An introduction, and setting up for a young BP

Well, we're all set up and ready for the new arrival, coming in a few days.

The photos below shows the RBI cage as it's heating up during the installation.

I needed to get the cage higher than the countertop, so I added a few black legs (actually 6" CD holders from the ContainerStore). The side effect was that the temperatures dropped because of the increased airflow under the cage. So I built an 18x33" shelf that goes atop the legs, and now the cage sits on that (with 1/2" spacer legs for a little air flow).

The HerpStat is hanging on the wall, the probe is between the UltraTherm mat and the bottom of the cage. In our case the thermostat needs to be set to 104.5 degrees to get a 92 degree temp inside the warm side high (as measured by a very nice IR thermometer from RBI).

The substrate is several layers of regular newspaper topped with two single 18x24" sheets of unprinted newsprint (conveniently sold as a pad in an art supply store, shown in the first photo to the left of the cabinet).

As a precaution, we heated the driftwood in the oven to make sure it's sterile.

I installed a 14" warm white flourescent light that should help when cleaning the cage. Obviously we'll leave the light off most of the time.

The thermometer/hygrometer that's there now is temporary... I'm expecting a wireless unit to come in this week.

By the way, Rich at RBI has been a pleasure to deal with!

If all goes well, the youngster will ship from WA on Monday night, and we should have her here in NJ on Tuesday morning.

Thanks for all your support, comments and suggestions.

http://www.zenreich.com/ZenWeb/perso.../cagea_640.jpg

http://www.zenreich.com/ZenWeb/perso.../cageb_640.jpg


http://www.zenreich.com/ZenWeb/perso.../cagec_640.jpg

Well, the young lady arrived safe and sound this morning.

We placed her in the cage, and within a few minutes she set about exploring her new home. So I grabbed this quick photo before she decided to curl up in the corner behind the warm-side hide, where she stayed for the rest of the day.

http://www.zenreich.com/ZenWeb/perso...newhome412.jpg

Now that it's dark outside, she's doing some more exploring. We're letting her get settled in for a couple of days before handling her.

Thanks for all your help with the fine tuning... we were ready for her arrival.

Hi,

She looks lovely. :)

One thing though - double check how warm that lamp gets at both ends after it has been on for a while.

I had one that got worryingly hot and I ended up having to put a gaurd round it. They can also mess up the temps in the tank so just keep an eye on everything for a week or so to make sure all is well.:gj:

If it is only for providing light you might find you can get away with the ambient light in the room.


dr del

Dr Del,

We plan to only turn on that fluorescent light for cage cleaning and the occasional photo, so heat won't be a problem.

Now we have to figure out what her name is <s>

A very nice setup and a pretty little girl. :)

As for names, well... all my snakes (with two exceptions) are named after Greek Gods. :D
That one looks like an Aphrodite to me. ;)

Oh she's lovely!

If you have a Home Depot handy to you, in the aisle where they sell packing boxes is a great deal on enclosure paper. It's just a long box, orange and white in color, labelled Packing Paper, 10 lbs, approximately 165 sheets and it's only $8.99! Robin (rabernet) told me about this and I'm loving it. For you with only the one snake and that enclosure, for less than $10.00 you should be set for ages.

I'm no help for names LOL. All our ball pythons have crazy hard to say, hard to spell, harder to pronounce gaelic/celtic names. :)

It's been 19 days since her last feed on the west coast. We wanted her pretty empty for shipping here, and gave her a few days to acclimate once she arrived. So we figured that she was ready to feed.

We did our first feeding tonight, a F/T weanling rat.
We placed the rat and a piece of paper towel into a plastic bag and placed the bag in a large bowl of hot tapwater.

After about 20 minutes, we removed the paper towel and placed the paper in her cage to pre-scent and inspire some appetite while the rat continued defrosting in the bag in the hot water. She poked her head out of the cool side hide and looked around (though she didn't move towards the paper towel).

When defrosted fully, Josh placed tongs on the nape of the rat's neck and I instructed him to dangle the rat about 4 inches in front of the lady. She came out of the hide a bit more immediately, and looked at the rat for about 45 seconds. I had Josh begin to move the rat away just slightly, and she followed. About 10 seconds later she struck strongly. She remained coiled for a few minutes.

This was Josh's first time feeding a snake, and he (and a friend) stood in awe as she released and repositioned the rat, then struck again at the rat's nose... then proceeded to slowly and deliberately ingest the rat. It's a cool thing to watch, and I enjoyed watching the guys (19 and 20 years old) watching this for the first time. We kept the lights fairly low and they stood very still during this entire process so as not to distract her.

All this time, she was only partially out of her hide box. As soon as the tail was swallowed, she quietly retreated fully into the hide box for a well deserved rest.

So it looks like we have a success on our hands... now if Josh would only decide on a name <s>