Just got to measure her!!

This is an FYI :)

Last night, I happen to enter the bedroom to find Nagini cruising her cage...stretched out across the front. Seeing a great opportunity, I hastened to grab my ruler. (Didn't have time to grab the camera after, she moved too fast)

Supposedly she is about 2 months old. I measured her at roughly 18-20" long. Is this good?

Sounds about right.

Congratulations on the measure! Mine is around 3 months, and just went over 20" by a hair. I've had good luck using a tape measure for fabrics- I just start it by his tail, then work my way up, keeping in contact with his body. :)

What's yours eating now?

My girl is around 18 or 20 inches also. She's getting fed crawlers. In between fuzzies and hoppers. They've got they're eyes open.

She's around 2 months old.

:) I'm glad to hear that she's right where she should be in size. She's currently eating hoppers with MUCH enthusiasm (except for this past Monday when she teased me by watching the thing for ten minutes before striking).

I had her out today and for the first time she really seemed to 'enjoy' handling. She crawled all over my hand and arm. Unfortunately, I got an unwanted present in the form of a single little black bug on her neck... those damn things just seem to materialize out of nowhere! So now it's off to the reptile store for some PAM...

Hmm, do you have to treat gecko tanks as well?? I'll go ahead and pre-treat the corn snake tank so I won't have to worry about them when I bring them home, but what about the Leo?

3 months old huh? Eating hoppers? What does she weigh? Have you been able to do that?

I'm wondering if maybe I'm under feeding.

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Originally Posted by Argentra

:) I'm glad to hear that she's right where she should be in size. She's currently eating hoppers with MUCH enthusiasm (except for this past Monday when she teased me by watching the thing for ten minutes before striking).

I had her out today and for the first time she really seemed to 'enjoy' handling. She crawled all over my hand and arm. Unfortunately, I got an unwanted present in the form of a single little black bug on her neck... those damn things just seem to materialize out of nowhere! So now it's off to the reptile store for some PAM...

Hmm, do you have to treat gecko tanks as well?? I'll go ahead and pre-treat the corn snake tank so I won't have to worry about them when I bring them home, but what about the Leo?

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Hi,

I would recomend asking that question in the gecko section to get more answers but since it kills insects I would imagine there would be some issues at least with feeding and it's better to get good information on these things - is there a contact email on the can anywhere you can ask the manufacturers opinion?

Jamie had a really good article/post about pam recently as well so it might be worth searching for that.


dr del

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Originally Posted by 2kdime

3 months old huh? Eating hoppers? What does she weigh? Have you been able to do that?

I'm wondering if maybe I'm under feeding.

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I believe that you are. Hatchlings are able to take hopper mice as their first meal. If you're feeding fuzzy rats, you're probably fine, but fuzzy mice is not enough for your snake.

Try hopper mice or small adult mice. I started all of my babies whem I got them on hoppers or small adult mice.

I do remember when I got my first ball python being nervous with each increase in size, but he always did just fine. Just remember that with adult mice, they can't be left with your snake overnight, so be prepared to house them if not eaten in the first 30 minutes.

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Originally Posted by Argentra

Hmm, do you have to treat gecko tanks as well?? I'll go ahead and pre-treat the corn snake tank so I won't have to worry about them when I bring them home, but what about the Leo?

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Were you able to find Provent-A-Mite at the pet store? Not many carry it. I had to get mine online.

As for treating gecko enclosures - I don't. Your leo eats insects, PAM kills insects. And it lasts for a good 30 days with one treatment.

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Originally Posted by rabernet

Were you able to find Provent-A-Mite at the pet store? Not many carry it. I had to get mine online.

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Yep. The Scales N Tails where I got Nagini, and where I get her and the gecko's food, sells it.

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Originally Posted by rabernet

As for treating gecko enclosures - I don't. Your leo eats insects, PAM kills insects. And it lasts for a good 30 days with one treatment.

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Umm...right. I guess I didn't think about that fact when I asked. :oops:
I just hope mites don't get to him.

As for how much she weighs, I haven't gotten to find out yet but I'm looking into getting a nice scale.

For scales personally I think the 7001 DX can't be beat.


http://www.oldwillknottscales.com/in...ROD&ProdID=187

Comes in black or silver and this particular seller has ebay stores often with sales on this scale.

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Originally Posted by rabernet

I believe that you are. Hatchlings are able to take hopper mice as their first meal. If you're feeding fuzzy rats, you're probably fine, but fuzzy mice is not enough for your snake.

Try hopper mice or small adult mice. I started all of my babies whem I got them on hoppers or small adult mice.

I do remember when I got my first ball python being nervous with each increase in size, but he always did just fine. Just remember that with adult mice, they can't be left with your snake overnight, so be prepared to house them if not eaten in the first 30 minutes.

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But my little girl is about as big around as my thumb. I weighed her a few weeks back at the vet she weighed in at 62 grams. She's getting crawler mice right now. It leaves a very faint lump in her stomach. Should I go ahead and up her to hoppers anyway??

Well I can only tell you that I've got two hatchlings less than 60 grams and they both easily take down 5 day old pink rats.

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Originally Posted by 2kdime

But my little girl is about as big around as my thumb. I weighed her a few weeks back at the vet she weighed in at 62 grams. She's getting crawler mice right now. It leaves a very faint lump in her stomach. Should I go ahead and up her to hoppers anyway??

