Our younglings

Greetings all, my wife and myself are new to the boards here and happy to have found it! Just a bevy of great info being shared here - hats off to all.

Just wanted to introduce the pythons in our house Vasuki (Ball) and Neph (African Rock).

http://www.angelfire.com/freak2/skee...phNvasuki2.jpg

Both very social and mellow snakes, great temperment, healthy eaters and avid climbers. Though we've not sexed them yet we believe they are both female, but regardless they are a joyful addition to our zoo of a family.

Though I haven't yet been able to get a good in-focus pic of it because she is so active and curious and thus almost constantly in motion we've noticed Neph has what appears to be a black shiny marking slightly raised on her nose.

http://www.angelfire.com/freak2/skee...X/naphplug.jpg

She seems in perfect health otherwise - fast clean shed last week followed by gulping down a mouse the following day, and today took another mouse. Could this be a healing wound? Signs of a resp infection? As soon as I can con her into holding still long enough to get a focused shot I'll post it and open a new thread.

At any rate thanks for having us and we look forward to sharing.

welcome to the boards.
Bp's are great. Rocks are too (as long as they are in the right hands..lol)
Both beautiful animals.
Rusty

Woohoo! Somebody with an AfRock! Welcome to our little corner of the web!
As far as the raised discolored scale, it could possibly be a healing nose rub wound. I have never heard of any outward visible signs of an RI like that, so I doubt it's a sign of an RI. If it doesn't seem to be affecting her sheds or appetite, I probably wouldn't worry about it, unless it gets bigger. If you've got the $$ for a pre-emptive veterinary strike, you could get it looked at.
I, personally, am looking forward to some more pics of Neph in particular. Is Neph your first giant constrictor species?
Glad to have you aboard!

Welcome aboard! Glad you have you, your wife, and your pythons joining us. How big will Neph get?

Neph will get very very big..lol
Sorry, I bet randy'll get it. they get *too* big..lol
Rusty

They will get from 18 to 28 feet, though I tend to see them in all sizes, the largest one into rescue was approx. 26 feet.
Rusty

Very active board. Outstanding!

Neph did a good bit of exploring with her nose when we first brought her home and tends to still do so clockwise. As she explores she'll occasionally double back and looks like she might be making more contact when she does - could just be her curious nature coupled with her new home and the fact that she was on the verge of getting a shed off at that time. Hope thats all there is to it as I have never seen it's like.

I've heard a good bit about the bad rep the rocks have gotten - but as she was reportedly born in captivity and has always enjoyed a good bit of human contact I don't foresee any problems with attitude. First giant she is or could be. Looking forward to it. As a kid I was an aspiring herp and collected all the east coast could offer me, my most memorable being a 4' wild-caught Hog-nosed.

Neph has some serious size potential (18-20ft some females recorded at 28+) and in the wild they can be googled dining on gazelle, alligators and big cats . . . which sadly the local supply is out of feeder gazelle :P

Don't think I'll be wearing that 200lbs around my neck. But for the time being she digs the contact and really enjoys pushing herself up into your hair and nosing around.

http://www.angelfire.com/freak2/skeeezics/PIX/neph.jpghttp://www.angelfire.com/freak2/skeeezics/PIX/neph1.jpg

And they LOVE the water - so in addition to a healthy sized portion of soaking area she enjoys her swims in the tub as well.


Appreciate the reassurances, quick responses, interest and warm welcome! You'll likely hear my wife (Smynx) chiming in here too.

Herp-wise atm we have the 2 pythons and a Sudanese Plated Lizard - another shockingly mello reptile in our house who mistakes himself for a pirate's parrot and ambles up to your shoulder every time. THe mammals . . . oy - have to save that for a different post.

Hi and welcome to you and your wife! How fast do Afrocks grow? In other words...how long until she's a giant??? Both your pythons sound wonderful, and the lizard sounds cool too! I'd love to hear about everybody else you have at your zoo!

Just thought I should chime in here. Thanks to everyone for the welcomes. Smulkin and I are happy to be a part of this. I never figured myself for a reptile person, but our middle son acquired an iguana last year, then our youngest asked for a snake for Christmas. (That's Vasuki, the ball python.) Her gentle nature won me over immediately, so when Smulkin started pining for the African Rock, I offered no resistance. I'm now reading all I can about our cold-blooded pets and have even subscribed to Reptiles magazine. We're looking forward to attending our first reptile show in Pittsburgh next month.

As for the other pets in our household (besides our three sons), we have two dogs (a maltese and a german shepherd), a cat, and a dwarf hamster. (We may end up feeding the cat to the African Rock at some point. :D ) We're waiting on a parrotlet which hasn't been fully weened yet, and we're attempting breed mice for our snakes. We'd also like to start breeding ball pythons at some point in the future when we're a bit more experienced and knowledgeable.

At any rate, it's great to find forum with so much activity and so much knowledge being exchanged. We look forward to hearing your advice and at some point hope to know enough to offer some ourselves.

Welcome to the site! Those are some very nice herps you got there. And by looking at the current size of the rock, thats gotta be a big bp. Any ideas how you're going to house the rock as an adult? I've seen people build "rooms" into their existing house for cages. They look real nice.

great snakes!!!
I really like Neph, (african rock) though I think that I'm never going to be abble of having one snake that can get that big.Hope to see more pics of both of your snakes soon :P
Jesús

Both snakes are still pretty small (under 3 feet). Neph is just a baby, and even though she's just as long or longer than Suki, she's obviously not as heavy-bodied. We've got plenty of room in our house to accomodate Neph's eventual size, but no definite plans yet on how to do so. We've adopted a moderate feeding schedule as opposed to power-feeding her, so hopefully, we'll have plenty of time to figure things out.

You ever see that video of a rock eating a full grown male gazelle? That was awsome, and now that I think about it I gotta find that vid and upload it!

good call John watching giant restrictors eat their giant prey is more than amazing to watch
make sure you tell us when and if you find that video and download it

oh ya and welcome to the site sulkin and smynx this is a great site to get those questions awnsered.
and keep the pics coming when your afrock gets real big.........................don't fall prey to it.......................LOL!!!

I looked for 20 mins and could not locate it. Dang, guess I'll wait some more. Heck I'm still looking for the video of the hoax 49 foot retic.

Are these stills from the video you are talking about? I found these with google image finder but didn't know there was a corresponding video:

http://www.angelfire.com/freak2/skee...X/afrrock1.jpg

The boys will have moved on to college by that time so we'll have some spare rooms - oughta be a real litmus test when they start bringing the girlfriends home to meet us.

Anyone else have pics of thier rock?

Oh and on an unrelated topic I forgot to post a pic of Whiskers (though I think my son might have renamed him "Reptar") our omnivore who enjoys tomatos mangos kiwis crickets and a pinkie now and again:

http://www.angelfire.com/freak2/skee...IX/fluffy2.jpg

I've never seen one of these until we picked it up - really great mellow disposition and awesome pets.

Well, not from the same video. In the video the rock is out of a field and the gazelle has massive horns.