our first day together

Aren't they great snakes! We love ours and once they are well settled in, most of them make excellent pets as long as handling is reasonable and appropriate for a snake.

I'm finding with our kids and I know Lars has mentioned this as well, that they are learning some great life lessons from us having snakes around. Things like patience and putting the snake's needs first, about the natural world of prey & predator (even feeding f/t, this is obvious), about being gentle and easy and still with a young or nervous snake, that they can't impose their will on a snake, that biology/genetics is very cool and so on. All sorts of really nice things for kids to learn at any age.


~~Jo~~

i totally agree with you. my kids are used to being slow and steady with our lizards... they know they can't touch the frogs and toads... they are able to watch a bird grow from a tiny little hatchling to a full grown adult...

ah the circle of life - all within our eyesight... what a gift that is!

we just did our first feeding and i was hoping he would eat. :please:

i put the mouse into his viv and he grabbed it like he hadn't been fed in a year!!! immediately he constricted it and the mouse was dead.

then he sniffed and nudged and moved the mouse around and i thought... oh no i've got a mouse that too big for him :worry: what am i going to do??? i could tell by the way dexter was looking at the mouse :love: there was no way for me to get it from him.

so i came on here and did a search... reading i found "i look for prey 3x the size of my snakes head and no bigger"

so i looked at the mouse and at dexter's head and realized i was being an overprotectivefirsttime mom. :redface:

so i made the kids lunch (not mice but actually... pig!) and when i came back dexter was just finishing the tail... he gave a huge yawn and i saw 1/2 an inch of tail sticking out of his throat. his body is swelled from the mouse but no larger than the thickest part of his body...

so i think we both did good... me being a first time snake mama and him eating his first meal in my home. ;)

and yes, i know... no holding him for 48 hours! that makes it... friday night snake holding night!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

right?

Isn't it such a wonderful feeling to have a snake all curled up with a nice rodent in it's belly? You're definitely in the right place, since very few people out there will listen to our incessant babbling about our snakes and their bodily functions. ;)

You got it! And congrats! :clap: :D

i'm just soooo pleased about this... since i've read about how hard it can be for a snake to eat for the first time(s).

the breeder, henry, suggested i let dexter eat in his viv for the first few times and if they are very successful feedings, then i can remove him for eating.

oh and one more thing... i read that aspen is disgestible for balls and that IF they eat some, it's fine... is this correct?

Sounds wonderful! If you are at all worried about aspen ingestion then just pop in a pad of newspaper and remove it after he's all done and gone off to digest. We feed all our snakes on aspen and have yet to have any issue with it. If the prey isn't sopping wet from being immersed in hot water it doesn't tend to pick up much if any aspen. If a tiny bit did get in, remember these are snakes with stomachs designed to digest bone, teeth, hair, etc.

We compare the size of the prey at it's largest point (hips on a rat/mouse for the ball pythons, head on a bunny for the large boa) to the largest girth of the particular snake. If it's not larger than the largest girth circumference, they are usually good to go. Our snakes have a nice thickening after eating but no large discernible lump. Just our way, not the "only" or "right" way though LOL.

Glad your snake is eating so well...that's always exciting and reassuring!


~~Jo~~

jo,

thank you so much. i have found all of your postings on this forum to be so informative and enlightening...

thanks!
aleesha

Oh that's nice of you to say! Seriously if this forum hadn't been around or the wonderful folks on it that have taken some of my panicked phone calls I highly doubt my family or our snakes would be as happily settled in as we are at this point. I know we would have never had the confidence to take on the adoptees and rescues that we have or watched them come along so well without the full support and care of the forum members of BPnet.

If in any way I can pass on what little I know then I guess it's "pay it forward". We're so passionate about this hobby that I guess I just want to see everyone as happy with their snakes as I am!

I think I can speak for most of us here when I say that it's very rewarding to assist at whatever level we can to help ensure snakes are being kept properly so they can thrive and their humans can have a great experience with them.

Acccck I'm babbling......never have a coffee and caramel temptation liqueur if you've ingested cold meds recently! LOL


~~Jo~~

good advice :)

knowledge is power. ignorance is NOT bliss.

thanks for sharing! hopefully one day i'll know enough to "pay it forward" too.

okay so i waited and last night (friday) i brought dexter out but he just laid in our hands... no exploring at all, he seemed kinda... tired. (this was around 5pm) so after about 10 minutes i put him back into his viv.

tonight around the same time, we brought him out, and again, not a lot of action. so after about 20 minutes i put him back.

now, i'm thinking... this is good. i'm respecting what dexter wants without 'not' handling him...

but after reading some other threads within this forum... could it be that i'm handling him too early? oh and also i haven't seen him exploring his enclosure ever since we fed him (that was wed. afternoon). maybe it's taking a little longer for him to digest? he looks fine when we have him out... no 'bulges'.