So this happened

[jmcrook]

I find that my retics digest food at the same rate nearly regardless of size whether a jumbo rat or 4xl guinea pig. Give him the biggest rat you have and see if it lasts any longer than the previous meal. I agree, 5lb rabbit is probably overkill but if you offered it he’d probably give it a try. I’d hold off though.
And yeah, don’t you just love cleaning piss every single day?! Just fully cleaned out Gerald’s cage earlier and he peed all over it within a few hours...


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[Dxw425]

I find that my retics digest food at the same rate nearly regardless of size whether a jumbo rat or 4xl guinea pig. Give him the biggest rat you have and see if it lasts any longer than the previous meal. I agree, 5lb rabbit is probably overkill but if you offered it he’d probably give it a try. I’d hold off though.
And yeah, don’t you just love cleaning piss every single day?! Just fully cleaned out Gerald’s cage earlier and he peed all over it within a few hours...


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It smells so bad too. But yeah it gets old. If I didn’t absolutely love snakes it probably would’ve turned me off of the hobby by now. I’m just glad he hasn’t gotten me yet, or gone outside of his enclosure for that matter. Do you have any idea what a comparable rabbit size would be to a 1lb rat? I know rabbits are more dense so they weigh more at the same size. I was thinking a 2lb might be alright. I’m also thinking about getting a few more rats and quail so I can give him some variety.

[jmcrook]

Judging from the pics you’ve posted he can take a 2lb rabbit no problem. They can easily eat something 1.5x the width of their body but they don’t need to all the time. He’s a nice looking critter btw


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[Dxw425]

Judging from the pics you’ve posted he can take a 2lb rabbit no problem. They can easily eat something 1.5x the width of their body but they don’t need to all the time. He’s a nice looking critter btw


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That’s what I was thinking, I figure I’ll get him a few different prey items in a variety of sizes and try to keep him on as moderate of a diet as possible. And thanks! I don’t think there is a retic morph that I don’t like, but there is something about purples that I just love. I want to get some quality pictures of him outdoors but with the heat and the terrible air quality up here in Northern CA i haven’t been able to.

[jmcrook]

That’s what I was thinking, I figure I’ll get him a few different prey items in a variety of sizes and try to keep him on as moderate of a diet as possible. And thanks! I don’t think there is a retic morph that I don’t like, but there is something about purples that I just love. I want to get some quality pictures of him outdoors but with the heat and the terrible air quality up here in Northern CA i haven’t been able to.

Yeah he can definitely eat much bigger prey than you’d think. Gerald ate a jumbo and mammoth rat the other night, probably 2.5-3lbs of rats total and had passed all of it in 6 days. They’re insatiable.
I’ll never forget the first time I saw purple albino retics. Simply blew my mind that a reptile could have that color palette. That opinion was only more solidified when I saw a purple hatchling in my buddy’s shop so many years ago. Jaw dropping to say the least


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[Skyrivers]

Yeah he can definitely eat much bigger prey than you’d think. Gerald ate a jumbo and mammoth rat the other night, probably 2.5-3lbs of rats total and had passed all of it in 6 days. They’re insatiable.
I’ll never forget the first time I saw purple albino retics. Simply blew my mind that a reptile could have that color palette. That opinion was only more solidified when I saw a purple hatchling in my buddy’s shop so many years ago. Jaw dropping to say the least


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I love the purples also. So amazing to see for sure. I was hoping Rainbow would stay on a 2-3 week cycle once transferred to Guinea pigs. She eat one Thursday and emptied out Sunday. She will eat rabbits but they are not what she prefers. Chickens are her favorite but they only last a day. I think she is having a growth spurt. She thickened up and put on some weight but I think she is getting ready to put on a foot or two. LOL. These guys are amazing when it comes to efficacy of digestion and becoming larger predators. Eat, poop and pee, get larger, eat more and larger..... seams to be a never ending process. Just happy she is so easy to handle. My favorite species for sure.

[Dxw425]

Sonny has become my problem child. It has turned into daily routine to come home after my 12 hour graveyard shifts to have to do a complete scrubdown of his enclosure. I gave him two XXL rats a few days ago to help with the racket he’s been making, along with the fact he’s started to bang his face up pretty good. Anyways sure enough two days later it looks like he never ate, and day 5 now? He’s on the prowl again. But that’s the easier part to deal with. Last night (only a few, maybe 3? )Days since our last cage scrubdown I hear a super loud fart. I legit thought my SO was playing a recording or something to prank me. The sound alone was ungodly. So I go to check his enclosure which had looked completely fresh only a bit before, and see that he is starting to pee. It was only a small spot, so I left it figuring he’d poop by the time I got home from work, but instead I get home to a piss storm. Like a literal piss storm. Like he peed so much that it covered the entire floor of his enclosure, and then because of the amount of fluid and temperature it evaporated and got an the ceiling of his enclosure, and then rained down retic piss on every inch of his cage. Complete disaster.

then I got home only a few hours after all of this and scrubbing his boaphile, to find he has now tipped his “untippable water bowl and flooded his enclosure again, all in the search for more food, which was evident from his red/swollen snout.

And now I know he’s just plotting to smear poop everywhere. Gotta love him though.

[jmcrook]

Sonny has become my problem child. It has turned into daily routine to come home after my 12 hour graveyard shifts to have to do a complete scrubdown of his enclosure. I gave him two XXL rats a few days ago to help with the racket he’s been making, along with the fact he’s started to bang his face up pretty good. Anyways sure enough two days later it looks like he never ate, and day 5 now? He’s on the prowl again. But that’s the easier part to deal with. Last night (only a few, maybe 3? )Days since our last cage scrubdown I hear a super loud fart. I legit thought my SO was playing a recording or something to prank me. The sound alone was ungodly. So I go to check his enclosure which had looked completely fresh only a bit before, and see that he is starting to pee. It was only a small spot, so I left it figuring he’d poop by the time I got home from work, but instead I get home to a piss storm. Like a literal piss storm. Like he peed so much that it covered the entire floor of his enclosure, and then because of the amount of fluid and temperature it evaporated and got an the ceiling of his enclosure, and then rained down retic piss on every inch of his cage. Complete disaster.

then I got home only a few hours after all of this and scrubbing his boaphile, to find he has now tipped his “untippable water bowl and flooded his enclosure again, all in the search for more food, which was evident from his red/swollen snout.

And now I know he’s just plotting to smear poop everywhere. Gotta love him though.

Adolescence is fun, right? Gerald completely destroys his cage almost every night whether he’s hungry or not. Oh the joy of keeping retics


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[Dxw425]

yeah lol. I make it sound really negative lately but thats just the lack of sleep talking. I have a good time holding him for a bit after he's clean. Tonight i'm going to see if i can get him to stretch out on the floor and measure him without freaking him out. Wish me luck haha

[Dxw425]

Got Sonny out for some quality time and an attempt at a measurement! He was so calm the whole way through, I love this snake. I had to tape my phone to the ceiling capturing a video and take screenshots to try and get a good picture of his length in the frame. He also wouldn't straighten ou completely, so i used Serpwidgets.com to get a guestimate. Serpwidgets had him at 7 ft 11 inches, but i don't think its 100% accurate and based off of seeing him and how he can stretch in person id say theres at least 3 inches on top of that. The tape measure was pulled out to 8'10