The Burm Has Landed!

You better not have in. If you do we are going to take your reptile keeping license away.:D Don't give in if you do you aren't doing him any favors.

He is so beautiful and cool! My little one has gone off food, but he's a wisp compared to your guy. I'm stressing out about it so I feel your pain. 'Tis the season I think!

Hang tough, he'll turn the corner soon.

Oye, another feeding failure, I waited 2 full weeks and all he had two weeks ago was one little mouse, have the rat in with him all day, reheated once or twice, brained it, even on the suggestion of one guy as a last resort scented it with some tuna water from the can, but it seems he would rather starve to death than eat a rat. How Long should I wait before giving him a mouse to keep him healthy?

I hadn't heard of scenting with tuna water before but i have heard of using chicken broth. Most boids go nuts for the scent of chicken.
I know you said you left it in all day, did you try offering at night and leaving it overnight?
Maybe give him another week and try again? If he starts dropping weight is really the only reason to be concerned. I know it's tough.

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Originally Posted by dkatz4

Oye, another feeding failure, I waited 2 full weeks and all he had two weeks ago was one little mouse, have the rat in with him all day, reheated once or twice, brained it, even on the suggestion of one guy as a last resort scented it with some tuna water from the can, but it seems he would rather starve to death than eat a rat. How Long should I wait before giving him a mouse to keep him healthy?

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Honeslty i wouldnt worry about it. I would feed him whatever he eats until you have him stable and set up and stuff. If i remember correctly, didnt you only get this snake like 2 weeks ago or so? You are trying to do too much at once. First and foremost is to get him settled in with regular consistent feedings of whatever he is willing to eat. Then you work with handling and getting him less bitey when he is a baby because a bite from a 3 foot snake hurts a lot less than a bite from a 13 foot snake lol. Then after all that, then you can work on trying to switch him.

I personally think he will switch on his own with time and once he is settled in. There is no way a 10 foot snake is going to look at a mouse like food. Thats like you looking at a tic tac and thinking its filet mignon. Once he outgrows mice, I'm sure he will be happy for a juicy rat or quail or rabbit.

Going to try an respond to both April and Sauzo here. I should have tried chicken broth, thats the more recognized trick, i just didn't happen to have any but did have a can of tuna in the pantry. Def think the next attempt will be at night, he's clearly more active, nocturnal hunters and all, though for mice he'll eat whenever.
I have thought of just giving him his mouse fix until he outgrows it, gonna have to feed 2 then 3 at a time to get any real growth thought. Problem is that my feeder guy is like an hour and half away so i usually stock up for like 3 or 4 months between trips. Although the difference in gas, about 120 miles round trip, at $1.49/ gal aver ave 28 miles/gal ; talking about $9 to $10 in gas, but he charges me $0.80/mouse and the local petco is $3, so the trip pays for itself if i get 5 or more mice assuming, of course, that my time is literally worthless, lol.
Dang-it! i thought Burms were supposed to be garbage disposals!

Should have gotten a retic lol. Caesar ate his jumbo rat, then when he was drinking, i thought it was a good time pull his feeding cardboard. Well he saw it coming and came flying over to me with mouth wide open spewing water all over lol. He was less concerned about swallowing the water and more concerned about thinking another rat was coming haha.

Lol i have no sympathy for the price of rodents lol. I pay $2.50 for mice, $10 for jumbo rats and $14 for XL guinea pigs. So i'm getting it coming and going haha.

To my mind I'm wondering if you've possibly ,unknowingly , committed the cardinal snake sin of handling ( and regularly) before getting him into a steady feeding regime .

It's the first thing I read before I got my snake and I've done it ever since .



Rule I - get the snake into a regular / settled feeding schedule BEFORE even attempting to handle any snake - at least two feeds and then a week or so after that for the first handling session .

Some probably won't agree with this especially owners of Corn and King snakes if course ..


As regards feeding - I already posted brief details of feeding in a dim light , evening time and heat mouse /rat with a hairdryer.


