puffed up with air, striking if I moved. No hissing, and she quickly calmed down. Her teeth aren't too bad, but that was when she was 4' and under, I'd put the bite under a BRB of similar size.

Although they give you warnings, they are much easier to spook than other snakes, she did this because I left her alone too long outside without touching her. I gotta maintain contact at all times if I let her roam on her own, and had a few other retic/Burm keepers say the same things. With my other snakes, I can let them roam on their own as long as I want without them getting too upset by it (excluding the garters because I'd never see them again). The other time I remember was because I popped the lid off her weighing container. The vibrations scared her, but it was just a quick nip and over with.

Also yesss Sauzo, I need to get a Herpstat 6, but after spending 2 grand on my breeding pair of boas altogether, I'll have to wait to get one for a couple paychecks. I'd love to have all/most of my collection of pulse-proportional and dimming.

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Originally Posted by CloudtheBoa

At one point River grew 1.5' in a matter of 2-3 weeks. That was when she was eating two medium rats since I didn't have any larges on hand, and one or two meals later she was on jumbos. Grew faster on two mediums than she did on rabbits twice the size she's getting now.



Yep they settle in quickly, and the few times River has gotten defensive with me, she's flattened her head out like a ratsnake and tensed up. Obviously her head is a bit meatier than a ratsnake's, so it just looks like a flattened marshmallow. haha The worst reaction was lifting the front half of her body and moving sideways with her head in the air, head flattened, and puffed up with air, striking if I moved. No hissing, and she quickly calmed down. Her teeth aren't too bad, but that was when she was 4' and under, I'd put the bite under a BRB of similar size.

Although they give you warnings, they are much easier to spook than other snakes, she did this because I left her alone too long outside without touching her. I gotta maintain contact at all times if I let her roam on her own, and had a few other retic/Burm keepers say the same things. With my other snakes, I can let them roam on their own as long as I want without them getting too upset by it (excluding the garters because I'd never see them again). The other time I remember was because I popped the lid off her weighing container. The vibrations scared her, but it was just a quick nip and over with.

Also yesss Sauzo, I need to get a Herpstat 6, but after spending 2 grand on my breeding pair of boas altogether, I'll have to wait to get one for a couple paychecks. I'd love to have all/most of my collection of pulse-proportional and dimming.

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Dang, that's some serious growth lol. I'm used to my boas who grow about as fast as paint dries lol. My BP grew pretty darn fast though. She went from about 12" or so to about 3.5' in a year. So maybe i'm not seeing things. Maybe Caesar really has grown lol. He sure does love to eat. He's been getting a rat every 4 days and he seems to like it lol.

And yeah Caesar actually took a shot at me when he was in shed last night. he was cool with me messing with 2 times but the third time I tried to take him out to clean inside his cool hide he was in, he got mad. Yeah I kind of overspent myself too which is why i'm going to have to wait a couple months for the Herpstat 6. Plus i'll need to drop another $1200 buck around then for 3 more AP T10s. And then i'm going to see if I can do some fancy footwork and score me a SD/D Platinum Tiger or a Motley Tiger but i'm not holding my breath on that haha.

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Originally Posted by Sauzo

Dang, that's some serious growth lol. I'm used to my boas who grow about as fast as paint dries lol. My BP grew pretty darn fast though. She went from about 12" or so to about 3.5' in a year. So maybe i'm not seeing things. Maybe Caesar really has grown lol. He sure does love to eat. He's been getting a rat every 4 days and he seems to like it lol.

And yeah Caesar actually took a shot at me when he was in shed last night. he was cool with me messing with 2 times but the third time I tried to take him out to clean inside his cool hide he was in, he got mad. Yeah I kind of overspent myself too which is why i'm going to have to wait a couple months for the Herpstat 6. Plus i'll need to drop another $1200 buck around then for 3 more AP T10s. And then i'm going to see if I can do some fancy footwork and score me a SD/D Platinum Tiger or a Motley Tiger but i'm not holding my breath on that haha.

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Yeah and that was her getting 2 mediums every other week, too. So one, or two feedings max depending on where the spurt happened exactly. She's only grown a single foot since then and that was 7-9 months ago iirc. She randomly hits periods of non-growth where she still rapidly gains weight but doesn't grow an inch. Then she grows half a foot in a month or two. Lol

If she had been growing steadily she'd easily be a few feet longer by now, but even doubling her feeding doesn't produce results if she's in one of those non-growth periods. She just grows when she feels like it.


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Here's Caesar deciding I wasn't that entertaining and going to sleep lol. I'm going to have to get faster with the camera to get some of his face shots lol. https://ball-pythons.net/forums/cach...b51bd4_z_d.jpg