Sahira Progression Thread

[MamaRhea]

Hello all! Here is where I will keep track of Sahira's growth and progress. I will make more detailed posts on Saturdays and Mondays going forward, but I wanted to do a little post today since I was able to weigh and measure her for the first time today since I got her.

She is roughly 16-17 inches long, and only 84 grams. Correct me if I'm wrong, but this tells me that she can't be more than maybe 2 months old. I could very well be totally wrong, but it seems like she couldn't have been much more than a month old when I got her. So my guess is that she's only ever had 3 or maybe 4 meals in her life, including the 2 I've given her.

I'd been told prior that I should switch her to rat fuzzies because mouse hoppers are too small for her, but given this new and more exact information on her size, is that still the case? Would a rat fuzzy be too big for her? I don't want to risk regurgitation by sizing her up too quickly. But at the same time, I am mildly worried about her weight. Her spine sticks up more than I'd like.

All that aside, she's enjoying some mom cuddles currently <3 She is incredibly docile and dare I say, lovey? Haha. Lots of butterfly kisses over here. She loves to climb up my glasses and hang out on my face, or wrap up in my ponytail and rest on my head. She definitely seems like she's going to be a lap snake. She's not even a little head shy or jumpy and has never even approached having a testy attitude. She's a joy to be around, for sure. We do want her to be very used to and comfortable with being handled, but we are careful not to overdo it with the handling. We try to keep it down to maybe 3 sessions a week. If at any point she starts showing any signs of distress or goes off her food, the first thing I'll do is reduce handling.

We just love this little snake so dang much <3

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[MamaRhea]

Also wanted to add that she is 3 inches around at her girthiest point. Couldn't figure out how to edit my post haha

[MamaRhea]

Are we going into shed!? Her eyes look a little blue to me and her colors don't seem as vibrant, plus she's got that neck crinkle. Tomorrow I'll get her a humid hide so she can use it if she wants or needs. Tomorrow is feeding day, and I intended to try to switch her to a rat fuzzie tomorrow. Should I still do that? Or should I just offer mice one more time to not rock the boat while she's shedding.

Sorry for all the questions! All this is new to me

MamaRhea

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[jmcrook]

Looks very likely getting ready to shed. I’d wait to feed until after shed


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[Bogertophis]

...Couldn't figure out how to edit my post haha

You've only got about 10 minutes after you post to hit that little button [edit post] at the lower right to edit. If you wait too long, you're stuck with it, lol.

And yes, I agree- she's definitely in blue (shed), so don't bother offering food, wait until after she finishes shedding...likely at least a week away or more.
Meanwhile, do give her a humid hide soon, you'll likely find her enjoying it while in blue.

[MamaRhea]

Thank you both!

I'll hold off on feeding until her shed is complete. That's probably for the best anyways, that way she's nice and hungry when I present her with a rat for the first time. And my local reptile shop is having a massive customer appreciation event tomorrow that I was going to anyways, so I should be able to get a humid hide and some sphagnum moss on the cheap. I did put a ramiken (shallow heavy porcelain bowl thing) with some water in there on the warm side to give her a humidity bump in the meantime.

Her behavior was amazingly unchanged this evening, despite being in the blue phase. She was just as comfortable and trusting with me as she always is, but I did cut her handling session short anyways and will keep it to a bare minimum until she's done with her shed. I'll basically only take her out in order to clean her habitat.

I got the accurite monitors today, along with the black ceramic bulbs, so those will be going in tomorrow. The sensors are way larger than anticipated so I have my work cut out for me to camouflage them

Thank you again!

MamaRhea

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[MamaRhea]

Quick update:

At first I was only able to get one of the accurite sensors working, but I put it in the warm side to see what's up. The temperature was a lovely 90 degrees on that side, but the humidity was only 39% This in spite of my misting and the extra water container.

So, to remedy the situation (and to fix some newbie mistakes I made) I made several adjustments.

Firstly I did replace that log hide with a much more suitable cave style hide. She'll feel much more secure there. I also added a spherical mossy hide that I filled with damp sphagnum moss. It's technically meant to be used for birds but it looked perfect to suit my purposes. I misted her substrate down extra well, and covered the top of her habitat with a towel to help keep the humidity in. (there's still space around the heat lamp for air flow. I also replaced that bright bulb with a black ceramic one that doesn't give off light.