I had a Hypo Burm years ago and I've currently got a HD Hypo Burm .. rats are unbelievably expensive even the pups around here so I started both mine on mice and eventually moved up to XL /Jumbo ones . As I recall my standard Hypo Burm got to around 6' in the first year ( just on XL mice ) and his growth freaked the wife out and I decided to part-ex trade him for a Half Dwarf Hypo when he reached 8'+ .

Note the science papers I've seen suggest that there is virtually no difference nutritionally wise between mice and rats .

It's just more convenient to feed a big snake a rat than 4 or 5 or more jumbo mice .




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He took a rat!:carrot::carrot::carrot:

Long story short: I kept it in a bag of soil old mouse substrate overnight and all day, dropped it late and left it all night. Early in the morning I found it untouched, but just for the hell of it I reheated it with some more substrate, and instead of just leaving it I “danced“ it for him for about three or four minutes and out of nowhere he grabbed it!

Dr. Waffles, first off, I love your name sir. Secondly, I just love you.

Burms are like the best ever. I miss mine.


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Not to threadjack this, but I want you to know that because I've been keeping up on this I am SOOO close to getting a male burm but I just can't decide on what paintjob I want at this point. I really don't care about hets because I have no intention of breeding.

The list is as follows for what's available in males:

Hypo
Granite
Albino
Pearl (hypo albino)
Albino Granite
Albino Green
Black Eyed Lucy (man is that an amazing snake, and I believe it's essentially a super hypo but someone may have to correct me on that)


I just can't decide what I want, I love the look of hypos, but a standard old albino is still an amazing looking snake in a burm with that much yellow. HMMMMM

You left off one of the best ones - Caramel Burm
*droool*


OP - I'm really glad Dr Waffles finally took the rat! I hope he keeps it up

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Originally Posted by KevinK

Not to threadjack this, but I want you to know that because I've been keeping up on this I am SOOO close to getting a male burm but I just can't decide on what paintjob I want at this point. I really don't care about hets because I have no intention of breeding.

The list is as follows for what's available in males:

Hypo
Granite
Albino
Pearl (hypo albino)
Albino Granite
Albino Green
Black Eyed Lucy (man is that an amazing snake, and I believe it's essentially a super hypo but someone may have to correct me on that)


I just can't decide what I want, I love the look of hypos, but a standard old albino is still an amazing looking snake in a burm with that much yellow. HMMMMM

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I adore pearls, but am super psyched for my green albino too basically bc I love yellow. I think hypos are beautiful in a more subtle way, but I didn’t opt for one bc I’m only going to have one burm so I had to go for maximum wow factor. Now this is totally subjective, but granite is not my favorite, I feel like it diffuses the colors, but that’s just me, plenty of folks would say I’m crazy.

Congrats, I knew you would win. Now just don’t feed him any more mice.

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Originally Posted by Tigerhawk

Congrats, I knew you would win. Now just don’t feed him any more mice.

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Consider my snake room Euro-Disney.

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Originally Posted by AbsoluteApril

You left off one of the best ones - Caramel Burm
*droool*

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If you know of a breeder that actually has them available, PLEASE let me know. They seem to be rarer than rare and for some odd reason seem to be much more common in the UK right now.

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Originally Posted by dkatz4

He took a rat!:carrot::carrot::carrot:

Long story short: I kept it in a bag of soil old mouse substrate overnight and all day, dropped it late and left it all night. Early in the morning I found it untouched, but just for the hell of it I reheated it with some more substrate, and instead of just leaving it I “danced“ it for him for about three or four minutes and out of nowhere he grabbed it!

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Awesome, glad it fed. I only have one comment.. That Burm can go for months without eating and without ill effect. Dont give in because of worry. I myself am compulsive about checking things like temperatures ect..when in fact 20 years ago all I used were Heat Rocks (worst thing possible) and my Burm is 20 years old now... Of course learning over the year whats best is great, but that snake will be fine and finally eat what you want it to when it gets hungry enough. We think about things in a human fashion because thats whats natural to us. Gorgeous snake by the way.


