Ambitious Neptune and Diva Ma-tsu

Wonderful stuff Sheree and Karen! Sounds like they are both doing beautifully and will continue to blossom. I bet that male will settle right in and eventually be as nice natured as his mate....he's just been a poor hen errr snake pecked male far too long LOL.


~~Jo~~

*Very* snake pecked Neptune. Now that he's shed, he was back to Loch Ness Monster mode today. Peek out, take a drink, vanish. Still, much more curious than he was before! His head just vanishes back into the hide if we get too close. Ma-tsu on the other hand has been all over the place! Very much a daytime/afternoon snake. She's tucked herself away for the night.

It's very hard to catch up on any Netflix with Ma-tsu on the coffee table. Hard to take our eyes off her, and her eyes are on everything! Our cat isn't this curious! She even curled up on her water dish and watched TV for a while between sips. So unbelievably not shy, while Neptune is just the opposite! Gomez lies somewhere inbetween. ;)

That coiled in/coiled out pic of Ma-tsu is my fave. I love it.

It constantly fascinates me that even within the same species of snake in the same environment and considering their smaller brains, you still see some very obvious individualized 'personalities" (for wont of a better word). Some snakes will just always be more shy, or more reactive to strike defensively, while others show little to no stress during appropriate handling.

Some of our own snakes presented with the identical stimulus will react in such markedly different manners. Just fascinates me to see that a creature that many in the public think of as evil or low on the evolutionary scale, can and will exert their own being in subtle or not so subtle reactions.

Don't ever dispare of your male BB. He may never end up as social as the female, but with slow, steady steps I've seen our own snakes come to accept actions around them that I never believed they would (always within reason and tailored to that specific snake of course).


~~Jo~~

I've had people remark on my LJ that they never realized snakes had so much personality before they read my posts about them. But they are who they are. :) The guy I got them from swore that Ma-tsu just came this way, she's always been Ms. Congeniality. Neptune I think it's a combination of his personality and husbandry issues. I'm sure he'll come around more or less with time, and we respect his space.

Neptune's issues have really endeared him to us, actually! You should have seen Karen glow when he took to the hide she made him so eagerly. I'm letting him alone completely for the week aside from water duty and feedings to let him acclimate, and it's gratifying to see him actually be interested in his surroundings now! It was a bit nerve wracking taking on such a grumpy snake of this size initially, but the gloves make me more confident and it really feels good to help him be a happier guy in general. :)

Don't I know how you feel. Brannagh in full fury is an awesome thing. I seriously used to stand beside her tub and talk myself into a calm state of being before I'd deal with her (gloved of course). My standard line was..."okay Miss B, this is going to happen, easy way, tough way but you are coming out of that tub so I can clean it!" LOL Anyone walking into my house would have thought I'd lost my mind!

I found though that if I did that and had everything in place in case she nailed me (transport tub ready if for instance I was moving her to clean her own tub, my youngest child out of the room so I didn't have to keep an eye on him too) that things went more smoothly. I believe me and Mike being calm but firm with Brannagh was what finally worked. She just couldn't get loose, turn to bite or dominate us....so she finally conceded that we weren't all that horribly bad for stupid humans LOL.


~~Jo~~

They are absolutely gorgeous!

Squee! Neptune is out cruising around right now! He loves having a good view of the doves, and luckily the doves aren't clever enough to notice, lol.

I can just envision you, Jo! Yeah, that's pretty much how I feel about Neptune too. Calm and firm... got it. I surprised myself with how calm and firm I was when we moved him from the tank to the tub. Yay me!

When they came out the other day and my grandmother was on the phone I stopped to coo at them immediately after explaining that they don't have ears. My grandmother said "Are you talking to those snakes that can't hear you?" "Erm... yes." She proceeded to tease me about being put away for that one day, lol! Feels good to talk to them tho, so I don't care. :P