new rescue case, big female...

http://gallery.pethobbyist.com/data/3979ringer.jpg
Here's a pic of our recent rescue case, Ginger. She came from a REALLY stupid guy who had her in a 20-g long aquarium with a tiny heatpad, paper towel and NO hide. (She was VERY hissy and snappy when we moved her to the rubbermaid, and I can't blame her.) She was pathetically half buried under the towel and it was all ripped up; poor girl. (she's around 5 feet long.) They bought her a few months frrom a shoddy pet store and she was obviously wildcaught. :( :( :(
I had her for a few weeks now. She was about to go into shed when I got her, so I put her in a saturated rubbermaid with a big waterbowl and moist sphagnum moss. A perfect shed resulted! I had pulled about 6 ticks off of her prior to that.
Don't you just love the ring of light scales that goes completely around her? Anyone ever see this kind of thing proven as genetic? More questions about her will go under the appropriate forums; for now, you can look at her pic.

Haha! didn't even realize that this is the same photo I used for my icon!

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Originally Posted by Ginevive

Don't you just love the ring of light scales that goes completely around her? Anyone ever see this kind of thing proven as genetic?

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I don't know that it has been proven genetic for anything, but as an interesting coincidence, I have a male with the same type of marking whose grandfather was het pied.

http://img15.photobucket.com/albums/...left111403.jpg

http://img15.photobucket.com/albums/...ring111403.jpg

http://img15.photobucket.com/albums/...nger100203.jpg

She's a beauty! I'll bet she's a much happier snake now. How is she settling in? Does she eat? Is she getting less defensive around you?

I have not tried feeding, but his wed. i am getting a rat to see how she responds. I am sure that she has never seen one in her life, but we'll see. Pray to the snakie gods for me! I'm going to try a fresh-killed one.
She has settled in ok, she is always in her hide, but if I were her I'd be doing the same thing :)

No kidding...she's probably thrilled to have a hide! Good luck with the rat...let us know how it goes. :)

If the guy and the pet store had her previously, they most likely tried feeding her either mice or rats and if she's already been in your care a few weeks she's probably started to de-stress somewhat and think about getting hungry. I'll bet you have a pretty good chance she'll eat for you.

I stopped off yesterday in the pet store that ticked me off before with their ball python husbandry (before several of you joined, so you may have missed it) and saw once again several juvie balls (including 2 that looked like new hatchlings) being housed in the same tank with no hides, no water, no heat mat. This time, though, to make it worse, there was a bigger bp in a separate tank (probably 800 g or so) with no hides, no water, and two big heat rocks -- the poor thing was curled up in the back corner, trying to hide. I wanted to bring him home, but didn't want to support the store and their treatment of him. I'll bet he was turned in to them because somebody didn't want him anymore and they just set him right up to sell. What makes it even worse to me is that the rodent cages actually had hides, as did a couple of the lizards, but not the poor bp's.

I hate pet stores like that. I really wish that I could somehow get all the suffering BPs in those kinda stores and make good homes for them. But that would involve financially supporting the hell-holes by paying them money for their snakes. Grr, this makes me so mad. But at least I have this gal in my care now, and I can give her a good setup and maybe make her life tolerable.

Wow, Rplank, that ring around your BP looks similar to the one on Ginger. Maybe they're from the same locale? If they got together now, they might say "hey, did you go to that bar in Ghana? I think you look familiar..." !

Yep, it's hard to fight the instinct to bring home the snakes, but I really do not want to support those stores with my money. Of course, there's also no telling what that poor guy could have that I'd be bringing in to my collection, and that's risk I don't want to take either. Still, I wish I could ensure that he'd have a good home and proper care. I'm glad your rescue now has you to do this for her.

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Yep, it's hard to fight the instinct to bring home the snakes, but I really do not want to support those stores with my money.

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Beautifully written Marla,
And Ginevive she is lucky you got her. I hope all works out for her, I am sure she is much happier!
Thanks
Rusty

Thanks, Rusty. I am sure you are familiar with the temptation! :)

I have said the same sentaments to a MILLION people!
Lol
many have told me they have "Rescued" an animal by purchaseing it from a pet store. But in actuality they just promoted the store with more money to buy more snakes to abuse.
I have lucked out in the sense, that after ten years of making "friends", I am able to remove snakes from certain petstores if they are ill or neglected etc. We also work close enough with our states regulating agencies (Department of Environmental Protection, and the Department of Agriculture) to be able to put in a trusted report.
That's the best thing to do. Report it, complain and be a general pain in the butt untill someone listens. Some states are harder as laws differ widely between states. If anyone ever needs help trying to find laws pertaining to their own state, I'd be willing to help.
I can't gaurentee anything, but I can try to help none the less.
Thanks
Rusty

Good of you to help. Unfortunately, I'm sure that the clean carpet in the cage and readily available feeder rodents would negate any complaints I might have to SPCA or animal control over the treatment of these snakes. Their habitat was clean, just wayyy stressful.

I can just hope that "karma" does exist, and that the bad pet store owners are reincarnated into pets in their next life and are forced to live in bad conditions. lol

Y'know, Ginevive, that's a comforting thought. :)

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Originally Posted by Ginevive

I can just hope that "karma" does exist, and that the bad pet store owners are reincarnated into pets in their next life and are forced to live in bad conditions. lol

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They will be reincarnated into Feeder Mice and my Ball will gobble them down :mrgreen:

I bought my snake from a place called "Reptile Island," so I would think they knew something about how to care for reptiles. They had a tank with like at least 8 or 9 wild caught ball pythons all huddled together in a corner, and no hides. My future snake was in a smaller tank a couple of other captive bred snakes, not ball pythons. I think one was a boa, and I don't know about the other one. Anyway, my Monty was hiding curled up underneath the other snakes, since there was no hide. There was water dish, not that it helped much because he was shedding all in pieces.

I didn't know there was anything wrong with any of this at the time. I figured they knew what they were doing. Otherwise I would have taken my business elsewhere. I'm glad I've got Monty now though.

Gen, unfortunately it's exactly that kind of ignorance on the part of pet store employees that leads to poor husbandry by pet owners. I'm not blaming the employees -- though I'd like them to be motivated enough to research proper husbandry -- but the pet stores that should be training their employees properly, including with regard to husbandry as well as the stuff they typically cover, like grooming and absenteeism.