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Love Albino greens, my Pearl girl is about the same age as your guy.

Update: am I out of the woods yet?? After his last rat on the 10th he stonewalled me for nearly a month! Last Sunday I tried something a little different… Something a little gross: I cut a strip of mouse hide from a frozen mouse and sort of pinned it into the rat’s head (I call it a buffalo bill) well I introduced it to Doc and he looked very keyed in on the mouse hide and snatched it relatively quickly. I was happy with the results but I thought it might’ve just been hunger driving him. Last night I decided to tempt fate and try another Buffalo Bill rat just seven days later.
What an emotional roller coaster, I danced the thing around for about an hour. Finally I just left the darn thing in his cage and went to bed, whenever I do that I find it sitting there right where I left it in the morning so I had already written it off as a failure.


Well lo and behold, I go check on him this morning and I am minus one rat and plus one lumpy snake!! So it was a very hard fought victory and I’m going to give it another shot next Sunday. I’m really hoping that by March this will become a regular progress thread rather than an ongoing saga about feeding issues.

Y'all ready for this?!

Doc actually grew a bit over the past 5 weeks. Since his last measure he's put on about 2.5 inches and that only eating twice during that whole time. Fingers crossed that he's getting in line with food and the next few measures will be even more impressive.
https://scontent-lga3-1.xx.fbcdn.net...04&oe=5B1313F7

Pythons grow like weeds. Dottie grew so fast, Caesar grew like tomorrow was the end of the world and i swear Pat has put on some length. You're going to blink and next thing you know, you will be hunting for goats at local 4H clubs to feed your snake :rage::P

He ate another rat last night, that’s three weeks in a row! 😄
It was a “Buffalo Bill” rat and again he wouldn’t take it off the tongs but preferred to dine solo after I left it in the tank and went to bed.
I don’t want to count my pythons before they’ve hatched, but I’m starting to feel pretty confident 🐣🐍👍

12 Weeks of Waffles!




Nov 30 ~4 months old: 28 inches Feb 27: 35 inches

https://scontent-lga3-1.xx.fbcdn.net...5b&oe=5B425E71

So, as you can see above, in the first 3 months, months of feeding frustration, he put on 7 inches or 2 and 1/3 per month average. Well since then he's pounded a rat a week like a good little snake, and we even upgraded from weanlings to smalls 2 weeks ago.
February 27: 2 feet, 11 inches - March 28: 3 feet, 4 inches! that's 5 inches in one month, holy crap!!:rolleye2:

https://scontent-lga3-1.xx.fbcdn.net...d5&oe=5B74EE0A

He ate an unscented rat! I finally got to feed this handsome boy without any creepy mouse mutilation involved!


https://scontent-lga3-1.xx.fbcdn.net...53&oe=5B369A25

Quote:

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Originally Posted by dkatz4

Y'all ready for this?!

Doc actually grew a bit over the past 5 weeks. Since his last measure he's put on about 2.5 inches and that only eating twice during that whole time. Fingers crossed that he's getting in line with food and the next few measures will be even more impressive.
https://scontent-lga3-1.xx.fbcdn.net...04&oe=5B1313F7

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Photos will not load for me.

I’m not sure why, I can actually see the photo in the quote of my post in your reply, if that makes sense.

does it show up now?

https://ball-pythons.net/gallery/fil...84c9a3250.jpeg

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Originally Posted by dkatz4

I’m not sure why, I can actually see the photo in the quote of my post in your reply, if that makes sense.

does it show up now?

https://ball-pythons.net/gallery/fil...84c9a3250.jpeg

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What software did you use? Yes can see it now.

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Originally Posted by Skyrivers

What software did you use? Yes can see it now.

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I just use my browser, either on my phone or my computer. I know a bunch of my old posts about other snakes now have missing photos b/c of the whole photobucket debacle, but now i ether link to facebook pics or even pics in my b-p.net gallery. i tried tapatalk once, i know its supposed to be easier to upload photos but i just didn't like the interface, maybe i'll give it another try one of these days.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by dkatz4

I just use my browser, either on my phone or my computer. I know a bunch of my old posts about other snakes now have missing photos b/c of the whole photobucket debacle, but now i ether link to facebook pics or even pics in my b-p.net gallery. i tried tapatalk once, i know its supposed to be easier to upload photos but i just didn't like the interface, maybe i'll give it another try one of these days.

