Saved a poor preggo girl....

[geekypythongirl]

So, one of my good herping friends told me he found a BP on craigslist that was pregnant, and a woman who is a known animal flipper has her. I told him to get all the information he could from her, and we'd go pick her up.

So we go, and check her out. This woman has no clue how long the girl has been gravid, when she locked, what she locked with... nothing.

Keep in mind this girl is HUGE. She's one of the biggest BP's I have seen in awhile(way bigger around then a coke can, and almost 6 feet long).

We come in and she's got her in a TEN GALLON TANK. The snake literally had NO where to move, and you couldn't even see the thin layer of substrate under her. No water dish. There wouldn't even be ROOM for a water dish.

At this point, I am pretty angry at this woman. I won't go into all the other details about how horrible she was, because my morning is already bad, and I will just get more and more angry. I convince her to also give me the 2 other BP's she has in a 15 gal tank, with a make-shift lid made out of chicken wire.

We get home, and move miss preggo into a 30 gal tank. She was pretty freaked out at this point, and was rubbing all over really bad. We were worried she'd injure herself, so we covered the outside and most of the top with newspaper. She quickly calmed down, and has been relaxing ever since.

Now I am worried about her eggs. What are the chances that she'll be able to lay these without a problem? We built her a humid hide/lay box, being we REALLY have no idea how long she's even been gravid. I am about 95% sure that yes, she is gravid.

I don't care if none of the babies make it... Ok, well I do care, but my main concern is that the momma makes it through this ok. She's a huge beautiful snake, and it would be a horrible shame to lose her.

I'll have pictures today, once we get tanks situated and moved around. She just pounded down 2 rats last night, so we're pretty happy she was able to eat and wanted to eat.

ANY advice is appreciated and welcomed. I know there are a lot of unknowns, and I am sorry for that, but this is the information as I know it.