My First BP... an interesting looking rescue.

[RzezniksRunAway]

Hi!
I saved this girl from a most certain death about 6 months ago. My mother called me with a typically vague mother question of "Do you want a python?". I asked her some questions, she didn't have answers other than "I don't know". Story is a kid I went to high school with moved away and left the snake at his mom's house. His mom didn't want anything to do with it, so she called my mom to take the thing. My mom heard snake, said yes and called me. After more questions she called the kids mom back to find out what it was and called me back with "Its a bulb python". I took that as Ball, said whatever sure I'll take it, and hoped for the best. I worked at a pet store at the time and figured it could be re-homed through there, as I've never really been a BP person.When I saw her, I had to keep her. My mom picked it up on a Tuesday, and I couldn't get over to pick the snake up from her until Saturday. Thankfully my Mom has some sense of what snakes need, because the snake was in terrible condition. They had been keeping her in a bare glass 29g aquarium, no heat, no substrate, no water dish. The bottom of the tank was coated in urates, not a spec of feces to be found. She had a half log hide that was too big for her to be secure, and that was it. My mom somehow managed to get paper towels in the tank over the urates, and a glass pie dish with water on one side. She put a human heating pad under it, and rigged a lamp over the screen. I give her credit for that much, she was trying, even though she doesn't like pythons. When I went to pick her up, she had shed stuck all over her in multiple layers, and was so skinny. Her sides were straight, spine sticking out, stomach caved in.


I got her home and soaked her in warm water while I sanitized her tank. I set her up in a lower tank with eco earth and a smaller log, and a hide area that averaged around 98F. She spent most of her first 3 weeks in that hide, only peeking out to see what I was doing. After her initial soak, when I took her out and wiped her down, the shed came off of her in huge, gross clumps. My mom had given her food, knowing that she was skinny. She went and got 6 frozen mice from a Petco or such, and gave her 2 on the Tuesday she picked her up, 1 on Wednesday and one on Thursday. She got home late from work Friday or I think the rest would have been gone. After that fiasco, when I got her home I didn't offer her food until 10 days later, which was a day after she finally pooped. She took 2 f/t mice. For 3 months, she was on f/t mice, once every 7-10 days, and was pooping on a regular basis and putting weight back on slowly. She had 2 crappy sheds, close together, and has now had 2 nice, complete sheds. She eats a small f/t rat every 10-14 days now, and gets a decent amount of roaming time.

I was never a BP person until this snake, but she's awesome. Very, very food driven, but awesome. She'd take a rat every 5 days if I let her, but I'm trying to not push her too fast, too soon after having gone so long without a meal.

I don't have pictures of her when she first arrived, but I have some that I took earlier today when she was helping fold laundry. She's the most helpful of all the snakes with laundry, she just sits and chills. My others want to hide in it.