Tirel, Ghost Boa

[Eavlynn]

She's beautiful! It looks like she's calming down quite a bit, too. You've worked miracles with her, I don't think I could have handled giving shots to any living thing, but Tirel looks to be one healthy gal now

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[CloudtheBoa]

She's beautiful! It looks like she's calming down quite a bit, too. You've worked miracles with her, I don't think I could have handled giving shots to any living thing, but Tirel looks to be one healthy gal now

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Thanks! I haven't had any further issues with her since then, and luckily the shots were fairly easy to do. I did get worried the one time she bucked while in shed and tore the old skin, but overall it went well even if I had to deal with a hissy bitey snake. lmao


Had Tirel out last week, she was in a dark phase. She's growing nicely, but is probably my scrawniest boa. haha Even when I first got her, she didn't have a whole lot of girth. For a time there she had this comical body where the main part of her body was thick and square then you get to her tail and it was like a piece of spaghetti just randomly attached to her. lol After awhile of feeding her conservatively, her body is a lot more proportionate she's just not a thick girl at all. I'm thinking once she gets bigger she should start putting on some girth, but she will probably always be a lean girl.


She's also doing pretty good on monthly feedings, gaining weight rapidly and growing in length pretty decently. Howl is still a bit bigger than her but she's closing in on him.














This one shows her iridescence nicely even if the white balance is a little high.








I like how her tail has this one aberrant spot where the saddle is broken up.





And finally, a full bodied photo of her in her tub.

[CloudtheBoa]

Well she's bunched up her paper towels again. >.> She seems so clumsy on them, I'm seriously debating putting the remaining EcoEarth from the latest batch in here for her. I'm kinda worried about doing that, though. As you can see in the first photo, there's a bit of condensation along the bottom back wall of her tub. That's where cold air is moving past. No misting at all since I changed her paper towels, this is all just humidity from the room and evaporation from her water dish. It's not cold enough it's making her cold (she feels warm to the touch when I take her out and the temp gun shows her body temp in the 80's), but it does create some condensation. I'm worried about damp EcoEarth making it too cold in her tub. :/ I might try putting some plastic over my window, too, and see if that helps, but it might be cold coming from the wall of the trailer.

[Eavlynn]

Tirel is looking great

If you wanted to put ecoearth in with her, you could always bake it first. That's what I do to dry it out so it doesn't send the humidity sky high.

You can get those plastic window sealing kits at walmart. They're kind of a pain to put on, but they definitely do the job!

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[CloudtheBoa]

Tirel is looking great

If you wanted to put ecoearth in with her, you could always bake it first. That's what I do to dry it out so it doesn't send the humidity sky high.

You can get those plastic window sealing kits at walmart. They're kind of a pain to put on, but they definitely do the job!

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I'm not worried about the humidity so much as the condensation from that cold draft, and baking it to dry it would defeat the purpose.

So long as there's no condensation it doesn't matter how high her humidity is. The amount of condensation she has right now shouldn't harm anything though it's such a small patch.

I may try to put something over the window or just wait until spring/when she's in a new enclosure.


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[CloudtheBoa]

A little over a week ago I switched her to aspen as she was tipping her bowl again, and I was too lazy at the time to expand EcoEarth. So far, she seems to be doing well on it, so I may keep the aspen for now since EcoEarth tends to get moldy on flexwatt in my experience and I used up the last of the cypress in the last rainbow bedding changes.


She spent a lot of time buried.











And was relaxing topside today in a light phase.

[Sauzo]

Nice little boa. Kind of funny, we both have kind of flipflopped on substrate. I used aspen for years and have recently switched everyone to ReptiChips. So far the stuff is awesome. Everyone loves it and when it dries up some, I just take out the hides and spray the whole floor down with a spray bottle including the snake. Then I put the hides back in.

And yeah Eco Earth is the devil lol. That stuff molded on me a lot. The ReptiChips aka coco husk stuff seems chunky enough where it doesn't form into a packed down cake per say. So it breaths a lot better.

I still like aspen as its easy to see poops and piss on which the ReptiChips is hard to see piss on but the stuff creates crazy humidity. In the AP cages, I sit at 80% all day long. I'm probably going to have to change out the retics stuff every month though as he pisses like a champ and I know I don't catch them all.

You need to get one of those ceramic crocks. I'm using the fancy overpriced Exo Terra extra large ones and even my big girl cant tip it although she does push it around sometimes. I see a lot using the round dog bowl ones.

