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  1. #41
    BPnet Veteran pretends2bnormal's Avatar
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    Re: Rescue/Rehome of 2 BPs

    Quote Originally Posted by Skyrivers View Post
    Lets talk about the girl.

    Here is what I would do and why.

    1. Large water bowl. Higher humidity. Can submerge herself for rehydration. Will help with shed.

    2. (some will troll me for this) Get a pillow case that you use and smells like you. Place her in it and sit her in your lap and spend a few minuets every day holding her till she gets use to your smell and being handled. (Not feeding day or the day after) You will get to know each other. Leave the open end of the pillow case open. When you feel her moving around just let her but don't let her get into anything. This is a trust building activity. (I would do this with any new BP or snake for that matter)

    3. Inject water in her food if she is eating FT. Will help with hydration.

    4. Start tap training them now. You will be happy later you did this.
    I appreciate your time to try and give advice, but none of these will matter for this situation in my opinion. I will explain why below. It kind of feels like you haven't been reading the thread, to be honest, based on one of your suggestions.

    For #1, there is a fairly substantial bowl for the size of the tub and it holds humidity in the 75-85% range without misting at all. Due to quite a few aquariums, our house has a higher-than-usual humidity and as we enter spring and the rainy season, the house itself sits around 50-55% humidity. The bowl is big enough she could curl up fully in it if she wanted, but I've never had a ball python bother with that voluntarily. If I go any higher in the humidity things will have tons of condensation and the substrate will be wet rather than the air being humid. Also, a bigger bowl would make it impossible to allow her 2 hides in the tub. So, no I will not do this one. When I upgrade her tub, she will definitely get a bigger bowl, but for now... not really something that would fit.

    #2 & #4 this is a ball python, not a boa or a retic or anything else. From day 1, she was one of the friendliest and least shy BPs I've seen. She hardly balls up when out of the tub and is as comfortable with handling and me as our adult male we have had for almost 2 years (all this despite giving a few brief soaks at the start that she was not a fan of).

    I work with all of my snakes regularly once they're established eaters (minimum of 3 consecutive meals for BPs). Even very shy BPs do just fine by held against the body covered by a hand until they feel like moving or having a flap of a jacket laid over their back, and I do this for any of the shy ones. I'm sure a pillowcase has a similar effect, but this is easier for me to do; shirts, hands, and jackets are just more handy for me. I don't actually have any spare pillowcases I can risk getting peed or pooped on, lol. This girl is far from shy, though I do work with her "brother" that way as he is much more nervous.

    Tap training for a docile BP seems excessive and redundant to me and I won't bother with it unless I wind up with a highly food-driven individual that lunges out of the tub every time it opens. This girl is not one of those (none of my 7 are like that, actually). I don't just pick them up, but I don't bother with a hook. I have a hook for my boas, blood, and carpet python, but it is unnecessary for the rest. Lifting the hide and lightly touching a finger to her side so she knows I'm there is more than enough before picking up.

    As for #3... I've been clear in many posts that she is eating live fuzzy rats; honestly just kind of confused why you bring up F/T on her. Half the discussion with Bogertophis before was about figuring out a way to add a supplement to a live feeder for her.

    She gets live partly to keep her feeding guaranteed due to prior owner feeding live, and partly to help her work her muscles which were very atrophied when I got her. She is nearly at the point where I would be comfortable switching, but due to starting to breed my own rats, I would rather switch her to pre-killed rather than bother with the extra effort on F/T since they will be readily available in about a month. Fuzzy rats are about as harmless as a feeder can be for a ball python, so I'm not too worried about injuries from it right now.

    Once again, I really DO appreciate you trying to give advice. I hope I explained well enough why I am not planning to follow it in this case. Some of that advice would have been more helpful when I picked her up back in January, I think.

    Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

  2. #42
    BPnet Senior Member Skyrivers's Avatar
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    Re: Rescue/Rehome of 2 BPs

    Quote Originally Posted by pretends2bnormal View Post
    I appreciate your time to try and give advice, but none of these will matter for this situation in my opinion. I will explain why below. It kind of feels like you haven't been reading the thread, to be honest, based on one of your suggestions.

