Chuck Norris the Killer Pied.

[Potatoren]

Omgosh hes pretty look at that face thay pattern everything

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[dylan815]

can you take a picture of him in your hand? just so we can see the scale of how big he is?

[Albert Clark]

Any advice from experienced baby ball keepers is appreciated.

Concentrate on his security as you go forward. Very tight hides are the best. Clutter the tub with plenty of substate and or balled up paper towel. A cardboard paper towel roll end stuffed with paper towel at one end so there is only one way in and out. Grats on the acquisition. That's a amazing example of the morph.

[zina10]

omg, how CUTE...

I LOVE the babies, LOL !!!

You have already gotten wonderful advice. If you can, get your baby out one more time and get a good weight on him. You can make a quick pic in your hand.
This will help you going forward, to monitor the weight and size of your little one.

After that, let it rest

Has Justin told you when it ate last, or how often it has eaten and what it has eaten? Start keeping records, esp. with the little ones.

Once he has eaten a couple of times, you can slowly start handling for short periods of time. Before you know it he is big and you wonder where that cute lil baby snake went

[Godzilla78]

can you take a picture of him in your hand? just so we can see the scale of how big he is?

I am not going to handle him until he is settled into his tub and he has eaten one meal. Then he will come out fora bit. To put it in perspective, when he is balled up in a sphere, he is bigger than a golf ball, smaller than a billiard ball. Somewhere in that realm of size. My hands are large, so he will appear even smaller in my palm!

Thanks for the advice BP crew! You are all really supportive and helpful and I love it!

One thing is for sure, he is my baby and I will keep him for life.

[Godzilla78]

So I email J. Kobylka and he told me that the snake at a live rat fuzzy 7 days ago. I have a bunch of frozen rats, so I tried one. I got it nice and thawed out, then got it nice and warm under the heat lamp, and dangled it by the tail near his hide.

He struck it within seconds, and I left them alone immediately, he didn't constrict it right away though.. I will know for sure by the morning if he ate it or not, but getting the rodent "hot" with a heat lamp or blow dryer, (after thawing it out) seems to be the TRICK to switching to frozen/thawed. So far, every time I have successfully switched a snake to thawed out rats, I have done so using the heat lamp to get them up to 100 degrees Fahrenheit before trying to feed.

Anyway, if he did eat, I will be taking him out for photos soon. If he did not, I will buy him a live rat fuzzy tomorrow. Either way, Chuck Norris the Killer Pied is getting his photoshoot soon guys!

On a sidenote, I have switched all my snakes to thawed rats, EXCEPT Ghost. Ghost acts either curious about the dead rt, or he acts scared of it... he won't strike it. He hasn't eaten in 10 days, and I will keep trying. I left it in his tub for now, I will check on him and Chuck in the morning.

[hollowlaughter]

Might take you a bit of hard love, but it's likely Ghost will switch as long as you're willing to put in the extra effort needed to make the food items seem enticing. Heating with the blow dryer until the body is about 85F and the head 100F has worked wonders on my boy's weak feeding response.

Essentially, what I did with him was:

• Thaw the rodent in water.
• Wait until rodent insides feel loose/head isn't cold (signs its completely thawed).
• Dry rodent off, first with towel then blow dryer.
• Keep heating until fur is dry.
• Focus-blast the head until its warm to the touch of your fingers.
• Offer immediately.
• Repeat and reheat about 4 times in one sitting, bodies don't hold heat too well.
• If the snake strikes, wait for it to entire its "trance" and make it "struggle" with some gentle pulling.
• If it doesn't after attempts to make the heated rat seem lifelike (zombie dance)...
• Leave snake for a week, possibly two if body weight is holding well.

With that above-and-beyond (as I've been told, for some reason...) effort, he's gone from timidly staring at his food and taking up to an hour to figure it out and get it down (and was only eating every other week for the breeder, likely due to him being so slow to eat) to an animal who all but lunges out of the enclosure once he knows I'm getting the rat in his reach and can have it completely swallowed in a span of about five minutes.

Edit: Worth adding that the addition to plant clutter to allow for roaming out of sight was another factor, I'd believe. Now he spends most nights camping in the cover outside of his hide, watching everything.

[Godzilla78]

thanks hollowlaughter, that was encouraging advice. I will keep trying with ghost, as he has a good body mass right now, and certainly isn't starving.

[hollowlaughter]

thanks hollowlaughter, that was encouraging advice. I will keep trying with ghost, as he has a good body mass right now, and certainly isn't starving.

Yeah, it definitely requires you to out-patience your snake sometimes.

A trick I've heard for the F/T transition is waiting until you see signs of shed in your animal (dulling out, vaguely milky eyes; the stuff before it even blues), then cutting off the food supply until its done. Offer a rat well thawed and heated once the animal is done shedding, immediately if possible.

They seem to be ravenous post shed and at their most "garbage disposal" mood when it comes to food.

Might help to try if Ghost is scheduled for a shed soonish?

[EDR]

Very nice I've never seen such a low white killer pied.