Oh and dang!!! You're a high roller with that cypress stuff. That stuff costs a ton up here. Would cost me like $100 to do 4 of my 4x2 cages and that's not counting the 2 smaller cages for my dumerils and JCP. Try the coco husk stuff, its fairly cheap and works pretty darn good. I've tried the Exo Terra and the ReptiChips so far. Think I'm going to order a couple bricks of the Plant IT/Grow It brand to see how that stuff is as that stuff is $11 for a 2 cu ft block. The ReptiChips is $20 for 2.5 cu ft block and the Exo Terra is just flat out too expensive haha.

[CloudtheBoa]

Nice little boa. Kind of funny, we both have kind of flipflopped on substrate. I used aspen for years and have recently switched everyone to ReptiChips. So far the stuff is awesome. Everyone loves it and when it dries up some, I just take out the hides and spray the whole floor down with a spray bottle including the snake. Then I put the hides back in.

And yeah Eco Earth is the devil lol. That stuff molded on me a lot. The ReptiChips aka coco husk stuff seems chunky enough where it doesn't form into a packed down cake per say. So it breaths a lot better.

I still like aspen as its easy to see poops and piss on which the ReptiChips is hard to see piss on but the stuff creates crazy humidity. In the AP cages, I sit at 80% all day long. I'm probably going to have to change out the retics stuff every month though as he pisses like a champ and I know I don't catch them all.

You need to get one of those ceramic crocks. I'm using the fancy overpriced Exo Terra extra large ones and even my big girl cant tip it although she does push it around sometimes. I see a lot using the round dog bowl ones.

I don't really like aspen with my boas but it was laying around and didn't require me to expand and squeeze out a bunch of dirt so I decided to give it a try. Lol I mainly only use it with the garters.

I'm definitely not putting any of the boas already on EcoEarth on aspen, but it may work for the boas on flexwatt.

EcoEarth isn't bad, I've just found that flexwatt doesn't heat the bedding strong enough for it to dry out and then it molds. It works fine in my other set ups. In my T12's freshly expanded EE does need to be fluffed until it dries out otherwise it molds, but after it dries out I can control how wet it is and keep it from being so wet it molds.

I have yet to try ReptiChip but I'm thinking of ordering some to replace the cypress mulch in the rainbow boas' bedding mixture.

Also for the water dish I plan on looking for a glass bowl for her until she's large enough for a 4'x2'. I have yet to have a snake dump the Sterilite tubs I usually use.

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[CloudtheBoa]

She recently shed, and rather than using her hide she pushed her hide to the side and dug a shallow in her bedding and sat there the entire time.








Here's some photos from last night better showing her size.

[CloudtheBoa]

So...Tirel has been in a 4'x2'x2' for awhile now, and she's closing in on or pushing 4.5' now. Her last weight was 1,009 grams. She's been on mediums for awhile, and is still maintaining her usual thin body frame. Her gripping power and coordination is sloooowly, ever slowly, getting better, but she still is very weak. She has no muscle definition to speak of, though she has a good girth. She has been this way since the day she arrived, but, where she used to flop uselessly and be unable to grab my hand at all before her body strength gave out, she can now keep a grip on my arm/wrist. She can't maintain the grip for long, but she's making progress! I need to get her out more and work with her to build up her muscles. I've been feeding her more than I do the other boas as of late, considering her naturally fast growth and weakness, in hopes of further helping her to make progress. I have a few adult quail waiting for her once she gets big enough, to help the transition between medium rats and larges.

She has also become pretty much completely docile. She hasn't hissed or struck in over year, and even while in shed she's a sweetie. I don't have to worry about how my hand moves around her face, as that no longer puts her on the defensive or coaxes a strike out of her.



I'm not sure how easy it is to tell in this photo, but she has an odd shape to her body due to having a healthy girth size but no muscle. Her body is more of a trapezoid shape than a rectangle. I haven't really been able to get her to have more of a normal boa body shape even with feeding her larger meals more often than the others. She puts on weight 2-3 times the rate of Crona and Nymeria, but always maintains the same body structure. I'm hoping maybe once she gets to an adult size she'll fill out better. If she doesn't improve on that front, I'll probably keep her out of my breeding plans, since the low muscle mass may not be suited to carrying a litter.



Some of her in her enclosure.

She really loves laying on top of the rock hide. The entry is so small, it wouldn't work as a hide on anything other than paper towels or newspaper, but functions well as a place to rest her head. XD





She's now too heavy to sit on this branch without it tipping over. I'll probably give it to Crona.



It could still function as a head rest. XD (This is an older photo.)



When her strength gave out, and she fell away from my hand, she quickly grabbed her tail with the side of her neck. She kept a surprisingly good grip here, but I still went and grabbed her to support her a little better.