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What measuring software

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Skyrivers

What measuring software

Sent from my N9560 using Tapatalk

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:P OH, lol, sorry! i use the measuring tool on serpwidgets, i've tested it with a rope and as along as you take the picture properly (from directly above with no angle to create optical perspective) its accurate within about an inch.
http://serpwidgets.com/main/measure
Although just now when i went to copy the link its giving me a 404 error! oh man, thats not cool, i love this tool - i'm going to post in some groups to see if anyone knows what up.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by dkatz4

So, as you can see above, in the first 3 months, months of feeding frustration, he put on 7 inches or 2 and 1/3 per month average. Well since then he's pounded a rat a week like a good little snake, and we even upgraded from weanlings to smalls 2 weeks ago.
February 27: 2 feet, 11 inches - March 28: 3 feet, 4 inches! that's 5 inches in one month, holy crap!!:rolleye2:

https://scontent-lga3-1.xx.fbcdn.net...d5&oe=5B74EE0A

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I've noticed with all my snakes, when i bumped them up from mice to rats, they took off in growth for a bit, then leveled out. Like Gina, Rango and Louie all just graduated to weaned rats and Gina is now in shed, Louie just shed and Rango is just being Rango lol. Same thing with Pat, he graduated to fuzzy mice and took off in growth and is now going into shed. I'd expect some fast growth on Dr Waffles for a couple months lol. Enjoy it while you can with them being small.

And 5 inches in one month, i dont think i've ever had any of my snakes do that....well maybe Caesar but he is a freak of a snake that doesnt follow the rules lol.

You say he’s got looks for miles ..... how bout miles for a name hahaha it will go with his size when he’s older


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4 FEET!
BOOM!!!




He just shed yesterday, and had skipped his meal on Sunday so I figured I'd throw a dollar at him and see what he’s done over the past 5 weeks or so. 8 flippin’ inches is what he’s done! Can’t wait to see what happens when I bump him up to mediums (and by the way, any tips on when I should do that? Right now the small leaves a lump, visible, but not huge. )

https://scontent-lga3-1.xx.fbcdn.net...09&oe=5B91F2F9

He's a python, they LOVE to eat, well unless its a BP. Then they love to make their owners angry lol. I would just feed him one and see what size lump it leaves. I've fed Caesar guinea pigs so big they made him look like he ate a football. Never seen the guy so happy afterwards lol. I dont do it often but every here and there, i will give him a huge guinea pig and let him wrestle it down and go into a food coma for a week lol.

Heck, even Pat was so happy to see a mouse after i fed him a smaller than usual one and made him wait 8 days. The little booger started wiggling his tail like a crazy dog all over the perch next to him and his body lol. Thought his tail was going to fall off for a sec from all the wiggling haha.

He is beautiful !! Congrats.:)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by dkatz4

4 FEET!
BOOM!!!




He just shed yesterday, and had skipped his meal on Sunday so I figured I'd throw a dollar at him and see what he’s done over the past 5 weeks or so. 8 flippin’ inches is what he’s done! Can’t wait to see what happens when I bump him up to mediums (and by the way, any tips on when I should do that? Right now the small leaves a lump, visible, but not huge. )

https://scontent-lga3-1.xx.fbcdn.net...09&oe=5B91F2F9

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I think you'll be surprised at what they can handle - obviously not power feeding. I bought 'small' rats when I wanted to move my CB17 (August) Pearl up from weaners and my Burm handled them fine. However I looked online and the rats I bought actually fit into the 'medium' bracket weight wise. So she went from weaners to mediums no problem. I bought that same shops 'medium' rats today but they are more like the smaller end of 'large' size. Going to try them tonight. I give her a week between feeds but if you feed more often then smaller prey might be better. She's 125cm and 878 grams. I weighed all the rats and marked down how many grams they are. Do you class these as medium or large?https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...0fad2aa47a.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...274fb57cbb.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...e943008c1a.jpg