I bought it, but have not yet swapped the substrate to the coco; she's still on aspen. I almost changed it today, but I had already changed a lot and I didn't want to over do the changes and stress her out.

Given that she is not yet in full blue, I made a judgement call and decided to offer her a feed, knowing full well she may refuse. But I figured that if there was a chance she'd want to eat, I should give her the opportunity. I'm really glad I did. She didn't even hesitate to wrap the rat pup. It took her a little longer than usual to get it down, but in the end she succeeded. Just look at that plump little belly

I did manage to get the other two sensors working. So now I have one on the cool side, one on the warm side, and one in the humid hide. I should have accurate readings on those in the next hour or two.

I'm other news, I have achieved a rite of passage! The other night I got pooped on for the first time Man alive it smelled worse than I would have thought haha.

It has also been brought to light that she may very well be a normal pied, and not a pastel at all. Once she sheds I'll take some quality photos of her in natural light to put out to bed once and for all. If that winds up being the case, obviously it makes no difference to our love for her, but I'll definitely be contacting the breeder. Regardless of how much I love her, the price I paid was for a pastel and I would have never have considered paying it for a normal. In light of this I'll also be having her sexed to make sure she is in fact a female and they didn't just tell me that to charge me more. I hope I'm wrong. Otherwise I can kiss my pipedream of one day breeding some cute little pastels goodbye. We shall see.

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[Bogertophis]

Changing out the aspen to coco substrate will do a lot for the humidity, & for your adjustments so far, though I'd personally have skipped feeding her in shed.

I'll leave the guesses about her genetics to others who breed BPs, but I do think she's a very nice looking pied...her markings* are quite distinctive. (*a face and a

"pause" button... ) But if your source charged you for something you didn't get, that's a whole other deal...not fun to deal with but for sure something I'd be
addressing with them.

As far as being poo'd upon, you'll soon learn to look for a tell-tale bulge just above the cloaca on your snake, & hopefully the future will find you making better decisions
about when to handle, lol...but if not, your sweet little snake will surely remind you.

[MamaRhea]

Changing out the aspen to coco substrate will do a lot for the humidity, & for your adjustments so far, though I'd personally have skipped feeding her in shed.

I'll leave the guesses about her genetics to others who breed BPs, but I do think she's a very nice looking pied...her markings* are quite distinctive. (*a face and a

"pause" button... ) But if your source charged you for something you didn't get, that's a whole other deal...not fun to deal with but for sure something I'd be
addressing with them.

As far as being poo'd upon, you'll soon learn to look for a tell-tale bulge just above the cloaca on your snake, & hopefully the future will find you making better decisions
about when to handle, lol...but if not, your sweet little snake will surely remind you.

Hmm alright, well I will swap out her substrate on Tuesday night, give her time to finish digesting.

Oh I agree she's gorgeous and I'm thrilled with her regardless! But if they charged me for a pastel when I got a normal, you can bet they'll be adjusting my final sale price accordingly If they are reputable as I hope, this should be easily resolved. Either way I'm not devoting too much head space to it.

And lol! Yeah no one ever told me what to look for with regards to poo, but I certainly know more now! It happened on my shoulder so it went down my back and down my chest. *shudder*. NOT to be repeated

Here's a preliminary reading. I don't expect the numbers to be fully accurate for about another half hour, but I think it looks OK. What do you all think? She's currently curled up in her humid hide. The towel does seem to be helping with keeping in the moisture. The humidity is a little low on the warm side of the enclosure, but I'm inclined to think that's normal given the higher heat over there? I'd love input there. Also bear in mind that the "humid hide" sensor is sitting directly on the damp moss.

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[MamaRhea]

Here's the readings from last night and this morning...

Things seem to be leveling off, which is good. I did spritz the warm side (spa on the monitor) a little bit, but she's been hanging out in her humid hide (aquarium on the monitor) ever since I put it in there. Bear in mind that the humid hide sensor is sitting directly on damp moss, so that number is a little inflated. And obviously the temps went down a bit because the ambient temp of the house went down overnight.

Adding the towel on top of the enclosure really seems to have helped keep the humidity in.

I won't be handling her at all until Tuesday at the earliest, so no pictures until then unless she decides to leave the humid hide. She seems to be really enjoying that

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