Lord Cookie [New Updates]

[KingWheatley]

(I can't seem to find a good way to keep my tracker from disappearing so I can't find it without just making a new topic... on mobile, anyways.)

So moved into my new apartment. Cookie gets a whole room to himself. His own heater, etc. right now he's exploring around the empty room. I have his hide out, and I'll place him near it every now and again to see if he's done and wants to go back "home." He'll do this for about 10-15 minutes, then he'll want to sit in his hide, so I put him back in his tank and he goes right to sleep. I'd imagine, anyways.

This has been our routine for the past week.

I'll go in in the morning to check on him (temperatures, humidity, water, clean etc.) I will find him exploring in his tank. I take him out and clean up his home while he goes and boops around. Then I'll wait for him to be done, and he'll go back in the tank and I won't see him again until I get home from work (at midnight-ish) to check on his temperatures and stuff again. I won't take him out unless he made a mess, which sometimes he has explored around so much he's soaked the paper towels (he'll sometimes fall into his water dishes, but lately he's just running over them and will end up dipping into the water, which soaks him and in turn soaks the surfaces he's crawling over.

He's four times as big as he used to be. Today I guessed him to be about 2 and a half or so feet. He seems ready to move up to rats, but since I still lack proper weighing tools... I might feed him a little sooner than usual though.

He certainly seems healthy, but I wonder if his exploring is indicative of craving of nutrients he may not be getting because he's only getting one large mouse once a week. Malnutrition doesn't show visibly until the body starts to eat itself.

I have been dragging my heels on moving him onto rats. Mostly because I've had pet rats, and it just feels wrong. But also because I'm worried he might not take to the new food source. And BPs are notoriously picky. A lot of people say that feeding a fUll grown BP two large mice a week is ok.

And since he's not full grown yet, I'll probably go back to my 5 day schedule I used on him before moving up to large mice.

He's such a sweet boy. Really inquisitive. More active than I thought a BP would be.

He does not seem to trust other people, though. He's fine with me, but if my fiancé walks in, he gets shy and hides. But if he knows it's me, he'll ignore me and continue whatever it was he was doing. There doesn't seem to be any change in this behavior at all, and I'm not going to keep pushing it in case it's because of previous trauma.

I've figured out that he doesn't seem to mind being "pet" as long as I don't touch his tail, his head-neck region, or his stomach. He won't get upset, but he'll get startled/uneasy if I do.

Most of my coworkers at my new job have a phobia of snakes and thought I was weird for owning one. I show them pictures (with their permission) of Cookie to show them how squishy he is.

And I have had to explain many times that not all snakes grow to be anaconda sized. Apparently this is a common belief? That any snake can grow to be that large. I've also explained to them that even a Burmese/reticulated python wouldn't try it. I've heard it's because of how our bodies are shaped (our shoulders are hard to eat.) but I've explained that burms and retics get fed rabbits. Which are not really big at all. And I've explained that Ball Pythons only grow enough to eat a rat, and so I face no danger of being eaten.

After explaining that, and explaining why I find them cute, they don't seem as weirded out.

Anyways, that's the up and up of Cookie and my life right now. Sorry for the long post!



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[Streller]

Cookie is looking great, keep it up.

[montymiow]

Cookie is looking pretty grown up! Personally I found the change on to rats easy (thankfully) they've been on rats since they were little so cookie definitely looks like she could take a nice juicy rat. I wouldn't go ott with giving exact weights girth size works fine too.
I find it's the whole movie type scare tactics that give people this conception of all snakes are big scary venomous noodles who want to eat you at any given chance, but it's good you are educating them, that's what I love about keeping them is seeing people's reactions totally change once they have learned a little.