New to Forum and Newish to Herps

[AmandaJ]

I swear, the more herp forums I find the more fascinated I get.

Anyway, my profile is pretty descriptive but in a nutshell I've always thought snakes were awesome, except the thought of feeding them skeeved me out. Then my nine-year-old son (pictured in my avatar, blissfully holding a Burmese python) decided he liked snakes and could not live without one in his home. That was the final push I needed to get over my case of the heebie-jeebies. 1.1 Kenyan sand boas (on f/t pinkies, thank goodness) later, and we've decided to add a ball python to the mix. We won't be getting it immediately in any sense of the word, but definitely by the end of 2013. In the meantime I'm improving my snake-feeding skills -- I can now handle frozen pinkies without shrieking -- and I'm doing as much research as I can to make sure we have the BP environment set up well before bringing Snake No. 3 into the house.

I'll likely mostly lurk until we actually have the snake in hand, but until then, hi

[RoseyReps]

Hiya! Glad to hear you're working through the heebie-jeebies! We need pics of your KSBs

What part of central florida are you in? (Merritt Island here)

You've come to the right place to learn! Check out the stickies in the BP sections and don't hesitate to ask questions

Again, welcome!

[AmandaJ]

We're in Lakeland One of my KSBs is in my profile picture -- her name is Sarah, and she's a 3.5 month old 26 gram Dodoma out-cross. The other is a male 4.5 month old 18 gram (petite) anery named Slither. We really need a better picture of the male -- he's such a chilled out snake. He's my son's, and the child has been known to sit down and watch TV for literally hours holding that little guy. It's too cute

Thanks for the welcome! Yeah, it was a slow day at work today so I've definitely been reading the stickies and all the FAQs. Now I just have to get over my fear of somehow setting up the tank wrong (and yes, I know glass is a pain but it was free... plus I've already enlisted my husband to build a more solid lid for it at least!)

[The Serpent Merchant]

Welcome from another Central Floridian!

Check out these 2 threads, they should help get you going in the right direction:

http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showt...ius)-Caresheet

http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showt...t-Thermometers

[RoseyReps]

Awesome! I think we have a member or two from Lakeland / area. Sarah is a pretty girl!

[AmandaJ]

Thanks Aaron, for both the welcome and the direction to the caresheet and temp thread

Tiffany, cool! And thanks, yes Sarah's lovely She's also very skittish, bless her snakey little heart, and tagged me about a week ago. I think she's about to shed because I was taking her out for walkies tonight (i.e., I serve as a treadmill for my snake) and her pattern was dulled, even though her eyes were still clear. So I put her back in her tank and I'll just be keeping an eye on her instead. It's the first shed for us, and dagnabbit I need to grab a hide to stuff some sphagnum moss into...

[Vypyrz]

Hello, and to BP.net...

[AmandaJ]

Thanks, Vypyrz! And thanks for that tub setup you wrote that's stickied over in the BP Husbandry thread. I've read it at least twice, have been gathering supplies, and will be putting my tubs together in the next few weeks. It's an awesome resource

[AmandaJ]

Here they are, more or less. This is Sarah, after her shed, cruising on the iPad:


And here are both Slither and Sarah, along with a great deal of glare.


I'll try to get better pictures tomorrow. I'm lucky to get them together, because Sarah has this habit of just leaving, no matter where she's put! She's a hoot Slither is much more chilled out, and is perfectly content to hang out with the 9/y/o on the couch while he watches TV. For hours.