    For #1, there is a fairly substantial bowl for the size of the tub and it holds humidity in the 75-85% range without misting at all. Due to quite a few aquariums, our house has a higher-than-usual humidity and as we enter spring and the rainy season, the house itself sits around 50-55% humidity. The bowl is big enough she could curl up fully in it if she wanted, but I've never had a ball python bother with that voluntarily. If I go any higher in the humidity things will have tons of condensation and the substrate will be wet rather than the air being humid. Also, a bigger bowl would make it impossible to allow her 2 hides in the tub. So, no I will not do this one. When I upgrade her tub, she will definitely get a bigger bowl, but for now... not really something that would fit.

    #2 & #4 this is a ball python, not a boa or a retic or anything else. From day 1, she was one of the friendliest and least shy BPs I've seen. She hardly balls up when out of the tub and is as comfortable with handling and me as our adult male we have had for almost 2 years (all this despite giving a few brief soaks at the start that she was not a fan of).

    I work with all of my snakes regularly once they're established eaters (minimum of 3 consecutive meals for BPs). Even very shy BPs do just fine by held against the body covered by a hand until they feel like moving or having a flap of a jacket laid over their back, and I do this for any of the shy ones. I'm sure a pillowcase has a similar effect, but this is easier for me to do; shirts, hands, and jackets are just more handy for me. I don't actually have any spare pillowcases I can risk getting peed or pooped on, lol. This girl is far from shy, though I do work with her "brother" that way as he is much more nervous.

    Tap training for a docile BP seems excessive and redundant to me and I won't bother with it unless I wind up with a highly food-driven individual that lunges out of the tub every time it opens. This girl is not one of those (none of my 7 are like that, actually). I don't just pick them up, but I don't bother with a hook. I have a hook for my boas, blood, and carpet python, but it is unnecessary for the rest. Lifting the hide and lightly touching a finger to her side so she knows I'm there is more than enough before picking up.

    As for #3... I've been clear in many posts that she is eating live fuzzy rats; honestly just kind of confused why you bring up F/T on her. Half the discussion with Bogertophis before was about figuring out a way to add a supplement to a live feeder for her.

    She gets live partly to keep her feeding guaranteed due to prior owner feeding live, and partly to help her work her muscles which were very atrophied when I got her. She is nearly at the point where I would be comfortable switching, but due to starting to breed my own rats, I would rather switch her to pre-killed rather than bother with the extra effort on F/T since they will be readily available in about a month. Fuzzy rats are about as harmless as a feeder can be for a ball python, so I'm not too worried about injuries from it right now.

    Once again, I really DO appreciate you trying to give advice. I hope I explained well enough why I am not planning to follow it in this case. Some of that advice would have been more helpful when I picked her up back in January, I think.

    Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk
    Yeah.... I should have read everything first. I posted and then read and then was to late to modify my post. Wont make that mistake again.

    I do have a female BP that has always been super easy to handle. This spring so far she has been super hungry. I am happy I tap trained her from the start now. It brings her out of food mode. You call with your animal. The comment about her not being a boa or retic.... well my boas and retics are as easy to handle with the size being an additional factor to keep in mind. Each animal is different. Sounds like you are doing a great job. Best wishes.

  3. #43
    BPnet Veteran pretends2bnormal's Avatar
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    Re: Rescue/Rehome of 2 BPs

    Quote Originally Posted by Skyrivers View Post
    Yeah.... I should have read everything first. I posted and then read and then was to late to modify my post. Wont make that mistake again.

    I do have a female BP that has always been super easy to handle. This spring so far she has been super hungry. I am happy I tap trained her from the start now. It brings her out of food mode. You call with your animal. The comment about her not being a boa or retic.... well my boas and retics are as easy to handle with the size being an additional factor to keep in mind. Each animal is different. Sounds like you are doing a great job. Best wishes.
    I thought that might have happened, oops. Been there done that. Definitely no hard feelings on it. As I said, I do appreciate the time you took to give advice even if it doesn't quite work out here.

    I didn't mean that boas or retics can't be calm; both my boas are young but calm as can be and definitely don't need the hook tap to be picked up, but I still do it for them in preparation for the future. I meant more for those species, their potential for an extreme food response that necessitates the tap training.

    BPs tend to be easy to knock out of food mode, even without prior training. We got our adult male BP as an adult so I've had some practice with him. Once or twice I have had to work with him to clean up his tub after I had started thawing food for other snakes. He wasn't getting fed, but certainly thought so at first. Anything inanimate that gets close to the face tends to snap them out of it, or touching them on the body from the opposite side their head is facing. To me, that body language is easy to read, so I'm comfortable with not doing anything fancy with them first. Mine recognize that the hide lifting followed by getting their side stroked means definitely no food coming. (And when out of a hide, just the stroking) Most of the juveniles are shy enough that without the scent of food, they don't even react to a tub opening.

