Hey Smulkin...

[Kara]

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.

[Smulkin]

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.

[iceman25]

Awesome news!

[CTReptileRescue]

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

[Smulkin]

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?

[Smulkin]

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

AS I find more specifics I will let you know.

Cool article, Smulkin. Thanks for sharing.

[Smulkin]

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

[Smulkin]

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.