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I would think she could take small hoppers (eye just opened).

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Originally Posted by frankykeno

Well I can only tell you that I've got two hatchlings less than 60 grams and they both easily take down 5 day old pink rats.

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That's all I need to hear!!

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Originally Posted by Argentra

I just hope mites don't get to him.

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Mites are pretty species specific, so snake mites aren't likely to bother your leo. Just make sure that you change clothes and wash your hands after handling the mite infected snake before going into the leo enclosure. :)

:) cool. Good advice all around.

Joanna, thanks for that scale link. That site looks great, as does that price. I'll have to see if WalMart has anything cheaper I can still get results from (to placate my partner...who hates it when I spend money at all), but most likely I'll be going with that one. Thanks :)

A quick Q on food size increases: I know that upping size is based on girth of the snake, but I'm not the greatest at size comparisons. I am planning on acquiring a pair of mice to breed my own (only need one pair to give pinks to the corn and sometimes to the leo and hoppers to the BP) and wanted to know if there is ANY other way of determining when a snake should be upped to the next size mouse. It's kind of hard to tell after she eats if she's still hungry or just looking around for a good place to hide.

Isn't about 10% of they're body weight about right?

Up until they start growing up? You certainly don't wanna feed 250 grams of food to a 2500 gram snake.

Just when they're little woula make sense to me.

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Originally Posted by Argentra

A quick Q on food size increases: I know that upping size is based on girth of the snake, but I'm not the greatest at size comparisons. I am planning on acquiring a pair of mice to breed my own (only need one pair to give pinks to the corn and sometimes to the leo and hoppers to the BP) and wanted to know if there is ANY other way of determining when a snake should be upped to the next size mouse. It's kind of hard to tell after she eats if she's still hungry or just looking around for a good place to hide.

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It's very hard to quantify. For me, it really was learning as I went. I'd start with a hopper for a baby - and if they still look like they're hunting after about a month of one hopper, I'd go to two. Then I'd move to a small mouse for about a month, then increase to two, until I moved up to mediums, one for several weeks, then two and so on.

Here's some great stuff to help decide about appropriate prey sizes. That's first...is the prey appropriately sized (compare empty largest girth of snake to the largest area on a rodent which is their hips/butt end). Then you have to decide if that one prey is enough. With rats it pretty much is easy because they grow so much, mice don't. The rat vs mice comparison chart really comes in handy when I have to convert (as I feed rats it's harder for me to suggest x number of x size mice to someone). This particular chart is invaluable because it gives ages too....for instance a day old rat pink would be maybe 3 grams but a 6 day old rat pink would be about 8 grams. The photos are courtesy of The Mouse Factory to give you a visual on growth of both rodents. www.rodentpro.com has absolutely excellent info on their site with specific lenghts, weights, etc. of each stage of rodent growth. Well worth checking out!

Mice:
http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...0Info/mice.jpg

Rats:
http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...20Info/rat.jpg

Rodent comparison by weight/age chart:
http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2.../sizechart.jpg

So going by that chart for instance my 07 hatchlings that were just under 60 grams were eating 7 gram 5 day old pink rats. Today I weighed them both...one is now at 58 grams, the other is at 69 grams. They'll likely remain on this size pink rat for a few more feedings. The other two 07 hatchlings are 146 and 168 grams respectively. They both eat rat fuzzies which I would guesstimate are about 15 grams in weight being that they are 10-12 day old fuzzy rats.

They eat every 5 days and will move up to every 7 days when they hit 200 grams or thereabouts.

When I fed mice I just used approximate weights to a single rat and fed multiples when I felt they needed the total volume but weren't ready for a single larger mouse. I've done the same with rats occasionally as a transitional stage....in other words perhaps two small pups before moving up to one small weanling rat.

Hope that helped.

Cool. Good charts. I'll see what I can determine when the time comes. :)

Something on the mite thing: A friend of mine had extra bottles of 'Jurassi Mite' from JurassiPet and gave me one of them for nothing. Would this product be alright to use so I don't have to spend $20 on PAM? So far I've just seen the one little black bug, and I shifted her cypress around with my hand looking to see if there were more but didn't see anything (I know that's not conclusive). I still want to treat her tank and stuff just in case, so would the Jurassi Mite be ok?

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Originally Posted by Argentra

Cool. Good charts. I'll see what I can determine when the time comes. :)

Something on the mite thing: A friend of mine had extra bottles of 'Jurassi Mite' from JurassiPet and gave me one of them for nothing. Would this product be alright to use so I don't have to spend $20 on PAM? So far I've just seen the one little black bug, and I shifted her cypress around with my hand looking to see if there were more but didn't see anything (I know that's not conclusive). I still want to treat her tank and stuff just in case, so would the Jurassi Mite be ok?

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I'm not familiar with the product, but PAM is the only FDA approved product that kills the mites AND the eggs. This Jurassi Mite may very well kill the mites, but in about 30 days, you'll have mites again when the eggs hatch. Doesn't seem to matter how thoroughly you clean.

I put a Reptile Relief treated snake into a brand new clean enclosure (never used before). Thirty days later, I had mites again. Immediately got online and purchased the PAM and have never had another mite since. I also love PAM for pre-treating enclosures of any new aquisitions. Just gives you peace of mind.