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I've never weighed them, always just eye-balled it, but the mediums i get are closer to 6 inches long while the smalls are closer to 4. At this point i sort of feel like he could handle a medium, but doesn't necessarily need a medium. Part of the problem is that i always feed him at night so i don' have as good an idea of what he goes through to get the small down. He was a problem feeder at the start (the first few pages of this thread chronicle that) and night feedings were part of getting him established so i am nervous to try it in the light, but perhaps I'll try so i can see how easily or not easily the smalls are going down.

You would be surprised. Like i said, Caesar can pack down XXL guinea pigs and even XXXL ones if i give them to him. Even Pat being a little 22 inch GTP is about to be moved up to small hopper mice as fuzzies seem to be getting rather small to him. He ate a large fuzzy/small hopper today(eyes were open and it was bouncing around) with no problem. Downed it and was curled back up on his perch in less than 5 mins.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sauzo

You would be surprised. Like i said, Caesar can pack down XXL guinea pigs and even XXXL ones if i give them to him. Even Pat being a little 22 inch GTP is about to be moved up to small hopper mice as fuzzies seem to be getting rather small to him. He ate a large fuzzy/small hopper today(eyes were open and it was bouncing around) with no problem. Downed it and was curled back up on his perch in less than 5 mins.

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you know i think he may be just about ready, he's really starting to gain bit of girth. Not as thick as Irwin, but i have to keep reminding myself that he's not a boa and i don't need to feed him with kid gloves. Well this week he's getting a little treat, i have an extra weanling rat that is too small for any of my guys, and i don't want it to go to waste, so i'm going to give it to Doc as a mid week snack, followed by a small on his usual feeding day, but i think by the following week i may just throw a medium at him.

My Burm is a similar size to yours and some say she's small but growing slow and steady is better imo.

I've seen some videos of people ramming chicken bits and ribs down a Burms throat following a rat just to get the poor snake to grow fast which is crazy.

Admittedly I've been obsessing a bit myself but I think he'll be fine with a bigger size as long as it's only one prey item no more than once a week. I read somewhere they can eat something 5 times bigger than their head.

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For the record, my male Burm (Dexter) is going through the SAME exact phase right now in terms of not eating and has for about a month and a half. He is on small rats and has eaten them before a couple times, now he just slithers up to them quickly like he wants to eat them and backs off. So I'll make the rat dance for about a half hour with no luck, leave it in the cage, and almost every time I wake up in the morning to the rat still being there. I've tried the hairdryer trick as well as the tuna scenting trick with no results.

In summary you had your best results with a strip of mouse fur on the rat you're feeding? I'm getting desperate for results.

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Originally Posted by KevinK

For the record, my male Burm (Dexter) is going through the SAME exact phase right now in terms of not eating and has for about a month and a half. He is on small rats and has eaten them before a couple times, now he just slithers up to them quickly like he wants to eat them and backs off. So I'll make the rat dance for about a half hour with no luck, leave it in the cage, and almost every time I wake up in the morning to the rat still being there. I've tried the hairdryer trick as well as the tuna scenting trick with no results.

In summary you had your best results with a strip of mouse fur on the rat you're feeding? I'm getting desperate for results.

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Sorry I didn’t check the site for a long time so I just read this. Yes, my “Buffalo Bill” method worked perfectly not only for me but for A few other people I told about it who were also having issues, One guy was switching from mice tonrats and one woman was switching from rats to rabbits, the strip of hide method worked in both cases. Good luck!

