Adopting a 2 year old BP tonight

A friend of mine works with a lady who rescued a BP a year ago from a person who couldn't afford to take him to the vet for a respitory infection.
Now the lady hasn't got enough time for him and has been looking for a good home and someone who would take care of him. Evidently the vet said this snake is very fertile and would make a great breeder male. I am not planning on breeding but it is good to know he is very healthy now.
He comes with a nice terrarium and he and his cage are free.

She said he is about 2 feet and not very girthy. He has been eating frozen-thawed mice every 7 days. I am thinking he should be a bit bigger if he is 2 years old so perhaps he isn't eating large enough food items. I will have to see tonight when I pick him up. She says he is very docile and enjoys his handling sessions. Of course I will keep him apart from Arnold my younger BP and as always, make sure and wash my hands with anti-bacterial solution before I handle my other snakes.

I will post some pics tomorrow of him and his terrarium. I also need to post some pics of Arnold my 6 month old BP who has recovered nicely from his duct tape incident. It looks like his skin is healing up and may not even scar after all.

if its 2 years old its probably a lot longer than 2 feet. good luck with your new snake though.

Thanks, that is what I was thinking. Maybe the lady is bad at estimating his size. I have seen 2 year old bp's and they are usually longer than 2 feet and fairly girthy too. I will be anxious to see him in person in about 2 hours.

Yeah, if he IS two years old & only two feet, you might have quite a case on your hands man. Regardless, good luck & keep us posted on how things go!

Good luck! I'm glad you are planning to take precautions, in case there may be something lurking in the background. I'll bet the snake is longer than 2 feet as the others have said. We'll be looking forward to pics!

Hope you and your new BP do well together just fatten him up with some small rats and Im sure he'll grow up for ya!


On a side note:

Marla your Avatar realy freaks me out. :shock:

Congrats! Sounds like you may have uncovered a real treasure there.

If the snake IS smaller than he's supposed to be, it's probably because he's been fed mice. A 2 year old should be eating rats. I'll be very interested to see if it has been underfed, or if it has simply been underestimated. :) Either way, I'm sure it'll get the best care from you.

I was relieved when I finally saw him in person. He is still a bit small for his age, but seems very healthy. The lady I got him from has had him for 2 years and she says he hasn't grown very much since. I did confirm she has been feeding him frozen-thawed regular size mice which explains his small size for his age. He is about 2.5 to 3 feet, but I did not measure him. He was scheduled to eat last night so I put him in a cardboard box and did the mouse dance with a frozen thawed mouse. Wamo!!!!
He was right at home and gobbled down the mouse no problem. I will definately switch him over to f-t rats next week because mice are definately too small for him. Here are a few pictures of him. He came with his terrarium and I removed the aspen shavings and gave it a thorough cleaning. I put paper towels down for now and he seemed right at home. I need to take a closer look at his eyes as it looks as though the tops of his eyes are golden colored while the bottom halfs are dark.
Could this be left over eye caps? The lady I got him from recently took him to the vet and he checked out fine. Could this be the color of his eyes?

The temps in his cage are 88 on the hot side and 80 on the cool side, humidity is 50%

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Looks like you got yourself a nice healthy snake. Congrats!!!

What do you all think about the eye issue, I know without pics it is hard to tell, but his eyes are not solid black, instead the top half is golden. I need to get a closeup pic of them tonight.

Looks like a good one! And the eye coloring thing you describe is very common, typically going with the scale coloration of the bands by the eyes.

Really? That makes me feel better. Thanks Marla. He evidently bit his prior owner about 6 months ago. I found out it was after she had been handling the frozen thawed mouse. She took him out of his enclosure and was moving him to the box to feed him and he bit her. He obviousely smelled tasty mouse on her hand. Other than that he has been great according to his former owner. I handled him a little last night before feeding him and he seemed ok. I will let him get used to his new home, although the only thing that has changed inside his cage is paper towl substrate. I guess he sees new things outside the glass and probably smells new smells too. I hope he accepts frozen thawed rats the next feeding day as mice are too small for him.
Should I expect him to grow more once he begins eating larger food items?

Yes and no, they grow the most during their first 2 years of life, then it kinda slows down after that. Once you start feeding rats you can go 7-10 days before the next feeding. Lots of talk about overfeeding on here lately....

I would say that you might see him get a little bigger girth wise and probably a little longer, but not much longer. Like Brad said he has goen through his 2 year "growth spurt" but he will get a little longer and bigger. Congrats on your new BP hope that it all works out for y'all.

He has been used to eating his f-t mouse every 7 days. I was going to feed him the larger f-t rat next Monday and stick to the 7 day feeding schedule. If he doesn't get much larger that is fine with me. That means his cage will house him his entire life. It came with him and it is decent size.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by beaglegod

On a side note:

Marla your Avatar realy freaks me out. :shock:

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Hee hee :lol: It's gettin' about time for me to change it again ...

Looks like you've found yourself a great little snake! I hope he switches to rats easily for you. I realize we couldn't see the entire cage, but it looks like there's a lack of hiding places. Try one on both the warm and cool sides of the tank and see what he thinks. :)

You are correct. I took some pics of the tank without the warm side hide in place. Currently I have a hide on each side and Aspen shavings for substrate now.

Nice looking bp.
Congrats!
Looks like he was just a little under fed but otherwise from the pics looks good
Good Luck

Thanks. I hope feeding him larger more appropriate food will help him fill out.

great looking BP.
In have seen a few different BP's with the eye coloration you are speaking of. It just matched the facial bands. But very pretty none the less.
I'm glad he is doing well. Looks great
Rusty

Thanks, I was worried he hadn't shed his eye caps. I am happy to hear it is something he can be proud of.
I will try and snap some close up shots tonight of him.