Howl and Dominika

[hambone128]

Well, the long wait is over and here she is. ^.^ She's roughly 7' long and her breeder says her last weight before the trip over here was 13.5 lbs. She drove all the way from Raleigh with her breeder, William "Gray" Rushin since he was coming this way to hike with some of his college buddies. Which works out perfectly, I didn't have to drive and I didn't have to risk her health by having her shipped.


Just as a refresher, she's a 2008 jungle, and had her first ever litter earlier this year. I'm going to be giving her this season off and try her next fall. I have heard adult females tend to take 1-2 years to settle in to a new home, so I may not get lucky quite then. I'm debating on giving her another year just in case she isn't ready, but if there's no harm in it I may go ahead and at least attempt a courtship.


She's in River's old T12, and as you can see I missed a spot while cleaning the shelf the other day...If she leaves the shelf I might take it out and try cleaning it again. Gonna try a bleach solution this time and see if that works to get the stains out.


She fought me getting her out of the transport bag. At first I tried just pulling her out, but she’d just crawl right back into the bag. Eventually I had to just grab the corners of the bag and lift to dump her out. Took me a good 5-6 minutes just to get her out even then. lol


I picked her up on my lunch break yesterday evening, so I didn’t have time to take photos while taking her out, but I snapped these photos when I got home.











So far, she hasn’t gotten defensive with me at all, but she still doesn’t trust me. While I was taking photos, she was slowly shuffling to the side to get away from me. Just scooting along sideways while still curled up, never seen a snake do that before. She didn’t stop scooting until I shut the door and walked away.


In the last photo, you can see she’s scooted slightly away from the wall. She made it halfway down before I left her alone. I only bothered her for so long because I was so confused as to what on earth she was doing. "Is she getting ready to poop?" "Is she getting ready to go into a defensive posture?" Eventually I figured out she was just moving away from me in a very odd fashion, and I finally left. lol


I'll be trying her on a large rat in a week or two, and hopefully sometime soon I'll get around to getting photos of her pattern and better photos of her color.

She's a beauty!!!!

[Sauzo]

Well, the long wait is over and here she is. ^.^ She's roughly 7' long and her breeder says her last weight before the trip over here was 13.5 lbs. She drove all the way from Raleigh with her breeder, William "Gray" Rushin since he was coming this way to hike with some of his college buddies. Which works out perfectly, I didn't have to drive and I didn't have to risk her health by having her shipped.


Just as a refresher, she's a 2008 jungle, and had her first ever litter earlier this year. I'm going to be giving her this season off and try her next fall. I have heard adult females tend to take 1-2 years to settle in to a new home, so I may not get lucky quite then. I'm debating on giving her another year just in case she isn't ready, but if there's no harm in it I may go ahead and at least attempt a courtship.


She's in River's old T12, and as you can see I missed a spot while cleaning the shelf the other day...If she leaves the shelf I might take it out and try cleaning it again. Gonna try a bleach solution this time and see if that works to get the stains out.


She fought me getting her out of the transport bag. At first I tried just pulling her out, but she’d just crawl right back into the bag. Eventually I had to just grab the corners of the bag and lift to dump her out. Took me a good 5-6 minutes just to get her out even then. lol


I picked her up on my lunch break yesterday evening, so I didn’t have time to take photos while taking her out, but I snapped these photos when I got home.











So far, she hasn’t gotten defensive with me at all, but she still doesn’t trust me. While I was taking photos, she was slowly shuffling to the side to get away from me. Just scooting along sideways while still curled up, never seen a snake do that before. She didn’t stop scooting until I shut the door and walked away.


In the last photo, you can see she’s scooted slightly away from the wall. She made it halfway down before I left her alone. I only bothered her for so long because I was so confused as to what on earth she was doing. "Is she getting ready to poop?" "Is she getting ready to go into a defensive posture?" Eventually I figured out she was just moving away from me in a very odd fashion, and I finally left. lol


I'll be trying her on a large rat in a week or two, and hopefully sometime soon I'll get around to getting photos of her pattern and better photos of her color.

I've found that F10SC works awesome at lifting up dried urate off AP cages. I spray it on and let it soak for about 10-15 mins, then it just wipes right up.

And that big boa is nice looking. Looks like Rosey lol. Here she is doing her python warming eggs impression

[CloudtheBoa]

Sauzo - Once she's settled in I'll go and try to clean them again, I just don't feel right trying to bother her yet.



Well I weighed him last week at 917 grams but he pooped *again* today so he's either just barely over or just barely under 900 grams empty. I did not weigh him as I seem to have misplaced the container I used last time...


Before I discovered his little New Years present.





And back in his clean enclosure with flattened paper towels. He hung out around the water dish for awhile.







I saw she was going into shed a few days after arriving, and she shed minutes before midnight yesterday (so a couple hours ago), and took almost 2 hours to eat her rat. Hopefully I'll feel up to handling her later this week and start getting her used to me.


I've got a blanket wedged in between the wall and end of her enclosure because there's a cold draft there that was keeping it way too cold, and blocking it off really helped.





With her large rat. She makes them look tiny, but they should be plenty for her. If not, my father has bred his rabbits and they should be born and large enough for her in a few months. I do not feel comfortable feeding her rats any larger than this due to the fat content.








I will go and remove her shed in a few days as she wouldn't eat with me there. I was hoping to remove it while she was swallowing, but at least she ended up eating.

[CloudtheBoa]

I took Howl out the other night because he pooped. I can always tell because he'll lay curled up on top of his hide and refuse to move. If he's stretched out on top of it, he's just laying there, and usually will either start crawling around or go back in his hide if I walk around him.












I've been feeding him a bit more often to get some weight on him before I attempt any breedings, he's eating every 2 weeks rather than 3, but he should go back to 3 soon. He just worries me with how small he is, I'm sure as I get used to breeding that won't be the case but I want to make sure he has the strength to breed Dominika.

And some more of Dominika. She really loves her shelf, but she's been giving the floor of her enclosure more love lately, now shelf time and floor time are more evenly shared. lol






This is Dominika after dumping her out of a bucket. I was dampening her bedding and she wouldn't willingly come out of the bucket when I was finished so I had to dump her out. She filled up a decent portion of the bucket, so just tipping it over wasn't enough because she just pushed against the walls to keep from sliding. So I tipped it over on its side until she had repositioned herself to be curled up on one of the walls. After that, she was easy to dump out and came out curled up just like this. Then she sat there watching me in bewilderment for several minutes. >.>








I also managed to get some photos of me holding her to gauge her size. I'm 5'1" or 5'2" I don't remember which. After comparing to a photo of me and Cloud, I'm think she could be 7'-7.5'. I was overestimating by what degree her girth made her look bigger. lol













I got a few rabbits in, so I'll be trying a rabbit for her next meal. They're the same size rabbits Cloud gets. My father hasn't been breeding his rabbits as much and production has gone down so I only managed to grab 3 rabbits for Dominika and Cloud, and I'm giving the other 3 another week or two to get to 1 lb for River.

[cletus]

Very nice! I have one on the way from Gray as well. Can't wait! He has been a pleasure to deal with.