- - - Updated - - -

Today was my six month anniversary with Dr. waffles and he decided to use the occasion to teach me a lesson 😬
Long story short: he found a spot on the couch that I guess felt so secure that he got super pissed when I went to pick him up, he huffed and hissed and even threw a half hearted strike in my direction, not totally unlike when I try to get him out of his viv, Only instead of just going in with confidence and picking up his hissy little butt, I tiptoed around and ended up sort of chasing him across the floor whereupon he Pee’d like a madman.
So I guess the lesson is to just pick up the snake. He is a month away from his first birthday and about 4 1/2 feet long, anyone else have these issues? do we think he will outgrow it or do I just have to be very mindful of his moods? Incidentally, he hasn’t had an episode like this since the first few days I got him.

Phyllis used to be kinda jumpy if I had her out and hadn’t actually had a hand on her for a minute. Never struck but would definitely tense up and act nervous. She’s so big now that she has much more confidence and will almost follow me around the room when I have her out to clean her cage.
I think dr waffles just got spooked honestly. He sounds like a cool critter


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Quote:

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Originally Posted by jmcrook

Phyllis used to be kinda jumpy if I had her out and hadn’t actually had a hand on her for a minute. ....
I think dr waffles just got spooked honestly. He sounds like a cool critter


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Thanks, man, he is a cool critter:). In fact, A few minutes before his little freak out he was slithered up under my shirt through the neck hole and I had my face just sort of leaning on his body petting him like a lapdog. I’m sitting there thinking, “I wish snake haters could see this now” 10 minutes later I’ve got a writhing hissing pissing serpent popping urate pebble’s all over the floor and it’s like, “… Probably better that the snake haters aren’t here to see this“ LOL

UPDATE: He's in SHED!
So hard to tell with these albinos (and at night) so that also might have contributed to his pissy mood last night.

Well I took a measurement anyway, and he is Juuust squeezed into the 2nd place spot in my collection at 4 foot, 5.5 inches
Irwin is about 4' 7" now, so I'd say he will hold onto his title of longest snake in the house for about 2 more weeks, LOL.

https://scontent-lga3-1.xx.fbcdn.net...6d&oe=5B80C54F

Quote:

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Originally Posted by dkatz4

UPDATE: He's in SHED!
So hard to tell with these albinos (and at night) so that also might have contributed to his pissy mood last night.

Well I took a measurement anyway, and he is Juuust squeezed into the 2nd place spot in my collection at 4 foot, 5.5 inches
Irwin is about 4' 7" now, so I'd say he will hold onto his title of longest snake in the house for about 2 more weeks, LOL.

https://scontent-lga3-1.xx.fbcdn.net...6d&oe=5B80C54F

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This guys looking good, looks a similar size to my girl who hatched around July/August last year.https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...c2a9770ec6.jpg

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Valyrian

This guys looking good, looks a similar size to my girl who hatched around July/August last year.https://ball-pythons.net/forums/cach...c2a9770ec6.jpg

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She's a beauty! I remember seeing her in that FB post about the nature of her.. pearlessence(?) . Doc was hatched July 2017 so I predict he'll be coming in around the 5 foot mark on his first birthday, which i think is pretty good (i hope). I'm not trying to power feed/grow him but at the same time my understanding is that they don't need to be as meticulously slow-grown as boas.

So Dexter is STILL stonewalling me on frozen thawed rats. He went about a month and a half without eating at all and I had to get him to take something to I made probably a bad decision and gave him a live mouse...which he snatched in about 30 seconds. The next week I offered a live small rat....he would slither up and check it out over the course of about two hours but still refused to take it.

So far Ive tried: tuna juice, chicken broth, mouse bedding, braining, the hairdryer method. I dance the rat for him every time for about a half hour...then leave it overnight, Nothing has worked. He smells it, slithers up to it...but wont strike, wont wrap.

His problem? He wants mice, but Im not going to give them to him becauee I cant have a mouser Burm. I will try your buffalo bill method tonight but Im still confused as to how you "pin" the mouse hide to the rat I guess.

On a side note: After hours and hours of scrolling around "Burm Junkies"...which I believe to now be a dead website, numerous breeders claim that Albinos are notoriously picky feeders and that a far majority of transitioning prey problems (mice to rats, rats to rabbits) involve albinos. Interesting. Would explain why Dr Waffles and Dexter had this same issue. Albinism in both.