She continues to amaze me...

[Cody]

I'm just so freaking impressed with Pelota. I haven't had experience with a wild caught or farmed bp, but I'm a firm believer that captive bred bp's are just so much easier. Caring for Pelota so far has been a breeze. She was tolerating handling after only 2 days in my care....3 days in my care she ate a frozen thawed small adult mouse. A week or two ago she gave me a perfect one piece shed. And now she successfully switched to rats like nothing.

Last friday I got an adult mouse and a weanling rat from the pet store. I was just going to get an adult mouse, but the guy doesn't seem to have any good sized mice there anymore. They're all just dinky little things. So I asked him about rats. He pulled out varying sizes from the freezer, and I spotted one that was quite long, but not too girthy. I measured and weighed it later, and found it to be a large weanling rat.
Anyway, come feeding time, I'm all nervous and wondering if I should thaw the mouse too incase she turns down the rat. Then I'm thinking "she'll never take this thing. It's huge. Atleast double the size of the mice I've been feeding". All that doubt crumbled when I offered her the rat.

I hadn't even got the lid off the cage and she was going nuts. I tried taking her out to lay down the newspaper, and she was striking at me and the air. That's not like her, lol. Anyway, I finally wrangle her into my hands and lay the newspaper down. I plop her in her cage, and she's flicking her tounge everywhere, picking up that scent. I put the rat in the tongs, go to put it down in the cage to do the usual wiggle, and almost mess my pants as she turns straight around from facing the water dish, and grabs the rat from the tongs in mid air. After that, she had some trouble getting started on the head(which I expected, since rat heads are a bit different than mouse heads) and she gave up after a few minutes of fiddling with the head. So I knew the problem was she wasn't getting around the nose. So I took the rat out, heated the nose directly with the heat lamps bulb, then offered the rat to her again, putting the rats nose directly to her mouth. She took it, coiled for a bit, then started on it. After she got the head down, that rat went down like she was slurping a spaghetti noodle. She ate it quicker than she eats the mice. And it was bigger. I'll never figure that out, lol.

Anyway, in conclusion, I'm happier than a pig in mud. It was so easy to get Pelota switched. I just hope I can find another rat that size next week. I haven't yet been able to scrape together the money to order some frozen rats from mice4you.com, but soon I will...maybe within the next two weeks. *crosses fingers for that penny he planted to sprout into money tree*

[BallPythonBabe448]

Thats great.

[Marla]

Another lovely story from Cody. If only all ball pythons were as easy as your Pelota (not that I'm complaining, mind you). Glad it's going well for you.

[sk8er4life]

sounds like mine... how big is pelota?

[BallPythonBabe448]

I think shes around 2 ft.

[Cody]

She's around 2 feet, roughly 240 grams, and the thickness of an average banana.