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  4. #44
    BPnet Veteran pretends2bnormal's Avatar
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    Re: Rescue/Rehome of 2 BPs

    Talk about good timing! She shed sometime while I was at work today. 2nd time for a perfect shed, tail tip and eye caps intact on the shed.

    Glad to report that her body scales do feel much healthier. Before, if you ran your finger lightly against the grain, you could fee the edges catching like they're flaky enough to bend up. Now, the scales on her sides and back feel almost like any other juvie BP. Her belly scales are still sort of flaky like that; kind of like kids with weak fingernails that catch or tear on anything, but still noticeably improved.

    She does still have a weird sort of flabby/squishy feel to her body and still some definite skin wrinkles in places where she just isn't as thick as she should be. I think she just still needs some time to fill out; now that she is getting nutrition, she is definitely growing, so I think most of it is going more toward length than filling out... she's about doubled in weight.

    Just in case she hasn't bee. drinking, I did give her a short soak (about 5 minutes) and for the first time ever caught her taking a few sips! Water is a bit deeper than usual in hope that she would duck under and drink a bit which seems to have worked out.


    Here's a few shots of her fresh colors, and if I'm not mistaken, she looks brighter than she did after the last shed.

    Sunlight through a window


    Half artificial light, half natural light full body shot


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  6. #45
    Bogertophis's Avatar
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    Great update, she sure looks pretty good now. You're on the right track.

  7. #46
    BPnet Veteran pretends2bnormal's Avatar
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    Re: Rescue/Rehome of 2 BPs

    And the boy shed out today.

    He is certainly a lot brighter than he has been; much brighter than I anticipated to be honest. I did my best to get the pictures near a window for natural light, but since it is cloudy, it isn't quite the best light. The colors in the pictures are pretty true to life. Possibly excepting the bottom edges of his sides that are actually more orange tinted than the more brown tone in most of these shots.

    Picture dump!


















    I haven't ever seen a normal with that depth of gold/orange before, so maybe he really is a morph.

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  9. #47
    Bogertophis's Avatar
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    He's got wonderfully rich colors. I know 'squat' about BP morphs, but I know I've seen a few similar BPs before & always thought their colors are fantastic.

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  11. #48
    BPnet Veteran pretends2bnormal's Avatar
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    Re: Rescue/Rehome of 2 BPs

    It has been almost a month, wow.

    Not really any new pictures right now, but the girl is really doing great. Even compared to how she felt after the last shed posted here, her scales are much closer to normal in feel.

    She seems to be putting food to use for length growth instead of filling out, so she's not really filling out her looser skin yet, but it is only showing wrinkles in certain positions or during handling instead of constantly like when she was dehydrated at the start. Her muscle tone feels much better as well, the limp noodle is long gone now, so I'm sure it is only a matter of time and meals now before the rest catches up.

    The only issue remaining for her seems to be her odd tongue flicking. Other than a few weeks not long after I brought her home, I haven't seen her do a full tongue flick; she has done it before, so it isn't a physical deformity. I'm keeping a close eye for RI, but she shows no symptoms of it. (No mucous, no wheezing, no popping, no open mouth breathing, etc.) She gets it out to just past the fork and retracts. There are no odd lumps under her chin or anything that could obstruct it, so as best I can tell, she just is choosing not to.

    It is possible she does flick it fully when hunting food, but due to the dim lighting, I haven't seen it. I may take her out for more than a few minutes tonight and see if it comes out when she has settled more and exploring.

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  13. #49
    BPnet Veteran pretends2bnormal's Avatar
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    Re: Rescue/Rehome of 2 BPs

    She is looking much better these days. Her coloring has certainly lightened from earlier pictures of her. I'm guessing being so unhealthy resulted in less healthy/vibrantly colored scales even after that first shed.





    Still some noticeable loose skin, you can see the wrinkles of it in the curves on the left half of the pictures, but she's got much better muscle tone and that is filling out slowly. She is putting food to use on length more than girth it seems.

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  15. #50
    Bogertophis's Avatar
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    She's really looking good. So lucky to have your attention!
    Last edited by Bogertophis; 04-25-2019 at 01:06 PM.

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