Hey Smulkin...

Any progress with little Kali? How's she doing for you? Hope all is well...my fingers are crossed!

K

Yes, please keep us updated. I hope she is doing well for you.

Meant to post - but was called away - just got back home today and gearing for enclosure cleaning en masse (hers being the exception).

She's made a bound of improvement on all fronts.

She DID take the offered rat pup and has been really great in letting me treat her - no flattening or heavy breathing while I do so - just kind of looks at me then finds something else to look at. When I take her out and back in to do this she is now cool with it - no striking and it's all by hand.

I'll go into a LOT more detail in a little while after I get the cleaning taken care of for most of the other herps in the house - just saw this and wanted to quickly say she's eaten and really settled in well over the past week - still going slow with her but the necessitated and unavoidable interactions are night and day.

More this evening - Neph (AfRock) shed the other day (another nice 1 piece) and since she skipped her last meal due to the impending shed she's RAVENOUS and in hunting mode - soon as I have them all taken care of I'll hop back on.

Awesome news!

Great news, I'm glad she ate for you, and sounds like she is improving!
Rusty

Indeed - she's still pretty much in isolation and doing much better - interaction is still only as necessitated. Though she doesn't seem to appreciate it when I am wearing a black T-shirt LOL hehe - maybe I remind her of a bird silhuoette from some instinctual vestige or it's just contrast.

K, are you at all familiar with the optical physiology in pythons in terms of cone and rod distribution?

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/scite...ard020109.html

AS I find more specifics I will let you know.

Cool article, Smulkin. Thanks for sharing.

Yeah that was pretty wild - wish I had thought of getting a $380K grants for some snakes - sheeeesh.

She took her second rat pup pretty fast - good news there. Her striking has diminished significantly but I am still not handling her much other than to apply the betadine, and when I do that I usually lift her out with a hook. She is intense. I have to sort of nudge her head back from her tail so I can lift it for the application pretty much every time, and she's calmest if she has a little hunk of sphagnum masking her head. It's clear when I go to do this she's thinking "AND WHY THE HELL ARE YOU LIFTING MY TAIL!?". A few times I have put her back by hand and not gotten any "thank-you's" by mouth. She seems a lot less stressed by that operation than she does when her lid comes off.

Still making good progress. Still only taking her out when I need to treat her wound. Still have to retrieve and replace her with a hook though hehe - she's fiesty. Once the transfer has taken place though she is generally pretty cool about it (no hissing flattening):

http://paintedover.com/uploads/2/kalihand.jpg

One really ODD thing I have noticed, and I am sure it may be a fluke, is that she NEVER strikes when you are looking at her. She ALWAYS waits until you have your head turned. Not a basis for any assumptions of course, and likely unrelated to blood ambush behavior (given that I am a wee bit too large to eat) - but daymn if she isn't 100% consistent since coming out of her initial stupor from chill. At one point (not during the session which resulted in that pic) I turned my head to get the betadine swab and she launched at me and clear out onto the floor. I felt crushingly bad about that and at once amazed at the foot or so she had to clear to accomplish that. Muscular little hunny.

She's a fabulous looking little snake, Smulkin. Glad to see she's doing so well.

Striking - I can't help but wonder sometimes if it's the movement of looking away that actually triggers the strike...sometimes all they need is that little bit of something happening to set them off, so it seems like coincidence.

K

Wow...she's beautiful! Stunning! And personality to boot...ya can't beat that! LOL